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ZOMG BLOG DEUX

Technology’s Historical Ménage à Trois or: Why Thinking Synthetically Causes Bewilderment

The task of systematically organizing how society, music, and technology directly or indirectly influence each other has proven to be a difficult web to untangle. More often than not, I have the overwhelming sensation of trying to view an episode of Days of our Lives for the first time, in the middle of the 6th season. I attribute this confusion to my desire to view their relationships as a linear progression; however, it is now clear that this love triangle is anything but linear. So, this is how I have made sense of it thus far: human societies consist of community members joined by the glue of shared interests and/or needs. These societies build institutions that are beneficial to the individuals involved in the community and which also represent the shared values and particular viewpoint of the members. This set of common values and viewpoints in society’s structures could be referred to as the group’s cultural identity: which hints at, if not that culture is innate in human group interaction, that society and culture have been historically fused at the hip. Thus culture can provide avenues for expressing attitudes and values of members in its society. One creative cultural form of expression is music. Yet another product of society and its institutions is the development of technologies. Such technological advancements have added to music’s ability to bridge Toynbee’s technospherical gap by expanding the artistic tools for communicating musically; for, “the act of performing music is innately tied with the struggle to contend with a communicative disjunction” (Toynbee 69). However, artists cannot create authentic musical works all willy-nilly, because in order for a work to be viewed as authentic, it must be appropriate to its cultural context—meaning that culture has the final say in whether an artistic means of communication are valuable and authentic. As we know, cultural notions of value are changed with the introduction and naturalization of technologies. And the circular exchange between society, music, and technology goes on and on. Now, I understand that is a vague and basic description of how these concepts interact, but it serves the purpose of illustrating the framework within which this paper is written. The angle I am attempting to take focuses on technology’s part in this sordid affair. The question is this: historically, how does technology shape the cultural contexts in which we interact with music? Music as an expressive art form has since its beginnings, been entangled with technology, however I will start with the advents of the phonograph and gramophone—which for all intents and purposes, I will generally use interchangeably. Thomas Edison’s 1877 invention: the phonograph, gave birth to the glories of recording and playing back sound. Approximately a decade later, Emile Berliner improved upon Edison’s creation and gave the world of recording the gramophone—a more durable device. These recording/playing technologies employed mechanical, analog mediums called records that stored sound information in the form of grooves on a disc. It did not take long for records and gramophones to make waves among the American public: soon enough, they would be mass-produced, made cheaper, and thus, more accessible to an array of economic classes. This notion of recorded sound may seem second-nature to us now, but at the time it was revolutionary and did no less than alter the face of musical consumption, production, and distribution. The introduction of recorded music in a tangible form shook the musical world in a most violent way, with a great deal of cultural impacts. “Capturing Sound” by Katz outlined the various effects that the record brought about, ranging from issues of: tangibility, portability, invisibility, repeatability, temporality, receptivity, and manipulability. Now that consumers were able to go and buy what was (and is) essentially preserved sound, they can ultimately own music—cutting-out the importance and presence of the performer almost altogether. Additionally, the novel phenomenon of record collecting spawned a culture of ‘digging in the crates’, along with a new relationship between consumers and physical music-storing devices. This activity and sometimes obsession with physical artifacts has been made possible by the reasonable prices of mass-produced records and later, cassette tapes. Furthermore, music became more democratic in nature, not only because the poor could afford music that was once restricted to the upper classes, but also due to the fact that later on, individuals would utilize magnetic tape and records to create music that communicated their particular perspectives. CDs are another great example of this, because with the installation of burners in computers, CDs were duplicated with ease. This process of democratizing music through technological advances has forged the way for new genres of music to be invented, as well as the start-up of many independent, small record labels. In general, consumers of music have been given more power and choice in relation to their musical experiences. For instance, recorded music’s portability divorced music from its unique spatial and temporal setting. No longer was the performer/artist’s presence necessary; all that one needed to enjoy her/his preferred tunes was a record, tape, CD, and a player—though in contemporary times these two are conveniently fused into technologies such as MP3 players. Hell, you don’t even have to buy music anymore with online MP3 sharing. Though this all seems like a blessing of convenience, one must consider that by separating music from its original spatial and temporal setting, does one lose something? I would argue that there is certainly something lost in the process of making a performer/artist virtually invisible. Live performances—in the most holistic sense of the word—bring listeners together in a communal setting and often involve some sort of visual stimulation, whether that be the energy of an performers jamming on their individual instruments or the light-person at an electronic music club. Either way, an environment is being created that is meant to add to the experience and meaning of the music. Images can act as communicative aspects that heighten one’s understanding of an artist’s musical vision. It is no matter what side one decides to take on what is lost or gained by technological developments; the point simply illustrates how technology has shaped music and how people interact with it, thus affecting cultural standards of music. Furthermore, these standards draw boundaries for means of authentically producing, distributing, and consuming music within a culture. Technology, in this way, often plays the devil’s advocate by introducing novel developments that are able to add to musical practice and thus, cultural expression. After these technologies are introduced, cultures must assess them and decide collectively to either value them, or discard them. For instance, the ability to share MP3’s with such ease has blurred the lines of authenticity and liveness when these files are utilized to create digitally sampled pieces such as mash-ups. This is especially clear in the case of electronic and hip-hop music genres, which generally utilize samplers as instruments central to musical creation. For “This simple fact [of using a sampler as a piece of studio equipment] totally obliterates conventional distinctions between performing…and recording. Everything that is done with a samper is, by definition, recorded” (Making Beats 46). Schloss’s Making Beats states that the “new and emerging technology” of digital sampling has “greatly [expanded] the creative horizons of the modern composer” (35). With the introduction of affordable and accessible means of producing and organizing one’s own music digitally, came the necessary reevaluation of what kinds of music counted as authentic or live, as well as what artists could said to be talented. It is clear then, that developments in technology serve as catalysts to cultural evolution—in terms

final part 1

When topics of ownership, composition, technological advancements in the musical realm, and authorship are brought into the dialogue concerning the legal dimensions of music copyright nothing less than confusion ensues. Particularly in recent times, much more of a fuss seems to be made about the gray areas that musical technologies such as digital sampling have caused in artists’ attempts to bridge the technosphere. With the advent of digital sampling and turntablism, an unprecedented blurring of traditional lines began between the roles of producers, performers, composers, and arrangers. Technological developments have made the process of music-making more democratic or “in the recording studio, the roles…have become increasingly fluid, with an given individual filling sometimes more than one role” simultaneously (Music and Copyright 143). However, it is important to note that these changes are rooted in history and are not merely popping-up recently. Controversies surrounding the remixes, sampling, and the phenomenon of viewing recorded sounds as unfinished have a historical context worth exploring.

The film RiP! highlights the issue of music copyright laws in a fascinating way: the copyright’s legal grip on cultural materials hinders present and future artists from building off of premade items (in the specific case of music)—thus smothering a great deal of creativity and cultural growth. Or at least, so says the self-titled copyleft. Theberge states under a section of his piece titled “Burden of History” (no doubt where his loyalties lie on this contentious issue) that from the conception of copyright law it has “valorized composition…over performance as a form of musical practice” (140). This emphasis on composition makes sense because at the time, performance could not be fixated and thus “did not lend itself to the evolving economic system based on fixed commodities and exclusive property rights” (140).

Additionally, copyright laws have primarily and sometimes exclusively served the economic interests of publishers and composers, while more collectively created and owned forms of music such as jazz, folk, and indigenous pieces are not very well-served by the collection of laws—though it is clear that materials of this nature can still be ‘stolen’ or culturally appropriated as seen in past readings concerning Herby Hancock and Madonna. The point I am attempting to illustrate here is in support of the copyleft’s general idea about the legal repression of artists: copyright’s basis for creation was founded in an individualist ideology and economics, rather than being based in the furthering of culture.

Moreover, it is clear that issues with ownership were becoming muddy with the dawn of tangible music, i.e. the record. The record was one of the early musical scandals of technological advancements. Music-lovers could now own their favorite songs in a form that was tangible, repeatable, and as seen later, could be potentially manipulated. The previous temporal and spatial limitations that live music possessed were no longer. Not only could consumers have a bit of legal ownership to a physical item of music, but recording companies could literally own the recording. A trend is appearing here: a performer absent of legal ownership rights, unless they also act as the author and/or composer. Not until the Rome Convention of 1961 would copyright laws begin recognizing performers as having rights under copyright law, and even then, their rights were situated on the low end of a legal hierarchy.

Years after the record and phonograph/gramophone were introduced came the wartime technology of the radio, which greatly improved the microphone’s quality. The microphone of course, became and an integral piece of recording studio equipment. This novel development also spawned new intimate musical styles (such as crooning and other techniques either played on instruments or sung softly) of which iconic figures such as Frank Sinatra participated in.

Then in the 1960s multi-track recording changed the face of musical production and creation. With the new room to manipulate and experiment with their creations, “musicians began to…regard sound recording not simply as a means of reproducing music but as an integral part of musical creation” (Theberge 146). Musicians were now able to act as their own producers, composers, arrangers, and/or sound engineers and vice versa! A great example of a producer has often been viewed as playing the role of a musician was the fifth Beatle: George Martin. The studio became an instrument in itself, where music and sounds were being created exclusively—without being recreated in live performance. Oh, and did you notice how copyright laws divide the musical work away from its physical recording and process of recording? The experimental music made in the studio—which was viewed as an instrument—showed this distinction to be an artificial and untrue one by synthesizing both the process, product, and the creative work put into it the recording. Even in the 1960s copyright laws were showing to be a burden to the creative process and that was roughly fifty years ago! In Theberge’s section titled “A New Mode of Production”, he hits the target by stating that “traditional assumptions surrounding musical authorship simply do not hold” when the lines between roles such as producer, musician, composer, etc. begin to be blurred.

Problematic copyright matters have only multiplied since the 1960s with sound developers, the use of turntables as performance instruments, digital sampling technologies, and internet file-sharing. Those with access to a computer can now illegally upload all of their music, video, and picture files onto the internet for other users to download. Many music consumers have opted-out of the traditional ways that one could obtain music and turn to outlets such as iTunes’ store where songs can be purchased individually or within the context of an album. However, many fans chose to flee the monetary confines of obtaining music altogether by illegally downloading torrents or file sharing via programs like Napster and Limewire—giving birth to a whole can-o-copyright-worms. Though there have been many lawsuits attempting to make examples of these citizens illegally sharing and downloading music, the sharing has not ceased and in fact, the movement towards free and illegal files has gained momentum.

