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Music and Technology
I suppose any social website that Alex McManus starts is naturally going to have a lot of musicians on it. Since my website isn't currently set up to do forums, I figure I might as well use this one.
About 7 years ago when I was just getting ProTools running in my home music studio, I demonstrated the technology to my friend Rebekah, a classical and jazz bassist. We made a little scratch recording of her fooling around on the bass, and I edited a part of her rhythm and pitch to correct a mistake. Her reply was "That's cool....but it's not. You know what I mean?"
I understood exactly what she meant, but I'll try to articulate it more elaborately right now. While technological advances in the music world have greatly helped us at times, whether these advances create better instruments for us to use, or help us edit recordings with impeccable precision, there is a worry amongst many well trained musicians that much bad is being brought along with the good. First, before I go any further, let me clarify that I am not a technophobe by any means. I drive a hybrid electric/gas vehicle, own 4 computers, and work with pro audio/video editing software every week. But the point that I am getting at is that in some arenas, technology has made it possible for musicians with very poor skill and minimal talent to come off as being professional caliber. For example, it is very well known that Britney Spears lip syncs in concert. Who knows what she sounds like in real life, probably not that great. But a good engineer sitting behind a computer console can easily make every one of her notes sound in tune, making her recordings passable to those who would want to buy them. Now, I know that the pop music industry is driven by much more than just music. Britney is a good dancer, a captivating stage performer, and a sexy blonde, all of which makes her easy to market to a young demographic. However, my point is that nobody would buy the albums if the singing were just flat out bad. But these days it doesn't matter, even Paris Hilton can sound decent with "auto-tune".
I'm not against people using technology to assist them in making a living in music. But I wonder what direction we are heading in, knowing that in some areas a lack of good musicianship holds little consequence over whether you can make a good recording and sell it. Does this encourage mediocrity to some extent, and if so, where will we be over the next 20,30,40 years?
would love everyone's thoughts
About 7 years ago when I was just getting ProTools running in my home music studio, I demonstrated the technology to my friend Rebekah, a classical and jazz bassist. We made a little scratch recording of her fooling around on the bass, and I edited a part of her rhythm and pitch to correct a mistake. Her reply was "That's cool....but it's not. You know what I mean?"
I understood exactly what she meant, but I'll try to articulate it more elaborately right now. While technological advances in the music world have greatly helped us at times, whether these advances create better instruments for us to use, or help us edit recordings with impeccable precision, there is a worry amongst many well trained musicians that much bad is being brought along with the good. First, before I go any further, let me clarify that I am not a technophobe by any means. I drive a hybrid electric/gas vehicle, own 4 computers, and work with pro audio/video editing software every week. But the point that I am getting at is that in some arenas, technology has made it possible for musicians with very poor skill and minimal talent to come off as being professional caliber. For example, it is very well known that Britney Spears lip syncs in concert. Who knows what she sounds like in real life, probably not that great. But a good engineer sitting behind a computer console can easily make every one of her notes sound in tune, making her recordings passable to those who would want to buy them. Now, I know that the pop music industry is driven by much more than just music. Britney is a good dancer, a captivating stage performer, and a sexy blonde, all of which makes her easy to market to a young demographic. However, my point is that nobody would buy the albums if the singing were just flat out bad. But these days it doesn't matter, even Paris Hilton can sound decent with "auto-tune".
I'm not against people using technology to assist them in making a living in music. But I wonder what direction we are heading in, knowing that in some areas a lack of good musicianship holds little consequence over whether you can make a good recording and sell it. Does this encourage mediocrity to some extent, and if so, where will we be over the next 20,30,40 years?
would love everyone's thoughts
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alex McManus on -
Chris, I totally feel your bass playing friend.
We are all amazed at artists because, to use a cliche, we know how
much an artist must suffer to create their art. I wonder if part of the
issue is that in the past having some training in music was a part of
cultured life. [this is true in china today where there seems to be a
tremendous interest in classical music among the young.] Appreciation
for how much work and talent goes into a terrific performance is surely
the result of some personal knowledge of musicianship.
I totally feel your friend because...
a mistake in the midst of a good performance is a reminder that it
is a human being that is making something so beautiful. and that's a close
to a miracle as one usually gets.
machines don't do miracles. they do perfection.
on the other hand, i love fixing all my mistakes, know what I mean?
20, 30, 40 years... a renaissance of live performance because more and more
people will return to learning to play instruments for themselves and thus
appreciate those with the courage and dedication to perform with excellence
and passion.
and, lamentably, more pure boring techno as well. but also some great DJs,
electronic composers, interesting fusion/hybrids of live music and electronica.
Glad to see your forum here.
