Is an increase in the number of people creating music good?

[mjau]

The workers are controlling the means of production.

I'm not sure if it's the workers controlling the means of production so much as it's a major Asian economic superpower controlling the means of production while artificially keeping it's currency devalued to better manipulate global markets.

[lobstman]

The workers are controlling the means of production.

I'm not sure if it's the workers controlling the means of production so much as it's a major Asian economic superpower controlling the means of production while artificially keeping it's currency devalued to better manipulate global markets.

Ah, now you're getting into economics. I agree with your point, but the effect on music is the same- the recording process has become more accessible, which means more recordings.

[mjau]

The workers are controlling the means of production.

I'm not sure if it's the workers controlling the means of production so much as it's a major Asian economic superpower controlling the means of production while artificially keeping it's currency devalued to better manipulate global markets.

Ah, now you're getting into economics. I agree with your point, but the effect on music is the same- the recording process has become more accessible, which means more recordings.

Yeah, I agree - the effect is the same. Access to the technology has become more democratized, in a sense.

[noon]

The product to process ratio has an artistic aspect as well. The notion of 'professionalism' often involves a good deal of compromise in the need and desire to please an audience/market. The American composer Charles Ives felt he could not be true to his calling if he did it professionally.

The independence gained by having high quality recording potential in the hands of the masses could go a long way to opening up the 'meaningful' end of music (the bar/dancehall/party scene doesn't need such help, does it? It functions to fill other needs). But I think it's going to take a change within people. As long as we allow sonic wallpaper, media/advertisement usage, trashy/sexy package deals, etc., strictly in service of consumerism, to saturate and deaden our sensitivity and aesthetic perspectives, we're stuck. The arts need to be lifted out of this pigeonhole of 'entertainment' and given more respect. This is a bit of a difference from the sixties, seventies, and earlier times. We had folk songs, and the tradition of protest carried over by the likes of Dylan. In the last few decades arts have been marginalized to the point of being ineffectual. They used to be a cultural lifeblood, now it's mostly amusement.

Video killed the radio star, and maybe internet/game playing is mugging the arts in general (take a look at modern film). The iPod may go a way toward pulling music back into being a standalone experience, but in providing a personal soundtrack, it's ubiquitous, compared with having to go to an auditorium long ago, and possibly only hearing your favorite piece once in your entire life. It's a little too personal; closed off and private, no longer a gathering where sparks might ignite, or an airwave crackling with the energy of being the sole conduit to the greater world outside our community. Certainly there's benefit to having a wider spectrum of opportunities, and we share ideas over the web; I'm just noting some environmental changes. It's the times we live in, and a phase we'll pass through. Perhaps this economic crisis will have a silver lining of unplugging us a little from the commerce engine.

This isn't being nostalgic...I don't find much of the old stuff all that great, and not saying art can't be entertaining, but it's taken too much as product, and not as the connection between our inner and outer lives. It's seen as fluff in a world obsessed with its own delusions of the value of cerebral preoccupation. A society hung up on trying to find literal representations of the inexplicable.

Life is its own soundtrack. The arts serve a higher purpose. So I think it's up to us, as both creators and recipients, to instill and support a deeper value.

[;ivlunsdystf]

I think alongside 'process' people and 'product' people there is a third group, ever-growing, that we might call 'gear' people. Jeff has rightly pointed out that for many participants in recording the acquisition of recording gear has become an end; not something we all want to hear, because we don't want to see ourselves as being a part of that group. But I think it was a good point and I also think that the 'gear' person exists and is different enough from the other two entities to warrant its own category.

(I am a process person through and through, to the point where I practically don't even care whether a recording survives after I'm done enjoying the process of making it.)

[cgarges]

Now, I could download the entire Pink Floyd discography minutes after deciding I wanted it (for free, if I was feeling unprincipled). People who grew up with this technology just aren't going to have the same relationship to music that I did. There's nothing you can do about it, it's just a fact.