To take it even further, people are illegally acquiring music that they could potentially make remixes or mash-ups of! Of course, this is not to say that all remix and mash-up raw materials are found illegally—but the potential is there. We must now ask the question: are sounds objects of value that can be owned? “Sound developers have staked a claim to the aesthetic and economic value of their work…[and] have helped to reinforce the notion that individual sounds can be considered as aesthetic objects and, as such, assigned commercial value” (Theberge 146). This is obviously important in the hip-hop, rap, and electronic music communities because not only are many of the sounds utilized in creating this music developed by computer programmers/sound developers, but much of it is sampled from other musical artists. Take DJ Shadow for instance: he could use up to thirty samples from thirty separate tracks in order to create one song for his album. If every one of those samples is priced at a low-balled bargain $1,000, is it reasonable for him to pay even the sale-sticker $30,000 purely for the raw song materials to make one track? Is this a reasonable request to make; better yet, is it even possible for most artists? I think not. The issue here is the unnecessary emphasis that copyright laws make on “isolated fragments of sound as objects of exchange” while they almost completely “ignore the significance of the creative uses to which they are put” (Theberge 147). It is important to view the songs as raw materials, rather than stolen goods because they are often times undergoing major reconstruction to the point of unrecognizability. Viewing sampling as an artistic style challenges traditional conceptions of recorded music as being a finished piece of work. Also, this notion adds the importance of originality when deciding whether one has stolen or used another artist’s work inappropriately.

This brings to mind another issue I have with the current copyright laws: how they perceive artists. As we have seen, creators with rights to their music are able to file lawsuits on proceeding artists who have illegally copied unfair portions of their work. This view implies that the original artist created her/his pieces within a vacuum of little-to-no influence or copying. I have to agree with the copyleft here: culture always builds on the past and thus, must disagree with the copyright: romantic notions of solitary artists are simply falsehoods. Past works will always influence, inspire, and act as building blocks for the foundation of present and future artists. Thus, I see a definite need for altering copyright laws for though new technologically advanced practices “may appear to be the negation of older forms of musical practice…they in fact…displace them, forcing a redefinition of our notions of creativity and originality”—novel approaches to music-making have brought to our attention a systematic belly ache (Theberge 153). I like to think of this in terms of Kuhnian paradigm shifts: once an anomaly has been found (in this case, the issue of copyright oppressing new artistic practices and thus, cultural growth) within a paradigm, it is focused on until a resolution is discovered, and *voila* we move into a new paradigm. Indeed, the new paradigm will need to expand the outdated terms of those before it, to include a more up-to-date set of views and values on virtual file-sharing and the artistic expression made possible by recent technological developments.

The Convolution of Music Ownership

Ariel Sammone

America loves individuality and property. The determination of what is mine is the prevailing business of the legal system. Technology has has rendered every aspect of American life increasingly complicated, and music as physical and intellectual property is without exemption. Music has moved from the intangible realm to physical reality, from temporal restriction to simultaneity, from physical presence to virtuality, and from nonreciprocity to interactivity. As the processing of music is broken down into further stages, it passes trough more hands, and more individuals might try to lay claim to property ownership and copyright. Various cultures have emerged that sought to change the methods of and attitudes toward music, brought on by artistic perspective , personal need, and in response to technological advancement. To illuminate this process, let us trace the evolution of a song, its ownership, distribution, and position within a culture as prominent changes in technology and cultural norms have taken place.

Before we as a nation came to find ourselves increasingly integrated into the technological “grid,” before the internet, personal music players, television, film, radio, and even before the phonograph, music was written, performed, consumed, and enjoyed. The methods of its diffusion were hopelessly rooted in “real-life” situations: horrifyingly, one need actually be present at the location of the generation of music in order to experience it. Concerts provided a social outing, but a piece of music could not be captured as a physical recording to be consumed elsewise at one’s own discretion. A spot of piano music could be owned as sheet music, and for those with the ability, performed at one’s own leisure. This was the extent of one’s ability to personally own a piece of music not personally written. The performers at the concert to which you took your date might own their music if they were also the composer; if they were not, they probably did not. To the people, music was a pleasant distraction, a vehicle for expression, a significator of cultural value, a profession, an achievement of human kind. The technology was hardly new.

Recording provided the liberation of spacetime. Physical (analogue) recording had its limitations, such as length of tracks (determined by space of template) and concerns of fidelity, which would be overcome by the eventual conversion to magnetic tape and finally, digital formatting. For the people, this was a remarkable achievement. Of a sudden, I could take a performance home with me in a way more present than only in mind. The memory took physical shape. I could collect these “memories,” put them on my shelf, compare them with those of my friends, load them into the phonograph/record player/tape deck/CD player and feel immersed in the music I could previously only experience within the locality of live performers. For the listener, ownership took the form of recordings. The simultaneous genesis of freedom to own music via recording that opened to consumers began to complicate the issue of ownership for composers, performers, and those who recorded music. The rules regarding this issue have been in flux since the beginning, and questions concerning the amount of involvement of each party have weighed in at differing degrees at different stages since its inception. Record companies, composers, producers and performers have had to duke it out for rights and royalties, and the battle still ensues. Eventually, a new breed of contender would take the scene. Let us first consider broadcast technology.

Broadcasting became mainstream with radio. Signals transmitted over the air could be received by the proper device, which could be (as advertisers were wont to expound) nearly everywhere simultaneously. Oh, miraculous machine! No longer were the people bound to the locus of creation. Music could be enjoyed in the home, on the bus, emanating from my hoop skirt. Its applications were endless: for therapy of the decrepit, for the soothing of colicky babies, as an organizer of social function, as family ritual, not to mention the dissemination of information. Recording technology changed radio to include recorded incidences of music, rather than wholly live ones. Further, the microphone came to change musicians’ approach to music. Crooners were born from personal tenderness afforded by the amplification of voice it could provide. The radio affected cultural change as it largely became included in the home, reaching an audience who simultaneously could experience the same broadcast in an array of locations, and created the arena for new styles of music. Stars were born of this. As the recording industry largely owned music and controlled what came to be broadcast, it was relatively easy to control the market for music. The advent of the computer and internet shifted that power into the hands of consumers, and as such the face of the industry.

Music is a virtual commodity. Computers, internet, and gaming have changed the nature of the game. Record companies and artists are losing money; pirates are zealous, though at risk of legal action; copyrights are flippantly disregarded; video games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero have created new avenues of musical interactivity and challenge the very meaning of musicianship; remix artists are sparking controversy and gaining in popularity; and the recording, synthesization, editing, distribution and promulgation of music are more complicated yet readily accessible than ever. The nature of current technology renders control of the distribution of music almost impossible, and as such, those who would otherwise receive their legal due for the use and consumption of music are often not being paid. Downloading services are rampantly available to those who would like a personal copy of their favorite artists’ works and who would also like not to pay for it. The copyright is increasingly ignored. While there have been instances of lawsuit and reprimand for the pirate or illegal downloader, this has generally not been enough to quell the storm of activity. Certain legal music downloading providers, such as iTunes, charge a fee per track downloaded, providing a freedom to consumers who do wish to recompense for music consumed, but do not wish to pay for certain tracks on an album that are lesser enjoyed, previously a common gripe of consumers. Artists can record their own music and sell it online through iTunes and other sites, bypassing the traditional record company entirely. Not only is music shared to the extent that it can be listened to for free, some people have taken it a step further by actively using parts of others’ music to creatively form a version of their own, including sampling techniques and aspects of the DJ culture, to which they can then assume their own right (although sometimes facing legal action). Controversy has arisen regarding the authenticity of music created in this fashion, but those who utilize the technique have asserted their position that it takes genuine ingenuity and musical sensitivity to do what they do. What’s more, people like it. As such, the popular conception of talent has undergone a radical change in response to the increasing availability of technology and software that enables remix music to be composed, often with little or no compunction. Someone sufficiently skilled can amaze his friends and the internet with the virtuosity of his performance of the Free Bird solo on Guitar Hero, leading one to ask again what it means to be a performer of music in this age. Complications such as these are unrivaled in the history of music as an art form and industry.

What will be the resolution? The record company must fall. Put copyright in the hands of the people, and let artists choose how they would have their music used. If the community embraces change, restitution and retribution should naturally come to those deserving it. Music production for economic gain is in my opinion anyway a perversion of the true beauty of expression.

Lauren Halsey
Dr. Scales
RCAH 340
December 2009

Building blocks of music
Music and technology have evolved a great deal in the past century, from only being able to hear music or your favorite artists when at a venue listening to a performance, to now being able to listen to countless songs from your own computer in your bedroom. Music would not be nearly as successful and important today were it not for these key technological advances that allowed music of new forms and old to reach out and be heard by a wide array of audiences from all over the world at their convenience. Though, there have been numerous controversies relating to file sharing and copyright infringement, the point of making music is for it to be heard by as many people as possible, and I think that goal is being reached today.

In the early 20^th century a few key inventions were made that would change how people hear and experience music today. The Phonograph was the first, it allowed for an artist to record themselves singing, though it was expensive and non-practical for everyday use for the average person. Though, still a step in the right direction, which leads to the Gramophone recording system which allowed the voice to carry better, and it was easier to playback and allowed for mass production to be a possibility. These were two of the most important steps in technology for music, because it made the audience no longer has to be in the same room as the audience to listen and enjoy their music, and it allowed for an artist to have a concrete version of their music rather than just memories and sheet music.

Soon after, as technology advanced, the Vinyl record and way of recording was invented, and this made it very easy to mass produce works and much more effective to distribute to households where people could listen to music on their own time in the comfort of their own homes. Though this made the experience and relationship between the artist and the audience a little different than it had been with face to face contact, it allowed for more people to hear the music that may not have had the opportunity to beforehand, and allowed the music industry to make more money off of their artists and recordings because it was easier accessible to the common public.

Tapes were another new invention of recording technology that allowed for recorded takes to be cut and pasted creating a finalized version of a song in a few perfect takes, rather than attempting to play an entire song perfectly in one take to send to be copied and produced. This opened the doors for numerous new types of music and ways to record sounds separately and place them together so they would sound perfect when put together in the end.

The next huge step for music recording technology was electric recording. This made distribution even easier yet, and prompted music radio to begin. This made it so all someone needed was a radio to hear their favorite songs playing on the radio as many times as they want, which then increases record sales due to popularity of songs, and increases the knowledge of different artists and their music adding to the artists fan base even more than was possible before the radio was created. When CDs, compact discs, were invented, they made mass production and distribution even easier and cheaper yet. And were a smaller more convenient size and easily storable in a person’s home or CD cases, and weren’t too expensive for the consumers to purchase, making them an easy collector’s item. CDs encouraged people who liked one group to hear one of their songs on the radio, think “maybe I’d like there other music too” and go out and buy the whole CD, expanding their musical library.
Now here is where the tricky part starts, with the ease of access to CDs and the ability to burn them easily onto one’s computer and then retain the files on the computer hard drive without the CD in the disc drive anymore, and for the CD to not have a restriction on how many computers it can be loaded into, music sharing was much easier. Someone could buy a new CD and then lend it to a dozen or more friends who would each add it to their computer music library and be able to play it whenever they want to without having paid for it. This is not in the lines of copyright laws which were created to insure that artists were receiving the recognition they deserve for their work, as well as that they and their labels were receiving payment in return from each person.