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Permalink Reply by Parke on -
It feels like I've had this conversation before.
I wonder how the creation of better instruments back in the a renaissance era affected the level of skill required to produce good quality music. It seems to me that instruments that were more finely crafted were much easier to play by lesser players. Did it become less and less necessary to make adjustment for your particular instrument's flaws? I raise the question for the obvious reason. In many situations, we think our problem or issue is new, when it's actually an extrapolation of a long-standing issue with historical precedent that we should learn from.
Another related question is, "What makes for good music?" If it's simply a matter of time and skill in using voice or instrumentation to produce something that is inspiring, pleasing or soulful, I'm doubtful that will disappear. It may look very different though and it may require that we open ourselves to new ideas outside the conservatory. But perhaps it is something more?
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Permalink Reply by Chris Wong on -
That's an interesting way to look at it. I'd definately say that are are many areas in which technology has aided in creativity in a way that didn't exist before. For example, my friend Domenic composes and performs a very beautiful and trance-like electronic music, using an array of synthesizers, basses, and guitars. Once you see him perform this stuff live, using delay/looping modules, you'll see that it actually takes quite a bit of practice and skill to acheive what he is doing.
However, I feel that in our current unprecendented technological boom, particularly with the advent of using computers to create music, we are in a situation that is at least somewhat unique in terms of both the benefits and troubles it might bring. Particularly, I don't think that there were that many instances in the previous 4 centuries (the 1600's is when western music started hitting its renaissance of innovation) in which technological advances enabled a lesser skilled musician to produce almost the same results as a greater skilled musician.
For example, during the early part of Bach's career in the late 1600's/early 1700's, the two most common keyboard instruments were the organ and the harpsichord. The difficulty with these instruments was that the dynamics (loud and soft) were either nonexistant or difficult to control. The harpsichord cannot alter its volume, and the organ can only alter its volume by changing the stops, which is a rather sudden volume change. This lead to the invention of the piano in the mid 1700's, the first keyboard instrument where you could produce loud and soft depending on how hard you pressed the keys. Instead of making keyboard performance easier, this actually led to keyboard artists having to be much more skilled to produce the new intracasies of phrasing and dynamics that were possible. A similar example is the invention of the valved horn in the mid 1800's. Before this time, French horns were only capable of playing the overtone series, meaning a low principle note, the octave above that, then the fifth above that, the next ocatve, then third, and a few more higher notes that were difficult to tune. They could not play all the notes in between, that you would find on a piano. With the invention of valves, horns could then play all the in between notes and access every note you'd see on a piano, restricted to the limitations of their highest range and lowest range. It gave the French Horn a new spectrum of creative possibilites, but in turn made the performance of such an instrument more difficult, because the player now had to learn all the different possible fingering patterns to create the in-between notes.
I think the uniqueness of our current situation is that the technological advances in music actually enable people in some areas to not have to work on their craft to sound good. While this is not true in all areas of music (jazz has been largely unaffected by computer technology), genres such as pop music seem to increasingly lack skill from the performers and rely on the skill of computer technicians to cover up their lack of talent.
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Permalink Reply by Alex McManus on
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Chris, Dominic is one of the electronic composers I was thinking about. In fact, one of his tunes is playing now on a cyber city I Niza and I created called Voxtropolis, the City of Voices, at http://voxtropolis.com.
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Permalink Reply by Parke on
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Yeah, I've seen Domenic play before when I lived in Orange County and shared a friend or two with him. I guess though that introducing him into the conversation only confuses me on your position. Perhaps I misunderstood and you're arguing that these technologies make the probability of poor music greater than if we would have never developed such tools? I guess that's possible. One would probably need to measure the quantity of new music coming out and see if the quantity of good music has changed or if there is simple more volume drowning out the same good quality music.
I guess I tend to think we have a choice in the outcome though. Personally, we can choose to consume music that challenges us to try new things ourselves and think carefully about life. And then as a community we can choose to promote quality music, which is often independent.
And isn't this last part happening with more frequency? Few I know go to the radio (with the exception of college radio and small station programming) looking for quality music anymore as most know the music there is fairly bland for the most part.
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Permalink Reply by Chris Wong on
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Yeah, I guess if you're looking for my "stance", it might be a bit confusing, sorry. Basically, I feel that the technological advances in making music are both good and bad at the same time, and I'm curious on where this will lead us in the future. The reason why in my initial post I emphasize the negative is because to my understanding I haven't seen technological advances in the past influence music in a negative way. I feel that there has been a trend in some areas of music where some of the most highly visible artists--Britney Spears, the Pussycat Dolls, etc.--are able to be very successful with a minimal amount of musical ability, and that this success is aided by the advances in technology. Now, I'm not ready to say that this is the death of all music, because as we've noticed, you can find highly creative artists like Domenic if you search through the corners of independent music. But I feel that our technology has advanced to a point at which we are at a crossroads that is fairly different that what we've encountered in the past. In the past, something like the development of multitracking recording technology led to the production of the Beatles landmark Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. However, the Beatles were also great songwriters, and capable musicians that could perform their own music well live in concert.
