Free Art vs A Source of Income

I don't normally blog this early in the morning but I had a couple of thoughts.

Since I started Echo Broke Alone and have released music under that moniker there's always been one question that's nagged at me; Do I charge for music or should my art be free?

I have a new album coming out in February called My Heart to Heaven. I'm very proud of it and I think it's my best work that I've done. I want people to hear it. With my current financial situation and having no backing for the album, there will be no physical copy, no cd, no vinyl. Which means the only way to get a copy will be to download it. And I feel weird charging for a download.

There are minor expenses that could be recoup, mostly for the artwork, but I recorded the album myself, at my own studio. I did my own mixing and mastering.

The idea behind Echo Broke Alone was to create and music music that drew people to come to some sort of thought or idea or story within the sound. It's not complex, it's simple ambient music, the soundtrack to whatever the listener makes it. I've struggled to finish My Heart to Heaven because the idea was always about the performance of the music, that every performance was it's own unique creation, never to be duplicated again, and the idea of capturing and putting that to a standard format was a hard concept for me to work with.

So now the record is done. And I was going to put the album up on itunes... but my conviction that art should be free as reared it's head again. There are so many places where your music can be posted, downloaded, and heard. The internet has opened a lot of doors for independent musicians. I'm back struggling with myself.

Yes, making money from something I created and put out would be extremely nice. Any extra income never hurt anybody. But that isn't why I started making music and it's never been the goal of Echo Broke Alone. The point was to create something to share with others. And I think the best way to share is to offer it free of charge, for all to experience.

Echo Broke Alone's debut ep, Heart Condition, can be download for free here: http://www.mediafire.com/?u1mzotmyhiz