CD mass production and distribution to computer libraries became so popular, and when the internet was created, so was file sharing. This made it possible for one person to transfer a music file directly to their friend’s computer through the internet connection without that person paying for use of the song, essentially creating an illegal copy. Numerous programs were created to aid file sharing, but most were shut down when the record industry caught wind of the illegal copying, and decided to take action to prevent this from happening with a few threats to members of the community for “stealing” music. However, downloading music illegally is still a very common practice today, years later, and so common in fact that people barely consider it to be really stealing anymore, more of taking something for free, and assuming that one copy is not going to hurt anything or anyone. However, one copy times however million of people do this, does certainly add up, and has been causing strain on technology and the relationship between consumers and industry for years.

Though copyright exists to protect an artist/ owners rights, it does not entirely stop new technology from being created to get around these guidelines and allow it to remain possible for file sharing in mass quantities, and even now it has become possible to edit your own remixes of sampled music and call it your own when it is a finished product thanks to computer music technology software.  Though this software aids mash up artists in creating bootleg and illegal material, it also exists for musical technicians to splice together different takes and sounds to make a finished product even easier than Tape technology had allowed for earlier. It made it possible for an artist to create a “perfect version” that sometimes is not even possible to be recreated in person for a live audience on stage due to all the synthetic editing and cut and pasting, but that version is what gets mass produced and dispersed all over the world for fans everywhere to listen to and enjoy.

In the movie “Remix!” We watched for this class, the narrator talks about how culture always builds on the past, and music being a large part in today’s culture does not disappoint in living up to this rule. Each of these technological advancements started with an idea sparked to make a previous invention better, more efficient, and more profitable. This makes it easy for more artists, who may not even play a conventional instrument to use their computers as their instruments and create new works of art based off original content of their own or even off of others content. This is definitely by all terms considered illegal, without receiving permission to do so by the artist or owners of each piece of work included in the single mash-up no matter if it is an entire chorus, or a single note. However, Mash-up artists still are going strong, and even building an empire of their own with the growing popularity in their work, as well as receiving compliments from artists whose work is in their music, rather than demanding they remove the content.

Not only has the internet helped to share music by file sharing programs to download songs, but it also allows for bands to make sites to keep in touch with fans, and these usually include free listening music player functions to hear the bands newest things, though generally they are not free for downloading, artists have been able to create a stronger fan base by remaining personable to their fans, rather than simply expecting their CDs to be bought, and their concerts to be sold out simply because it is available.

Overall, I’m inclined to say that technology has definitely helped music grow over the years and increase in popularity and diversity. Had we stayed where technology was with the phonograph, music styles would remain limited, and millions of people would be out of the job in the music business. The music industry has grown through the advances in technology, and though some may have been seen as negative due to illegal downloading of music by most people these days, there still remains the thirst for new music, and creativity which is the point of making music and sharing it anyways.

Lauren Halsey
Dr. Scales
RCAH 340
December 2009

Copywrong
Before copyright law existed; Technology had not reached a point where mass production was easily established, and where people were able to transfer music among other things easily to each other’s computers or iPods with one simple click. Now that this technology exists, and there seems to be much less control by the record labels and artists in maintaining their rights to material copyright has been enabled. Though some would argue on its efficiency, and the fact that it is putting unnecessary restrictions on freedom to create new work, new is made out of and built off of old. Copyright made this difficult for artists to maintain all the rights to their pieces as well, because record labels gained the rights to their music and recordings once signed and then began to profit off of the finished product without doing much work.

When mass production became a possibility, and technology evolved enough for this to be an easy and common trait for artists to distribute their work, record labels had it made. They were receiving money as well as numerous other workers, who aided the final product, but little profit actually made it to the artist who wrote and performed their songs, and they no longer owned the rights to either of those aspects of their work. This was frustrating for artists, and annoying to fans who wanted to support the artists but not the companies who were holding the rights to this work. Then the internet happened, and it became easy to share files among friends and other people through the internet connection. This then prompted listeners to get as much work of the artist as they wanted, and not have to pay any money to enjoy it, and free is always better.

Soon after, artists began to lose out even more on the profit of their music, and record labels began to be very irritated with their property being essentially stolen from them, thus copyright laws were created and added to make it harder for people to duplicate music and videos because it became illegal. Though most people these days wouldn’t think they were stealing, exactly, when they look up a song, click on it, and it magically appears on their iTunes folder a few seconds later, that is essentially what is happening and it is causing the music industry to lose a lot of money in the process, though making it easier for music to reach audiences and expand. This then brings up the issue of if money is really the only reason for music being made, rather than if the whole point was for entertainment and to get your voice/music heard by as many people as possible.
Many people I know that do download illegally would admit to it, though also reason that they don’t consider it stealing because they wouldn’t have spent money to attain a lot of the music in their libraries today. It was simply downloaded because it was free, and worth a listen to, and that is how most artists get new fans because they hear one of their songs and download the rest to see if they’d like them. Sometimes, if they like them enough they will go through the effort of buying them just to support the artist, but if they don’t like them it is money they don’t have to spend, nor would they without knowing. Therefore, the record labels aren’t necessarily losing that much business due to illegal downloading.

Mash-up artists have been becoming increasingly popular since the early 21^st century, and there are now dozens of programs someone can buy or download to be able to make their own mash up music or videos, which generally if not always consist of using at least one  work that does not belong to them.  In Remix!, the narrator adds up how much it would cost for an artist to receive permission to use the work, and to pay the artists and companies who own the works, it would end up being roughly $4 million per song on some of the more intricate mash-ups including a few different artists. This seems highly unreasonable to make art, which is why the Copyleft stance has been created to encourage more public domain on music and art, making it less risky for mash up artists and other types of artists to build off the past and make it new.

In fact, in doing another project for this semester, I discovered that most mash-up artists have not been confronted about breaching the law, yet praised for their good work by record companies and artists who like what they have done with their original pieces. Some record labels even go as far as to hire mash-up artists on the down-low to use their artists work to give it more attention, and a newer fresher sound.  This seems to be contradicting the whole purpose for the copyright law, because it was the record labels and music industry complaining in the first place about losing money, and wanting to claim ownership. Rather than allowing for limited free use of music for artistic purposes, record labels seem to have their own interest at hand rather than the interest of the common population and the love of music, and the need to expand genres.

Music will always be a large part in cultures all over the world, and yet there are different restrictions on it for each country, rather than one uniform law to abide by for ownership. The lines of copyright are blurry and confusing, and seem to make more problems than they solve, especially when lawsuits against a small mash up artist or person doing a creative project using copyrighted work can never really be won, even if they were within fair use. Record labels have endless amounts of money that they can throw at cases to make them go away and come out on top, while the average Joe, cannot do this. Copyright seems to be confusing to though abiding by it, and annoying to those ignoring it. Though it was put in place for good reason, it has not been enforced or enacted in the right way, and I don’t think any progress is being made to fix it at the time being.

Copy-not-so-right

Final I

Before the reformation, the ones who could read were the ones with the power and control over what was read- monks, priests, etc. They read (and wrote) the bible and were relied upon by the entire catholic church to provide accurate information from the bible during mass. Perhaps “relied upon” is not the most accurate term for use here. In general, the Roman Catholic church-going population was not literate. They didn’t rely on priests to present the bible accurately; they simply accepted whatever was presented to them. The control was completely in the hands of the religious elite. When the printing press was invented, everything changed. The bible, once meticulously (and often mistakenly) hand-written by monks, could be printed easily because of Gutenberg’s new technology. Suddenly regular people were able to own personal copies; a fact that changed everything. People had a reason to read, so literacy exploded. Once people could read the bible, its information was in their control. They were no longer spoon-fed by priests; they could read, learn, question. This led to the reformation- hundreds of years of unquestioned power of the religious elite was diffused to the public.

This phenomenon is still happening today. It is called technology. Throughout history, technology has been taking power from the powerful and placing it in the hands of the people. The Xerox machine is another prime example of this. Professionals like lawyers, doctors or police departments kept records which stayed with them and under their control, until the Xerox was invented; the public gained access to copies of its own documents and records, instead of having to blindly trust the professionals.

History is unfolding before our very eyes- repeating itself as it is wont to do. Or shall we say- copying itself. In the past, technology has enabled the public to  acquire a new level of control over information previously exclusive to a higher class of power, in these cases by the copying and increased accessibility of knowledge, information, and resources. Power and control fluctuate according to certain strengths and abilities and how they relate with the newest technology.

Virtually the same scenario is being played out now, through the technology of computers, able to copy music, and of the internet, able to disseminate it. The music publishers are suffering, since their very function involves controlling many aspects of popular music distribution. The internet is decreasing their influence on what people listen to, how they listen to it, how they hear about it, and what they pay for it. Unfortunately, matters are further complicated in this instance because the technology provides the same nature of dissemination, but via a means that happens to be illegal.

Even more unfortunate however, is the system of power and control that has warped the particular law in question. The constitution was developed when America broke free from a group in power. Paralleling the aforementioned trend, they wanted to give the power to the people, and they wanted to promote intellectual progress: “The Congress shall have Power…To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries” –The Constitution of the United States

The perfect American ideal: protect individuals by giving them possession of their “discoveries” but only for “limited times” in order to promote progress. Another perfect American ideal: gain enough power to bend the law, reinterpret it, use it solely for personal gain and completely forget about the original goal of the law itself. Anyone who understands the original purpose of the copyright law will take one listen to an artist like Girl Talk and realize that by “Utilizing technical expertise and a ferocious creative streak, Girl Talk repositions popular music to create a wild and edgy dialogue between artists from all genres and eras” (Gaylor, Brett video RIP: A Remix Manifesto). This clearly demonstrates much more practical connections with original laws than the recent idea of them consisting of only what the RIAA decides, which is, conveniently: everyone should have to pay us for everything. Actually, this wasn’t always the way. Peter Friedman explains how it all catapulted out of control (or rather, into the control of the RIAA) in 1991 when a judge ruled against a guy who was sued by the RIAA because he used three seconds of someone else’s song. He could have appealed for a ruling that didn’t blatantly disregard fair use, but he didn’t, for whatever reason, and we all suffered the consequences. Until now!

Girl Talk on copyright: “People’s attitudes on it are just gonna shift over time. So hopefully, we’re at the forefront of, you know, different ways of…how music exists…it’s like, everyone builds upon something.” I think Girl Talk is right- we are at the forefront of change. Thanks to the technology becoming increasingly available to the public. Within a few years I believe copyright will mean something entirely different than it does now. If I can write this essay, creating a mashup of my own thoughts and others’, there is no reason “illegal” use of copyrighted material by artists like Girl Talk wouldn’t be equally, if not more, legitimate and justified.