Perhaps part of what you bring up is one of the answers I'm looking for, that we are entering an age in which quality music must be increasingly sought out in the independent arena, whereas the quality of music that is promoted by major record labels is starting to deteriorate. Perhaps there actually is even more good music being made now than in the past, but it is less visible than much less creative and less well crafted music that is by famous artists. I'm not sure. But if this is turning out to be true, I'd argue that one of the factors (obviously not the only factor) in this trend is an influence of current technological advances. I'm curious to see what direction other musicans think this is all taking us.
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Permalink Reply by Chris Wong on
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I hear ya, man. Great points. As a professional musician, I also hope that the future is in live music, although I have trouble remaining as optomistic. I think I worry about the accessability of all the technology you mention...the Ipods, HDTV's, all this stuff playing incredibly polished recordings (which may or may not have been performed adeptly in the studio...who knows these days)....does this encourage people to go see live shows and spend $150 a pop? Or are they content watching the show on their HDTV in prestine 5.1 surround sound? But this is kind of a different issue I'm getting into. Don't get me wrong, I'm 100% pro-live music. I think I'm just concerned.
You're right that technology doesn't magically make people write catchy music. However, the marketing machine you speak of knows it can move platinum records with certain formulas. It seems that these days, as opposed to decades ago, if you want to be a female pop artist with a major label, you need to have a beautiful face, a great body, some good dance moves, and be willing to show some skin in your music videos. Of less importance is if she has a good voice at all, because we can use ProTools to make her sound like a great singer, every note right on pitch. Is this not influenced by technology?
Don't get me wrong, I've got a ProTools rig here at home. My livelyhood depends on producing prestine sounding recordings for the film industry, and I wouldn't be able to do that without my computers. I think you're right....with the example of Britney and other similar artists, it's more about the marketing machine....but playing some role underneath that is the technology which enables her to "cheat" as a vocalist, which helps to perpetuate the product. I guess what I'm trying to say about music technology is that along with the good has come some bad.
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Permalink Reply by Chris Wong on
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That's a pretty cool vision you have, I'm gonna have to chew on that for a while. I totally agree on the difference in experience in hearing and seeing live music....as a musician the difference is night and day. I guess what I worry about is if the average person who is not a musician will feel the difference enough to make them want to go to a concert. Hopefully they will.
I suppose an interesting followup question to this whole discussion would be "How do we as musicians help guide the consumers towards a new trend of increasing amounts of worthwile music being released independently, and wean them off of having to depend on major labels for quality music?" Something else to chew on, I guess. Good stuff man, good stuff.
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Permalink Reply by Rich Merritt on -
This is an interesting topic. I am not a musician; but I Love live music - all kinds of it. I just saw Stephen Marley and Damian here in Norfolk, Va and it was simply amazing! What a vibe and energy - and you cannot capture that in any other venue.
I totally agree with flood on the above. Technology is allowing musicians the ability to control their own movements without the Big companies looking over their shoulders. A perfect example of this is MySpace. Man there is some awesome music being shared over that venue. I ran across this woman who plays one of those Chinese Harps, I believe her name is Bei Bei - her sound is simply amazing.
Anyway.., this was a good read! Thanks!
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Permalink Reply by Joel Atwood on -
I'd like to add my 2cents. I think I speak from the other end of the food chain. I've owned guitars for 30yrs now but even today I would not call myself a musician. But, I do produce music that people enjoy listening too. I can't sing and play at the same time. I don't write lyrics, I can't read music. My chops are terrible. I'm sure a professional musician would call me a want-a-be......But I have a great sense of rhythm. I have a good ear. I'm currently working on a solo set that I play synth, guitar, bass and vocals. I will have a great time, people will like it and I never would have been able to pull it off without allot of technology. Laptop, Ableton Live, MIDI, effects...... I'll use what it takes to get the results. What are the result we're after? To provide a memorable/emotional experence for listener? For some its to make $$$ and we know that talent is not required to achieve that right? I love talent. I so appreciate the skills and dedication it takes. That is a whole different level.
BTW..... I sat in the front row, 3 feet from Pat Metheny for a show at the Paramount in Seattle. Absolutely amazing. That folks is a whole different level. Thanks for letting me jam with you.
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