Thummer and Austin

The Thummer gives Austin – Thumtronics' home town – the opportunity to emerge as the new center of the global music industry. Here’s how.

First, let’s recognize that Austin is a minor league “farm team” in the music industry, where musicians develop their chops and audiences before being called up to the major leagues by the record labels based in Los Angeles & New York (and, arguably, Nashville).

Second, let’s assume that the record labels’ business model has collapsed, significantly reducing (a) the revenues musicians derive from recorded music and (b) the influence of the record labels’ home cities on the music industry.

Third, let’s assume that, as discussed in Going Somewhere?, the Thummer (a) resolves Schoenberg’s “crisis of tonality” by giving artists new fuel for creativity within the time-honored framework of tonal harmony, which, in turn, (b) can give new life to established musical genres and possibly spawn new musical genres, too.

With these three assumptions, Austin’s next step is to invest in the local development of
1. A new business model for the music industry, centered on live performance, including the many specialized service providers necessary to the efficient implementation of that model, and
2. A critical mass of local expertise in all things Thummer, including product design & manufacturing, music education courseware development & delivery, Thummer-based music composition & performance, etc.

Notice that neither of the above developments is sufficient unto itself.

• If Austin fails to keep the design and manufacture of Thummers at home by investing accordingly, then it will (in effect) be exporting those design, engineering, and manufacturing jobs to China, which significantly increases the chance that some Chinese city – not Austin – will be the first to hit critical mass in the exploitation of the Thummer’s musical potential.
• If Austin successfully establishes itself as being the home of the Thummer’s design & manufacture, but isn’t the first to hit critical mass in the development of new musical uses of the Thummer (e.g., Dynamic Tonality), then it will be nothing more than Hamamatsu – a city that exports musical instruments, but not music or musicians.

Many individual Austinites already recognize the Thummer’s potential, and Austin is already taking the first steps towards developing a new business model for the music industry based on live performance. Under the auspices of the University of Texas’ IC2 Institute, Thumtronics led the recent organization of the Austin Music Industry Growth Initiative (AMIGO). By working closely with Austin’s existing music scene, the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin, third-party service providers, and potential corporate partners, AMIGO can be the focal point for the development of a new business model for the music industry, centered in Austin.

The Thummer itself can easily be brought to market from Austin, which is rich in the needed design, engineering, and manufacturing capabilities. It may be maximally efficient to offshore the volume manufacturing of Thummers, but it is likely to be economically & culturally optimal to keep the design of all prototypes and low-volume trial runs here at home.

Furthermore, Austin’s live music community and UT’s School of Music can work together to accelerate the exploration and exploitation of the musical possibilities created by the Thummer’s expressive power. Such a cooperative effort between working & academic musicians should accelerate Austin’s attainment of critical mass.

All we need now to bring Thumtronics’ and AMIGO’s innovations to market is cash.