“Law is forced to change when the material conditions it governs change, and the ability to make and stitch together samples into compositions that can be disseminated world-wide -an ability that in 1991 was held almost exclusive by the recording industry- is now within reach of, literally, millions of people” (Friedman, Peter). And, according to Andrew Dubber (quoted by Friedman), there are more reasons to change copyright laws than just the changing of technology and attitudes in the modern digital world. He demonstrates the possibility of a culture crisis- the record companies are so reluctant to share their music, even libraries and archives which have always documented and preserved art and culture, aren’t granted access and some music is literally disappearing. “Magnetically-charged metal oxide particles are falling from master tapes as we speak.”

Unless you’re a record company, which I think are not going to avoid being replaced by various internet resources, the solution is not so difficult. The only thing keeping us from getting there is the lingering power of the record companies. I see a direct correlation between the decline of record companies’ unfair power and the rise of the “CopyLeft.” It seems pretty clear to me. Fair Use is already a doctrine under the copyright laws, its only problem is it’s pretty much up to the judge’s opinion what fits within fair use and what doesn’t. The thing to do (unfortunately we’re going to have to make another one of those “laws to protect you from other laws”) is make fair use more definite and applicable. Clearly define Fair Use, not leaving it up for more than a little debate, and outline some other clear specifications including the necessity to cite your samples.

We are obviously on the road to getting there, and moving faster than one might think. The great thing about Girl Talk and other artists like him is that they’ve inspired such a dramatic and effective argument against copyright laws as they stand. And they’ve done this not even on purpose- they’ve done it by just doing their thing. The record companies are the ones sending the strongest message here. Why has nobody sued Girl Talk? He would win. And everybody knows it.

Songs Sung, Stories Spun

Final Blog II

Many of us don’t remember that before the beginnings of music recording, music was actually performed regularly by average citizens. After the rise of the piano in the middle class, it was customary for most families to enjoy musical entertainment produced by the eldest daughter in the family. Way back in the day the only source of professional popular music was band and symphony music, which was not enjoyed frequently by most people, but could be reproduced. So developed the piano-centric era, where the eldest daughter was expected to master the piano and provide entertainment for everyone in the evenings. Purchasing the sheet music for popular songs and having your eldest daughter learn and perform them on piano was the only way to bring them into your home. Unfortunately for Piano manufacturers, technologies are constantly changing, and the process doesn’t care who gets the short end of the stick when it comes to being overshadowed, outperformed, surpassed or eclipsed, not necessarily as a reflection of the quality of the product or company, but more so as an integration into modern increasingly frenetic American Life. We have seen this happen regarding the transformation of music technology since the beginning. Gramophones, once cheap enough, provided an obviously superior mode of bringing music into the home of Americans, and with it came a transformation. This has been happening over and over again, and time after time the technologies in question (in innumerable forms) continued to transform the way music was produced, consumed, and distributed, and through music, so too, was life.

In the America I know, music is the strongest and perhaps only emotional connection that I know I share with almost all other Americans. Everyone loves music. On top of that, the same music reverberating in my apartment will be heard in a ridiculously overpriced tiny beach house in LA, a ridiculously oversized mansion near New York, and a snowed-in log cabin in Portland. Even when I travel abroad, the music brings me abruptly back to an American mood when I hear the popular stuff bumping behind Akihabara’s ridiculously cute electronics display in Tokyo. Music coming out of earbuds, stereos, speakerphones, laptops, ipods, earphones, and just about everything else. It’s on a CD, it’s on a disk, it’s on a stick,  It creeps on all the corners of my experience on the web, and it comes to me at my whim from the overwhelmingly imagined yet unimaginably significant flow of information that remains a part of the internet I still have not quite grasped. A river of data, small electrical signals, a series of numbers and circuits that somehow magically inspires noise? Users separated by miles, directly contacting one another, never communicating, but connecting beyond words. Is there a connection between the clicking of my keyboard and a key pressed on a piano? Both produce beautiful music. How could that possibly have happened?

The Gramophone was only the beginning of that transformation, the genesis of thousands of connections, creeping first into living rooms then into lives, leaving nothing untouched, invading all implications of reality, and even, first for drug users and then for internet junkies, meta-reality. Connections with others, connections with ourselves,  connections with music and art and change.

Recorded music was unlike anything they were used to experiencing. The eldest daughter need not learn piano if she so preferred! The piano itself an unnecessary investment, replaced by recording and playing machines- new and exciting! What a ridiculous idea, that we could be at the exact same time as our neighbors listening to the exact same performance. A snippet of time, a snapshot of sound, copied copied copied. Passed around. Invisible. Shared.

The first of the two most important aspects of recorded music detailed by Mark Katz is Repeatability. The catalyst to a whole new world of human interaction. Americans began to find that friends could be made, and what’s more- defined, by music, by shared interests in repeatable performances. Music became a language, an entire new form of communication, constantly changing, warping and wrapping around social communities, whispering wondrous melodies light and sweet enough to change a nation. Social habits were incredibly transformed because of music. Newer and wilder dances developed along side music, and so did the clubs themselves, transforming to match a new generation or a new genre of this shared language (Sarah Thornton, 55). Dancers would move, according to the music, to the fads, to their feelings, wound up in the narrative of dance. Notes, merely vibrations moving through the air, weave in and out and twist around each other, forming an entity that is so much more than the sum of its parts. Stories of sounds, inimitably involved in what is distinctly and purely human- stories. With recording technology songs were kept and treasured and passed on, the song itself spinning tales of tune and verse, vignettes of melodious musical lyrics lasting lifetimes and perfectly preserved, a new part of the epic anthology that is humanity’s permanent and ongoing narrative. Musical stories that were connecting people to each other in a way that was deep, undeniable and yet totally noninvasive. This same ability of music to effortlessly weave itself into stories connecting humans with each other, could just as easily and just as beautifully morph into an all-too-relative fable, a full-length-feature stimulating a fierce connection within one and only one being.

Music has become increasingly available in forms that promote connection with the self. Before recording, one could not even hear music without having another human present. Since then technology has continued to reveal new ways to interpret and experience music. Personal music players with headphones provided listeners with music that has proved useful for many reasons. Just as everyone’s stories and connections with music are different, so might be their reasons for listening alone. Earphones to reduce annoyance to people around you, or to block the annoyance out, or to hide from others your song, your personal music, safe in your total lack of judgment. Listening to music alone can be a strong form of therapy, for seeking a peaceful moment in your own mind, or for letting go of life for a while, or for desperately screaming along with a singer when you know no one can hear you. Since the advent of infamous iPods and the like, listeners have a portable collection of music. It says a lot about you, or it doesn’t. You select each song with care, or you don’t. It means something to you either way; it is your personal collection of tunes, no one else’s. Yet another tool for personal music experience is the internet. An increasing number of websites are music oriented and user-customizable, encouraging musical introspection by evaluating your “likes” and “dislikes”, offering suggestions, downloads, and lyrics left and right.

Perhaps the most interesting trait, and certainly the most changing and innovative in today’s world, is Katz’ Manipulability. The technologies of music production have changed over the years and affected music in unforeseen ways. Production styles and abilities inspired entirely new genres and influenced the works and aspirations of music artists who jumped at the chance to do something new and different. The musical needs of artists and the rise of new technology exist as a mobius strip- each leading the other, and each following as well.

The amazing array of musical technologies available and aspiring has gotten so developed and complex, it is often difficult to sort out the intricacies and differences, relating to how we previously defined aspects of musical development. Production, consumption, distribution, three terms once so distinct, so irrevocably separate, who would imagine their applications and meanings in the technologies of music today would blur in any way? But they have. They have and it works and I wonder why they ever were so sequestered from each other in the first place. The three terms of our class are related closely to Katz’ titles “Composer, Performer, Listener”. All of these terms have become tangled in each other, erasing boundaries and ignoring societal lines. Katz proposes “It is no longer necessary for listeners and performers, or for composers and performers, to work together in order to create music. Yet at the same time, listeners and composers have discovered a more intimate relationship, one that can bypass the mediation of performers” (Katz, 46). These kinds of “new relationships” are happening in regard to our ideas of production, distribution, and consumption, tying in Katz’ ideas catalyzes even more complicated interrelationships, creating an imbroglio of new ways to experience music. Girl Talk is once again, a good example of ways the lines between such ideas are being bent and played with. His work ties production and consumption together in a way that makes them unrecognizable as distinct terms. He is the consumer, listening to songs just like the rest of us. Then however, he takes the exact music to

which he is a consumer and composes/produces with it songs that are neither exactly new nor old, pushing ideas of authorship beyond even established legal boundaries.

Perhaps the example most indicative of future change is Radiohead. Their release of their music online was unheard of, reinventing distribution and consumption completely. A band that can distribute its own music online, and consumers that can download the music for however much money they wish to pay, that can still make money, challenges the stability of the system of distribution and consumption we all thought was set in stone. I, for one, cannot wait to see what plays out in the next couple of years. We can expect to see some major changes in how things are done, how we are affected by these changes in our everyday lives. The ways in which we consider music itself will most likely not stay as they are for long.

Changing Tides: Historical Innovations in the Music Industry

For a long period of time, the world of music was slowly evolving with society. In classical music, styles changed slowly, from baroque to romantic for example. This process occurred over many years, much unlike the pace of current changes in music. This change in pace was not an arbitrary and random evolution, though. Key elements forever changed the way that newer forms of music are produced, distributed, and consumed that have created an industry structured with noticeable differences.

The invention of recording technology was the first major change that completely set the music world in a different direction. The phonograph and the gramophone, for the first time ever, gave people the ability to record sounds and play them back. This revolutionary technology greatly changed production, distribution, and consumption of music. Music consumers could now listen to music in the more private space of their own home, with company they were able to chose (if any), and were able to chose what to listen to. This is a break to previous music practices as music was generally experienced through performances where the audience often had little say in what songs were performed. Music became a much more personal art as people began to be able to listen to the same recording multiple times when they chose, where they chose, and with whomever they chose. Recording technology also greatly changed the distribution of music. Previous to recordings, the distribution depended solely on live performances and the consumer’s presence, but with recording technology, music could be distributed without the presence of the musicians except to record the music. As technology increased, recordings became mass-produced, which led to the rise in popular music. Recordings of a single artist could spread throughout the country and gain popularity in such a manner that would be impossible for the performer to do in person. The recordings also only generally allowed about three and a half minutes of music on one side, which set the standard still in effect today for the length of a popular music song.  The production of some music changed too in order to react to the recording technology. Some instruments, like violin, were hard to record so special versions were developed for recording. Standard instrumentation for many different styles was also developed in reaction to recording technology’s abilities, for example the standard instrumentation for jazz settled in because of its ability to be recorded well.