Plus, you used to actually have to sit down to listen to a new album when it came out. You actually had to unwrap the shrink, check out the cover, gatefold, sleeve, etc., put it on your turntable, and give it a spin. You couldn't really pop it on your Walkman and cruise about town giving it a secondary listen. It was a big enough deal for you to pay attention to. And people made time to do it.

Again, things are different now and that's just fact, but I still try really hard to actually listen to an album all the way through when I first get it.

Listening to new albums with friends is the thing I miss most.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[mjau]

Plus, you used to actually have to sit down to listen to a new album when it came out. You actually had to unwrap the shrink, check out the cover, gatefold, sleeve, etc., put it on your turntable, and give it a spin.

This is perhaps the most tragic thing about downloads as the predominant form of music now. Well, that and fidelity.

[lobstman]

This is perhaps the most tragic thing about downloads as the predominant form of music now. Well, that and fidelity.

"Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

[@?,*???&?]

but I still try really hard to actually listen to an album all the way through when I first get it.

Me too. Something my brother and I used to do regularly and still try to 'debut' a new CD when we see each other.

Usually, these days, having spent as much time making records as I have- the critical ear gets going pretty quickly and the most annoying thing on first listen is usually a bad sequence of songs.

[lobstman]

Me too. Something my brother and I used to do regularly and still try to 'debut' a new CD when we see each other.

In the fall of 1991, I had just returned to college and went to see a friend I hadn't seen all summer. As soon as he saw me, Rob said "have you heard the new Nirvana?" He all but dragged me into the living room, handed me a beer and put Nevermind on. We sat not speaking for 45-odd minutes while the CD played. I'm not sure new album releases are an event like that anymore.

[mjau]

When Smile came out a few years ago, I definitely waited until I could listen to it start-to-finish while having no distractions, and the same went for the Sigur Ros release this summer. But most of the time, I'll confess to throwing something new on in the car or have it on while doing other stuff.

[;ivlunsdystf]

Me too. Something my brother and I used to do regularly and still try to 'debut' a new CD when we see each other.

In the fall of 1991, I had just returned to college and went to see a friend I hadn't seen all summer. As soon as he saw me, Rob said "have you heard the new Nirvana?" He all but dragged me into the living room, handed me a beer and put Nevermind on. We sat not speaking for 45-odd minutes while the CD played. I'm not sure new album releases are an event like that anymore.

My younger cousins do the video-game-playing version of that, but for 12 hours at a time (I mean, from dusk til dawn) when a noteworthy new video game is released. During that time I reckon they don't have much interest in what new music albums have come out lately.

[rwc]

Everytime I read about how the younger generation is missing out on the experience of listening to an album, I get a little nauseous, and my eyes roll so far back they almost fall out of my head.

Maybe I should go to the nauseous thread

The one possible silver lining to the devaluation of music is that it may lead to the end of the record industry as we know it- which would be a great thing for music. If nobody can make money off the next Britney Spears, maybe no one will make one

rihanna is a decent example of this.

I believe most of the money from that is merchandising, not records.

[cgarges]

Everytime I read about how the younger generation is missing out on the experience of listening to an album, I get a little nauseous, and my eyes roll so far back they almost fall out of my head.

Why? Do you know a lot of people who make a big deal out of listening to a new album when they get it? I'm not trying to be a smart ass, I'm really asking.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[joel hamilton]

I love music, and there is a lot of it.
I loved music on 45's in the late 70's and early 80's when I was a kid, and that wasnt the "whole record."
I just bought a single song and played it until it got fucked up by my cheap record player and didnt have any high end... that was after about 25 plays, my record player woul jst eat those things up...
I never felt deprived of anything at all.
I do the same thing now, except i just download the 2 songs i want from iTunes, and CRANK the crap out of all that 128AAC goodness that I got for my 2 dollars.
It costs me 2 dollars to get a large tea here in NYC, so to get a tea, and two songs, I got a buck left over... maybe I will get another song!
A paradigm shift always leaves something behind.
Any revolution all but destroys that which came before. (wasnt that marshall mcluhan?like, medium is the massage?)
How about Bucky fuller? "the currency of the future is attention."
I love that one.