Radio was one of the next big advancements for the music industry. This too influenced changes in all three areas of production, distribution, and consumption. For example, in production, crooning was developed in response to radio speakers, which couldn’t handle too harsh of sounds. The effects on distribution were some of the biggest changes that radios influenced. Sound now had the capability to be transported instantly and simultaneously to different locations. Many different things were broadcast, first using mainly live feeds such as speakers or live performances, and later using recorded performances. The consumption of music also changed with the radio as the selection of popular music was based on the radio hosts or early forms of DJs, which influenced the homogenization of popular music.

The “talkies”, or films that incorporated pre-recorded sounds and speech, also changed the distribution and consumption of music. Now, the same exact sounds could be heard every time a film was watched in any number of theatres in diverse locations. Live orchestras began to fade out of the scene of playing live music for films, though some did continue to record music for films.

Recording technology, the radio, and the “talkies” all led to smaller industries for live performers. They were no longer needed as much to perform music as recordings could now be used in movies, at events, in the house, etc. All three also led to the rise of popular music through the increased ease of the distribution of music where more people had access to the same songs by the same artists that could be listened to multiple times. This helped to develop more widespread appreciation for particular artists and songs, and to develop larger followings. With the invention of recording technology, recordings eventually sold more copies than sheet music for the first time in history. The more public forms of music in the performance industry shrank as the more personal forms of the recording industry grew.

After the first series of innovations that revolutionized the music industry, there came another series of innovations that greatly affected the production of music. Many of these were based on computer technology, such as MIDI configurations, drum machines, computer sequencing, sampling, synthesizers, etc. One of these that started with tape cassettes and later moved to computers was layering technology, which allowed musicians to record multiple tracks and layer them on top of each other for the first time to create compositions that would have otherwise been impossible to create and that would be impossible to perform with the same amount of members that created it. It also created new sounds, such as singers harmonizing with themselves. This was a huge step forward in the production of music, as artists no longer had to be limited by the amount of performers they had. One man had the capability to create an entire album by playing each part himself, for example.

Sampling technology, which allowed artists to use clips of other songs to create their own, was also a revolutionary technology. Here, pre-recorded music could be inserted into a different composition to add another part. This has been used in many different ways since its invention. For example, one could use recordings of songs from a different country in their own composition in almost any way that they could think of. Although this technology has existed for years, one of the best examples of this is a modern-day artist called Girl Talk. His music is almost completely based on sampling and layering other artists’ work, but he is so creative with their works that his creations are completely different than the original songs that went into them. He will use a fraction of one beat and repeat it multiple times to create his own beat. In one of my favorite examples of his, he successfully mixes “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen and a song by the Jackson 5 to create a small section of his song that is one of the most refreshing moments I have heard in music simply because of its pure creativity. He also has mixed rappers and pop artists with heavy metal guitars, and makes them sound like they belong together. Although his use of these samples is completely against many kinds of copyright laws, his music nonetheless showcases impressive amounts of ingenuity and artistic ability even though he is sampling other artists’ work.

Correctional technologies are recently becoming more and more widespread, especially in popular music in the United States. The two most used are pitch- and tempo-correction technology. Pitch-correction focuses on refining pitches to be more in tune. While at a base level this can improve the sound of music, it can be taken to further levels to create a completely different sound. There is a mid-level that makes music sound devoid of human inaccuracy to the point of sounding somewhat fake or computerized. Even further, pitch-editing can offer dramatic effects with fast and extremely precise changes of pitch that are very noticeably only possible with computer intervention. In popular music, T-Paine is one of the artists best known for using this technology. In his songs, he could have been recorded speaking the lyrics and sound engineers could have edited pitches in his voice to make melodies. Another example of this is in a recent YouTube phenomenon known as “Auto-Tune the News”. These clips are entertaining examples of how pitch-editing software can be used to create songs using the voices of newscasters, television personalities, and even Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and President Obama. Tempo-correction technologies work in similar ways, but make the tempo and the beats more precise. This is often less exaggerated than pitch-editing has been recently, but still noticeable on occasions. These two technologies influence the way that modern music consumers value accuracy in music. Many are beginning to expect precision in performances that are almost humanly impossible to recreate due to inherent human inaccuracies. Every day I listen to the radio, I hear more and more songs that use pitch-editing to enhance their music. These two are also creating a dichotomy in the music scene about the effects of using so many corrective technologies. Some could argue that this creates better and more accurate music. I, however, argue that it is slight human inaccuracy and agency that is the driving force behind artistic expression in a song. Corrective technologies give companies the newfound ability to hire people to sell their images as icons and to edit their songs to make them sound musically competent. There is much debate on whether this is true music or not. What will happen when computers are capable of imitating human agency, emotion, and inaccuracy in music? These are issues that are currently complicating the music industry and will continue to be confronted in the coming years.

Layering, sampling, and corrective technologies all have complicated different aspects of the music industry. One of these is the realism of music. Songs are increasingly becoming less likely to be able to be performed completely live due to the sheer impossibility of recreating the music the same way it was heard in the recorded and edited music. For example, Iron and Wine has typically been a one-man-band with one man singing and playing guitar. His recent album The Shepherd’s Dog included incredible amounts of layering instruments as well as vocal harmonies. These songs are obviously completely impossible to perform live with just the one man. Some turn to using pre-recorded tracks and mixing them with live tracks during performances, completely staging a performance based solely around pre-recorded tracks, or even to simplifying songs to make them performable. Another complication that is happening within many studios is the conception of authorship of these works. No longer is just the performer or the composer the sole author of a song. Due to the increasing use of technology, sound engineers also play a large role in interpreting a song and creating its sound, as well as the producers, and in some cases the composers if they are not performing their own work.

One of the most recent and most complicated changes that has happened to the music industry is its increasing intimacy with the internet. In some ways this is beneficial for musicians as it gives greater and easier access to musicians and their work. Music distribution can happen instantaneously with two people sitting on their beds from different sides of the planet. There is a disappearing necessity to have albums sold in other outlets such as Wal-Mart. The consumption has also changed because music consumers now have access to a larger amount and a greater variety of music and recordings through the internet than what one may find in a typical store-based retailer. For many, bypassing copyrights to download songs and albums for free has become a common practice. This is essentially opening up the music industry to start being defined by its consumers as we have greater access to musicians that we may not hear on the radio, on television, or from our friends. It is democratizing the industry and breaking down the control that corporations had on what music consumers used to have access to. Theoretically, I could post music that I made on my laptop, become a huge sensation and be successful. This could happen without the use of a record company to give me professional connections and funding, but also control some of my music and some of my career. There is a big debate around this topic as the record industry is seeing the threats of becoming obsolete if they can’t find a way to be needed and profit off of it.

In the past 150 years, the music industry has undergone incredible changes. Its common practices have moved from taking an outing to the symphony to downloading music and listening to it in almost any situation. The industry would have never gotten to where it is now if it weren’t for the technological revolutions that have shaped and continue to shape the industry, from recording technology, to layering, corrective technology, and the internet. There is no doubt that technology will continue to evolve and continue to influence where the music industry goes in the future. Complications will be settled, others will arise, new technologies will make us question what counts as music, and what we value in music. What will the music of the future be like? How will we have access to it? What will we do with it? How will it be made? These are questions that are constantly being answered as each second passes, only to be asked again the next—but that is the nature of innovation.

Music Technology and Culture: The Endless Tango

Vincent Sawaya

December 16, 2009

Professor Scales: Final Part II

An Investigation of Music-based Cultures Through Advancements in Music Technology

Let us start from the beginning, or at least as basic and fundamental as I understand it.  Music is art.  Musicians are artists.  Sound is a musicians’ avenue for expression.  Music is then a method of humanistic communication.  Influential critical pedagogy theorists Paulo Friere has written this: “It is only through communication that human life can hold meaning” (from his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed).  History shows us that in the exploration of human meaning, people have continued to strive for new ways to communicate with each other.  One can see this in the ever-advancing applications of the Internet as a tool for communal interaction and more historically with the development of written word: from the Gutenberg Bible to fanzines and pulp fiction.

Cultures are created out of communal interaction.  This interaction can happen in various venues.  The ability for an individual to comprehend the meaning of information within these venues is only understood within cultural context.  This context defines the appropriate uses of the tools one has for personal expression.  Many times these cultural contexts and venues become synonymous with the music technologies that are used in the respective scene.  Take the name Disco for an overt example of this.  The Disc and its’ music were the very things that brought people together.  Sarah Thornton states in her writing on club cultures that “Records had become integral to a public culture; they were the symbolic axis around which whirled the new community of youth” (Thornton 53).  The symbolic nature of music technologies can be seen recording software interfaces as well.  In Macintosh’s Garageband 2009 there is an interface that allows a musician or producer view analog guitar affects pedals.  The affects are not authenticity analog, for the sounds are digital reproductions, however the symbolic use of the analog pedal can understood to be a cultural maker of a perceived musical authenticity and identity.  Thus, even when the practical use of a music technology seems to be gone, an ideological mindset that values the symbolic use of an analog pedal presents itself.  One’s musical ideology as it is defined by their practices and behaviors of consumption, production, and distribution in the music industry, will always shape and in many instances confine, the ways in which one understands musical authentic practices.  Understanding how the forum one uses to communicate with others, establishes distinct ways of comprehending meaning, is key to addressing the cultural impacts of the historical changes in common music technological practice.

Places or scenes for the interaction of music consumers that further complicate the dominant ideological musical mindsets include face-to-face live music scenes as well as virtual scenes on the Internet.  The forum that it used in public interaction has a considerable impact on the development of culture.  In the article Internet-based Virtual Music Scenes: The Case of P2 in Alt. Country Music by Steve S. Lee and Richard A. Peterson, they articulate this: “Local scenes serve as places where musicians, singers, and DJs can learn their craft and directly see the reactions of fans to their performances…[where] virtual scenes…focused on fans’ reactions to the music and not on creating and experiencing the music itself ” (Lee 201).  This touches on the differences between the intentions of communication in virtual and geographically local music scenes.  Thus, the way in which information is exchanged shapes the understanding of the information’s purpose.  Now, the question I wish to explore is this: if music, in both virtual and geographically local spaces, is a unique method of communal interaction, then how do advancing music technologies impact these music-based communities?

To address this question in a functional way technology must be defined in broad terms.  As Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Concordia University in Montréal, Paul Théberge writes, “technology must be understood as a kind of discourse” (Théberge 11).  With the discourse of novel advancements in music production, consumption, and distribution comes new tools for creative expression for musicians, music producers, and consumers.  The expressions of consumers include the club culture that Sarah Thornton writes about, and the Virtual Internet scenes that Steve S. Lee and Richard A. Peterson speak of.

The technological tools that people, namely musicians utilize to express themselves continue to change.  Thus, the expressions of musicians have always been subject to the technologies of music production, consumption, and distribution of their time.  These technologies include but certainly are not limited to contemporary technologies such as MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) recording, MP3s, and the Internet.  The various culturally accepted applications of music technologies such as these, inevitably define the boundaries or limitations of authentic musical practice.

Music producers have seen a transformation from craftsmen to artist due to the changes in music production technology.  As Edward R. Kealy states in his article From Craft To Art: “The results of such a transformation show up primarily in two ways: (1) a change in the aesthetic conventions for judging the crafted objects from utilitarian to expressive and (2) a change in the status of the works—from technical to artistic” (Kealy 207-208).  The two results of this transformation above address a change in music production culture do to changes in music production technology.  The heightened use of Multi-track recording in contemporary music production has given more creative opportunities to music producers.

Bands such as Radiohead and the Beatles have benefited considerably from the rise of multitrack recording and the transformation of music producers from craftsmen to artists.  In the book Repeated Takes by Michael Chanan, he states: “Sgt. Pepper could not have been created without a four-track tape recorder, but the Beatles were not the first popular recording artists to use these techniques, which had already cropped up on so-called novelty numbers during the 1950s.  More importantly, they shared the credit for these albums with George Martin, marking in the process the emergence of a new kind of popular record producer” (Chanan 143). The using of a four-track tape recorder in the Beatles’ case was not the first use.  However I would argue that it was one of the first authentically inspired uses, the novelty uses of the 1950s that Chanan speaks of seem to be strictly commodities.  This could be evidence to suggest that the development of multi-track recording may have faced a dominant ideology of musical practice that frowned on the new music production practices.  An ideological shift in musical understanding was required to cope with the new music technology.

As time has progressed, the uses of some music technologies have been established as common practice.  In the past, both sheet music and vinyl records have been music technologies that were utilized to distribute music to consumer markets.  ‘Tin Pan Alley’ is a term attributed to a street in New York where many music publishers produced music for consumers.  In the Chapter ‘Polyhymnia Patent’ of the book Repeated Takes Michael Chanan writes that “This new breed of publishers [in Tin Pan Alley], many of them songwriters themselves, proceeded to develop new formulae to govern the production of songs expressly designed for commercial exploitation” (Chanan 44).  The notion that a ‘new breed’ of people published music at this time helps to illuminate how using different music technologies facilitate the development of new cultures of music producers and consumers.  Music technologies then greatly aid in the definition of their counterparts: the musicians, producers, and consumer markets.

Media technologies have an immense impact on how individuals attribute meaning to musical practices.  With consistent changes in media technology comes an equally consistent change in understanding the relationship between humans and their music.  Developments in media technology have changed the distribution, consumption, and production of music.  A prime example of this change has occurred in the Television Industry.  Andrew Goodwin, in his writing Fatal Distractions: MTV Meets Postmodern Theory, states that “In its first decade MTV has thus moved from an almost exclusive focus upon the promotion of specific areas of pop music (New Pop, heavy metal) to a role as an all-encompassing mediator of rock culture—a televisual Rolling Stone (or Q magazine)” (Goodwin 54).

The comparison between MTV and music-based magazines help us understand how these media technologies are related.  Each has distinct methods to convey meaning to their audiences.  Written word uses italicizing, and bolding, where television has its own set of resources with visuals choreographed to sound.  The differences in these methods have equal differences in how the information is understood.  Reading a book is different than watching a film.  Listening to a Record is different than listening to an MP3.  Most media technologies have considerable similarities in narrative, which include notions of irony, climax, and mood, but all have consistently divergent reactions in the populations that consume them.  These reactions, when established as common and acceptable, define the dominant ways in which people produce and consume music.  Thus, advancements in music technologies have a remarkable influence on the common conceptions of authentic ways to consume and produce music.

The Culprits of Copyright

In recent years there has been an explosion in the debate about copyright laws, but most of this has centered around the punishment (and impunity) of illegal downloaders, but there has been little discussion until recently that questions the laws themselves. It’s obvious that the current laws surrounding music copyrights do not match the values of the average American music-enthusiast. This not only includes consumers, but also some artists. There are two main sides to the debate: those who would like to keep copyright laws in their current restrictive state to ensure that they can still make money and protect what is perceived as their “property”, and those who feel that the current copyright laws are overly restrictive to continue a creative art form and are creating monopolies and oligopolies in the record industry. Innovations in technology gave light to these debates, as they would not have occurred before file-sharing existed, and continually make the debates more complicated. A resolution for these two sides would include compromises on both sides, to both promote profit as well as artistic creativity.

The first need for copyright laws on recorded music was born in the early stages of music recording technology to protect artists and record companies, and to legally insure their ownership of a song and its recording in order to make profits and prevent others from using the other’s work for their own benefit. This was able to benefit the music industry as it allowed it to grow and develop a stronger infrastructure and develop newer and better technologies with its profit. Copyrights became a bigger issue when technology was developed that allowed everyday music consumers to recreate music-mediums like the tape cassette and the compact disk. People began to question whether it broke copyright to back-up collections or to create multiple copies for personal use. This was not the only use of this technology, however, as many people also burned copies for friends as versions of “mixed-tapes”. Then, for the first time, music had the ability to be easily replicated and spread throughout networks of people without paying money to the musician or the record company. More complications were created with the personal computer, the internet, and the invention of peer-to-peer file-sharing technology. Music enthusiasts could now connect with people all over the world that they have not met (and probably never will) to exchange music, completely free of cost. The ease of transferring files currently has made internet piracy an extremely widespread phenomenon, especially among youth, and a prominent issue in national and international news outlets.

There are other forms of breaking current copyright laws than file-sharing that are also due to innovations in technology.  For example, DJing, turn-tabling, and sampling are all new art forms that complicate the copyright laws. In most cases, these use only short clips of songs for new creations. Typically, this is allowed so long as a compulsory license is bought, which is expensive. This means that access to another’s work is limited to those who already have enough money, which is a clear limitation on creativity and access into the music industry. Musicians have begun stepping around these copyrights and creating music using clips of copyrighted music. One of the best known current examples of this is the musician known as Girl Talk. His music consists almost exclusively of samples of well-known artists and their songs, mashed-up together to create a completely new and innovative composition. This complicates ideas of ownership and rights because it is his own new and original song and form of musical expression, but he uses exact replicas of other people’s work to build his own outside of copyright.

There are two main sides of the debate on copyright laws: the protectors and the liberators, as I will label them. The protectors are those who are interested in keeping restrictive copy right laws in order to ensure that they will continue to profit off of songs, recordings of songs, and the distribution of songs. Their argument is that music piracy through file-sharing and illegal sampling is preventing money from going where it is due. Most of those on this side tend to be affiliated with the record companies and artists interested in securing the most amount of profit possible. The liberators are those who believe that the copyright laws are too restrictive and are hurting cultural advancements and creativity by selfishly creating monopolies and oligopolies within the music industry.

Looking at these different arguments raised some questions for me. If so many people are downloading music for free, how are bands still making money? Are there ways for artists who cannot perform their music live to make money? Does sampling, DJing, and turn-tabling really steal ideas to such an extent that bands lose potential money, or does it promote bands and act as a compliment to use samples of their music for a new creation? For me, the music industry does not seem to be suffering due to the new avenues around copyrights, but rather changing or shifting. It may take some time for the industry to accommodate these new changes and begin to feel comfortable again, but it is certain that some solution needs to be found to reconcile the gap between policy and the direction of the people who keep the industry alive through innovation and support.

There are a few possible solutions that could help this evolution of the music industry that would involve a bit of compromise on both sides. Recently there has been an influx in the amount of musicians producing their own albums and recording on their own, bypassing record companies completely. This could come from hopes to gain success in the underground scene, or because the band already has had enough success that they no longer need recording companies for financing and connections. Breaking up record companies into smaller, less centralized companies that would still be able to fund projects would help to eliminate some of the oligopoly that they have been creating over the past couple years. No longer, would the four huge record companies own the vast majority of records. Through this, record companies would be able to become involved in the blossoming scenes that are quickly growing outside the traditional areas that record companies are currently dominating.

Another idea could be to change copyright laws for sampling to be more flexible and interactive. For example, if an artist like Girl Talk would like to use samples from another artist’s work, he could simply ask permission (probably in written form) and then credit the material. The original artist would not be losing money, even potential money. People wanting to listen to Metallica wouldn’t turn to a mash-up to hear their music; they would search for the original. On the other hand, if they were heard in a mash-up and the listener liked the music a lot, there is a good possibility the demand for the original Metallica music would increase. Sampling is not so much stealing as it is using artistic citations that, in the same way as in writing, act as a compliment and verification to the original author. I feel that more people should be honored that their music is enjoyed enough to be used in a mash-up, which could increase their popularity.

One idea that has already been implemented by Radiohead that was very intriguing to me was to offer albums online in downloadable format, and to allow the consumer to name a price. This way, consumers still get the satisfaction of having music immediately, paying what we think it is worth, and the band has the opportunity to make money (especially for those whose music isn’t performable in live settings).

In the end, the debate comes down to a music industry that is not in equilibrium. It’s shifting from its base but the people in power are resisting this change because they are too worried that they will stop being able to make money in these new directions. What they fail to realize is that they must ride the wave if they don’t want to be left behind. It’s already gained too much momentum to be stopped, and it’s already been shown that it is impossible to prosecute every case of copyright infringement. If they fail to find innovative ways to stay alive in a changing environment, they may soon find themselves obsolete. So why are they stubbornly insisting on implementing these failing regulations? They might be the only ones truly preventing their own profit.

The Computer- The New Guitar.

La Gioconda, La Joconde, or Mona Lisa as more commonly referred to is one of the most famous pieces of art in the world. Painted by Leonardo da Vinci in the 16^th Century it was appraised in 1962 for 100 million dollars. With inflation, to date, the Mona Lisa could speculatively be worth an estimated 700 million dollars. Da Vinci’s art has casted a shadow the depth of the greatest sea to the point where the famous painting of Lisa del Giocondo is undoubtedly priceless. The creativity of Leonardo da Vinci has been displayed on canvas for the past 500 years and although its existence has been replicated, distributed, and purchased around the globe, the existing work still holds ownership to the creative mind of the man who conceived the one-of-a-kind masterpiece.

While Da Vinci was working on his most famous piece of art, Nicolas Gombert was working on Magnificant 1, and later, Giovanni Gabrieli would begin work on his instrumental and vocal arrangements that would account to the musical world of renaissance as what the Mona Lisa contributed to the world of art history. Leopold Stokowski, who would not be acknowledged until the mid 1900′s, once explained, “A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.” The creative minds that illicit these wonder pieces of art, both artistically and musically, pour forth so much of themselves into their work, it can only be right to conclude they are owned by their creators.

Jumping forward to the turn of 2010 it would be an act of musical and artistic ‘mutiny’ for me to paint an exact replica of La Gioconda and rename it Noma Lisa. The obvious recreation of Leonardo da Vinci’s work would be frowned upon and relinquished from the eyes of artists everywhere. Yet, as artists around the globe are using unseen technologies that seem to sprout from the ground, musicians are taking other artist’s work and reshaping them to create new ideas, form different perspectives, and evoke capital gain from a booming market economy. Since the very first phonographic recording, the standards of music replication have grown in enormous ways. The phonograph, to the gramophone. RCA Victor’s introduction of the 45 to the development of multi-track tape recording. The stereo tape was introduced only to be sold out by the increased demand of the compact disc. And today, the compact disc has been outsold by the digital scene and the expansion of the mP3. These technologies have unleashed a mecca of global capital revolving around the production, the consumption and the distribution of all things music. The following is a critique of how the use of computers and as other technologies advanced, the communication between who owns the rights to these artistic works, what we, as consumers, can do with them, how new emerging artists have shown their stuff and have been challenged and altered to fit the growing industry of music.

The music industry is a fascinating form of capital gain. Music is the one ‘object’ that no one can touch or hold. The things that we use to create music are easily accessible, and the discs, computers, and objects that we store them on are also just a store away. But music is something that is used, heard, felt, and expressed around the globe in every country, on every continent, in every culture. In American culture, we have the means of purchasing music in a variety of ways: LP’s, Compact Discs, mP3′s, etc. And with the ability to consume such a vast supply of merchandise has influenced the need to possess more and more of the things we love. With the increased demand for music collections and addictions, and with the recent expansion of faster web browsing the consumer and producer have been introduced to a whole new world of how this musical trade work.

With a work of physical art, such as the Mona Lisa, it would be very hard to fly into Paris, France and walk into the Louvre expected to leave undetected with Da Vinci’s work. The physical element of the art form is the representation of its value. How do we determine what exactly to establish as this element with the musical representations of mP3′s, file sharing of music, and the home multiplication of Cd’s? Because of the recent boom in consumer demand for more and more music, there has been an increase in the demand for cheaper product, and what is cheaper than free? As this demand has increased, and as the technology of computers, Internet, and computer-to-computer communication caught up with consumer need, the development of music sharing and ‘stealing’ has emerged onto the table of record companies and music consumers. The war between music ‘pirates’ and the record industry began.

With the recent technology and introduction of the mP3 and other computer based file formats people began sharing their music collections with other computers that were linked to the same system. Doesn’t seem too harmless. Come to find out, this is stealing because the users were forgoing paying the royalties of the owners of the song. But where is it, the song? Are the royalties entitled to the screen that shows that the file was just sent, or the 2-Dimensional desktop folder labeled “Music”? Because of the complicated nature of what music is in a realistic form, the controversy over who owns the rights to this information is a complicated one. As one user purchases a Cd, they paid for the royalties of the artist, and it is their right to upload the music onto their computer to enhance their listening pleasure. The complication comes in, when the invisible Cd that is posted on the person’s computer is set up so that someone from another computer can upload the album. The person uploading does not pay royalties and is thus, stealing music from the artist. This has been introduced to the music scene for several reasons: computers have become an in-home essential, Internet speed has developed to well beyond the original 1.5megabytes/second, more user-friendly web browsing, and consumer development of peer-to-peer file sharing. Both commercial developments and consumer resources have aided in the influence of these technologies. And with them, came the complications that have been examined regarding copyright infringements and royalty laws.

In the previous paragraph, I introduce the complicated nature of who owns the rights to a musical creation, it seems simple in the forms of a work of art, but what if someone chooses to use a previously piece of art to create a new one? As well as the technological advancements of computers and server space that has enhanced the ways in which music has recently been produced, circulated, absorbed, and created, new and improved digital sampling innovations have paved a road for taking previous works of music to mix, mash, and create new pieces of music that evoke new emotions and feelings. These new technologies have created new forms of music. The life of Girl Talk, The Hood Internet, and Ratatat are just a few examples of musicians that have erupted and emerged out of this new found interest and technology enhanced art form. They have directly taken slices of other musician’s pieces and reshaped them into new works of art. These musicians have exposed a multiple of problems and interests in the expansion of music.

For the record companies and the owners of these pieces of music, the artists that create these mash-ups are criminals of infringement because they take works of art that are not theirs and make them their own. Software downloads such as Garage Band and MixCraft have ushered the means for these artiss to use computer interfaces to create music. Musicians such as Girl Talk have run into the problem using software similar to Garage Band because the music in their mash-ups are other works of art. And although they do not account that the individual tracks are their own works, the creations as a whole are. But, if someone who is sitting at home listening to a peer shared file of a song must pay licensing fees for each and every song they listen to, then in the record companies eyes, so should artists that use these bits of music in their own works because even if the artist paid for the samples they use in their songs, they are profiting and taking away from the potential income of the labels that distribute these albums.

The counter, are the mash-up artists, their record labels, the consumers, and even the artists of the original works. The creative minds that chop, mix, and alter music to form new ideas appeal to a whole spectrum of music lovers everywhere. They bring to the industry a whole new genre of art which can be contributed to the advances in the software and computers used to produce and distribute music. Because of ever popularity of this new genre record labels have been reshaped and formed specifically for these new age artists. And as consumers continue to dive into these new albums they get the chance to hear bits and samples from different artists, with the possibility of hearing a whole variety of different and new artists they previously were unexposed to. The record companies continue to argue and fight that mash-up artists are stealing and re-distributing other artist’s works, but in theory they broaden the spectrum of where and how music lovers can hear and get to know other musician’s music.

To recap, as music has been incorporated into American and world cultures, musicians everywhere have continually added to the vast amounts of inspirational art for listening pleasure. As music became more and more appealing to the everyday listener, advancements to computers, Internet, and music related software have drawn the listener to the position of the artist. With this, has come a lot of responsibility and the recent dispute between listeners, artists, and record producers over issues of copyright and legal infringements. Whether placement of correct judgment is placed on side of the record companies or mash-up artists and world listeners, for all sides of the music addiction, innovations in computer and software technology has changed the course of how music is composed, produced and distributed among the world.

And remember… It always happens first on records.

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Music, for centuries, had been a phenomenon that occurred live, and therefore had to have someone to play it.  During the Renaissance, Cosimo de Medici couldn’t just plug in his stereo and rock out to some lute, but instead had to pay, or enslave, someone to play the lute for him in his court.  Up until the dawn of recorded music, music existing as a live phenomenon was an integral part in many societies, at least those that valued music.  In the early twentieth century with the rise of recording studios, this all changed.  The music was now being produced, meaning there was someone with an intention to market the music, to turn it into a commodity, therefore commoditizing something that had previously been an ethereal and intangible concept.  In commoditizing music, the industry changed the concept and what music would mean to people for the entire world.  The production of music, as a means of making money, made tangible an intangible concept, which can be foreseen to cause a lot of problems.

In the beginning, the craft union mode of recording, artists were brought into the studio by early producers to get their sound, if it was good enough and would be well enough liked, on record and put it out to the public.  Whether on radio or on record, music was now more accessible to an increasingly greater number of people.  It leaped into the spot where performance had once sat, that of pacifying and entertaining people, and though performances still were held many people just as well would buy the record or listen to the radio to get their music fix.  The craft union mode of recording, in which the artists were still beginning to understand the studio and basically just playing live, was a very basic method and did not utilize much of the capability of the studio.  It did, however, also allow for a change in the style of music, with the microphone allowing people who couldn’t belt it out like an opera singer to “croon.”  This crooning increased the audience that the music reached, as it was a more appealing and gentler sound which at the time appealed more to women than some dude singing until his diaphragm caused an earthquake.  The ability of the recording studio to capture a live performance and relay it to a greater number of people was crucial in the early music industry’s success, and allowed for the further extension of the scope of the studio.

In the entrepreneurial mode of recording, people began to experiment more with the capabilities of a recording studio.  The rise of magnetic tape recording in 1949 was very significant, as it provided a higher fidelity recording as well as allowing for editing and easier recording.  Artists like Les Paul were pioneers in the studio, over tracking guitars and speeding something up or slowing it down to give it a different quality or sound.  Les Paul was extremely important in this phase of recording because he showed a glimpse of the power of the studio, the fact that you could manipulate sound and recorded music in a way never thought possible before.  This experimentation was a natural consequence of musicians having time and wanting to find a cool sound, of which Les most definitely did.  The Beatles early recordings also fall under this category, with experimentation beginning in albums like Rubber Soul and Revolver.  The songs on these albums were increasingly complex and utilized the editing capability, as well as magnetic tapes ability to record many more separate distinct tracks than earlier recording technologies.  It allowed for music to not be recorded live, but rather pieced together bit by bit inside of the studio.  Songs like “Tomorrow Never Knows” show an increasing mastery of the studio, with instrumentation like the use of the sitar complicating notions of Western music.  The Beatles work on these albums was wildly influential, and led to further development of the studio.

In the art mode of record production, the studio became an instrument.  With Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Beatles entered an entirely new realm of recorded music.  It was a concept album, and the complexity of the recordings on it, though drawing heavily from the Beach Boy’s Pet Sounds, took popular music to an entirely new and unheard of level.  The end of “A Day in the Life” is one of the most haunting bits of music I have ever heard, and signifies the sheer power of the studio.  It could create this sonic masterpiece, though dissonant, that sounded like nothing had ever sounded before.  The Beatles showed with the album and that song in particular that they weren’t fucking around, and that music production as art, with George Martin at the helm, was a serious art form.  The way the album sounds cannot be thought of as anything other than art, when one thinks of what music was around contemporaneously.  It perfectly complements and extenuates on the advancements that the Beach Boy’s made in terms of sonic quality with Pet Sounds, and firm handedly established recorded music as an art form.  Bands like Steely Dan would go on to become wizards of the studio, creating a sound so perfect and crisp that one can hardly believe how good it sounds.  Others like Brian Eno and David Byrne would use the studio as an instrument in a new way, sampling and creating sonically dense and strange compositions that challenged concepts of the studio, much further than the beginning of the art mode.  This would in turn lead to the digital revolution in recording, and to the industry of sampling and utilizing the studio to create music from music that was already in existence.  Sampling in a way allowed for the creation of musical “collages” via the capabilities inherent in the recording studio.

In terms of music’s consumption, the rise of radio and recorded music in the early twentieth century spawned an appetite for music that the recording industry would attempt, and in most ways succeed, to feed in the general public.  The accessibility of music allowed for people to develop needs for music, the need or want to hear something that got your feet moving or calmed you down after a long day of work.  The form of recorded music allowed for much greater distribution than performed music was capable of, as music and sound were incorporated into cinema as well.  This broadening of the availability of consumable music started a chain reaction that is still going today.

The consumption of music continued from the early part of the twentieth century with the rise of better forms of recorded music.  The commoditization of music inherent in the act of recording it allowed for it to be consumed in the first place, creating a monetary industry that was previously only apparent in the sale of sheet music and tickets for performances.  With the commoditization of the music, the fact that recorded music was in essence an act that was for sale to those who wanted it gave rise to the industry of widespread fandom.  With performers like Elvis, he was a hunky guy and played black people’s music, appealing to a white audience that had been hard to crack that early by many black musicians.  The consumption of popular music like that of Elvis is an example of the increased fandom, with girls going crazy for him and this new found style of Rock ‘n Roll.  Artists like Chuck Berry originated the sound, but Elvis took it to a level of consumption that would only grow larger as time would pass.  The Beatles continued this concept of fandom, but took it to a level that was in many ways unbelievable.  The pandemonium that those 4 charming British boys were able to cause was so intense that they had to retire from playing live shows and being in public because they were beginning to have hearing problems from all of the screaming girls.  My mom saw them at Olympia stadium in Detroit, was in the 4^th row and couldn’t hear a single thing because their equipment wasn’t loud enough to drown out an audience full of screaming girls.  The sheer pandemonium able to be caused by consumable music is a tribute to the power that recorded music can have on people.

In terms of distribution, recorded music created the ability of widespread distribution.  Early recording media wasn’t very good, but the dawn of vinyl albums spawned an industry that would grow exponentially across the globe.  While I was writing the earlier part of this entry, I went to put on the King Crimson album Red, and in pulling out the album I found something very interesting.  On the paper sleeve is a list of reasons “how records give you more of what you want:

1. They’re your best entertainment buy. Records give you the top quality for less money than any other recorded form.
2. They allow selectivity of songs and tracks.  With records it’s easy to pick out the songs you want to play, or to play a particular song or side.
3. They’re convenient and easy to handle.  With the long-playing record you get what you want to hear, when you want to hear it.
4. They’re attractive, informative and easy to store.  Record albums are never out of place.  Because of the aesthetic appeal of the jacket design, they’re beautifully at home in any living room or library.  They’ve also got important information on the backs—about the artists, about the performances or about the program.
5. They’ll give you hours of continuous and uninterrupted listening pleasure.  Just stack the up on your automatic changer and relax.
6. They’re the proven medium.  Long-playing phonograph records look the same now as when they were introduced in 1948, but there’s a world of difference.  Countless refinements and developments have been made to perfect the long-playing record’s technical excellence and insure the best in sound reproduction and quality.
7. If it’s in recorded form, you know it’ll be available on records.  Everything’s on long-playing records these days… your favorite artists, shows, comedy, movie sound tracks, concerts, drama, documented history, educational material… you name it.
8. They make a great gift because everybody you know loves music.  And everyone owns a phonograph because it’s the musical instrument everyone knows how to play.

And remember… It always happens first on records.”

This insert could not say any more about the importance and place of records in promoting and enabling the widespread distribution of recorded music, which from the abilities of the record as a force of commoditization would continue to occur through the media of CD’s, and ultimately lead to the digitization of music, turning the music that once needed media to be heard and reproduced into a stream of 1’s and 0’s, therefore dematerializing it, though CD’s are still sold, into a state where it is easily transferable and therefore less able to be regulated.  The distribution of music today still works in the same ways as before, but is a much more difficult industry because of illegal downloading.  If only it still “always [happened] first on records.”

What could be so dangerous about a series of 1′s and 0′s?

What does it mean to own a piece of music?  To have composed one?  Wherein lies the need for copyright, and under which circumstances is originality really original?  Music, since the early 20^th century, has encountered problems when it comes to all of these four concepts.  The social and material culture in which we live allows for capitalism, which in turn complicates creative and musical, in this case, endeavors.  In making money on recorded music, you are selling a concrete incarnation of an ephemeral thing:  live or studio music.  This progression from the industry of sheet music complicated a great deal, making it difficult for those who owned rights, those who played the music, and those who composed it to decide who deserved the money and where it actually went.  The same complications have arose and are still pertinent in the late 20^th to 21^st century.  Music, in its current state, is an extremely commercialized industry, owing to its status of a need for a great deal of the planet.  People need music, want music, and can now with technology get the music for free.  Even though they can get it free, the ethical question of whether that is just can not be ignored.  In the same way as the people who relied on their compositions to make money in the early 21^st century, artists today rely on making money on their music.  It is, in some cases, easier if a band are a bunch of ass holes but make good music, but when you think of lesser known bands who aren’t making that much money, you can’t not feel bad about stealing their livelihood.

With the development of internet technology and peer to peer networks, the illegal trade of music downloading spawned in the late 20^th century and persists today, with great numbers of people downloading the music instead of going to a record store or buying the files online.  While this is a dream for those who don’t want to spend the money on music, it is essence the same problem that occurred with the sheet music industry and the rise of recorded music.  Recording technology took away the need for someone to play the music, therefore taking away the need for the sheet music.  Those new fangled contraptions (gramophones) took away the market for written music, though with the dawn of recorded music came the eventual stiffing of the musicians themselves, as those who produced it and or owned the rights claimed that by contract the recording was theirs, as they paid for the session and brought the musicians in.

Today, illegal downloading allows people to get whatever they want whenever they want it.  In the same way that musicians weren’t paid fairly for their playing, the illegal transfer of copyrighted music is taking away music that could be going to the artists.  Another ethical conflict arises though, in the fact that recording companies still make money from the music, in some cases still stiffing the performers of just money which forces them to tour extensively instead of producing more music so that they can make a living.  Still, some of the money from the recorded music does go to the artist.  If you like an artist, why would you want to rip them off?  Sure albums are expensive, but it takes a lot of effort and money to make an album.  Don’t you think that the artists time and hard work is worth 8 dollars on amazon.com?  As a college student, I can understand the need for thrift, but I have a hard time, being a musician, in stealing another musicians music.  Copyrights, protections for creative material, are in place for a reason:  they allow money to be made from creative material.  Without copyrights, everything would be in the common vocabulary and there would not be so much of an industry around music as an amalgamation of whatever everyone has created all stewed into one giant remix soup, which sounds cool but would disallow the way that music has and continues to function: based on the artist.  When you listen to a band, you develop a relationship with the music, you can relate to it.  It is these relationships with music that draw us back in and keep us listening to the same artists, which would not be possible if it weren’t for copyrights.  They protect the artists, and though they end up giving money to the big bad record companies, they make sure that your favorite band can keep being your favorite band.  It has been this way for a long time, and while I myself dislike the practices of record companies past and present, they are the reason that the music was so widely distributed to begin with in the first place.  I find myself wondering, then, in turn if the record companies are at fault for creating too large of an industry that theft of music was so easy and accessible, rather than keeping a tighter control on the music.  I don’t know if that would have been possible, but the real wrench that went into the mix is the internet.  The incredible connectivity provided by the internet has allowed for the capability to transfer huge amounts of data anywhere around the world, which had never been possible before.  In converting music to a sequence of 1’s and 0’s, the recording industry set themselves up for a fall.  The digital nature of music today makes it much less concrete than in the past, when it had to be on vinyl or tape or CD.  But the mere fact that it can exist as an electrical pulse makes it impossible to control.  The early record producers and music industry moguls are probably rolling in their graves the way that music is transmitted and stolen today.  In the same way that recorded music made music transferable via a medium, vinyl or tape or CD, music becoming a series of 1’s and 0’s has taken it to another level.  It can go anywhere, undisturbed by environmental factors, and as a stream of data it cannot be broken but rather sent anywhere in the world at the click of a mouse.

Cultures must define law, not the reverse!

Vincent Sawaya

December 15, 2009

Professor Scales: final part one

How do we understand the use of Copyright in a contemporary perspective?

In order to have a constructive discussion about the tensions between the current ‘remix culture’ and Copyright law, one must understand as Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Concordia University in Montréal, Paul Théberge writes, “technology must be understood as a kind of discourse” (Théberge 11).  This concept of technology as discourse is an essential mechanism to effectively observe the creation of a contemporary group of peoples’ culture.  The interaction of people through the dialogue of discourse is where vital conceptions of culture, authenticity, and identity begin to develop.  The movement of information establishes methods of interaction.  This is media. Written language can be understood as a media technology that establishes  unique methods to exchange ideas; visual edits, italics, bolding words, CAPITALIZING, are all ways to linguistically interact with people in writing.  Now more than ever, with the advent of the chief of all media technologies: the Internet, and novel music production tools such as digital sampling and sequencing, new ways to use music in creative dialogue with people are readily implemented.

In the use of the recent advances in media and music production technology, original ways to perform ones’ authentic musical identity are executed.  These customs include but are not limited to hip-hop, and remix culture.  Artists such as Girltalk and the Beastie Boys’ Mix Master Mike, readily employ music technologies such as digital music production software (examples include Audacity and Garageband) and turntables, to express their creative identities.  Past musicians and artists did this as well.  Only then they used the modes of expression of their time.  In the Renaissance it was the lute.  Now it is a computer.  It is Important to note that relatively recently corporations have been attempting to control the use of technology as an instrument.

Through cultural discourse and dialogue, despite legal definitions of appropriate usage, a culture will unavoidably define the limitations or boundaries of use for all technological tools it has excess to.  From multi-track recording to digital sampling and sequencing recognizable sections popular songs, artists will (and do) continue to utilize technological tools in the expression of their creative identities.  It is then the chore (although I view it as more of a privilege and responsibility) of ethnomusicologists, and music producers and consumers, to come up with creative and constructive ways to make use of the consistently developing music technologies of our time.  Thus the main argument of this blog entry manifests: a democratic cultural consensus should define the usage of Law, including Copyright.  Although a lot of intellectual people need to heavily weigh in on this consensus, and this may be difficult, it nevertheless needs to be done.

Take the prohibition of alcohol in 1920s America as a prime example of a cultural definition of use that disregards the legal perspective.  Cultures will always exchange ideas on the usage of common practices.  It was common for people to drink alcohol, just as it is common for people to illegally download music online.  When things such as these become illegal the dialogue merely shifted forums.  Underground speakeasies were developed for the distribution of alcohol.  If technology is truly understood as a kind of discourse, then with the outlaw of common practices, these exchanges of ideas on the Internet will simply move to a virtual speakeasy.  We call them torrents.  Thus, the culture will always define the use value for tools of expression, Regardless of the legal perspectives.

Culture is never stagnant, so why should law be unchanging.  The problem is that legal definitions do change, just only to benefit the people that have economic and political influence.  In Wired Sound and Sonic Cultures by Paul D. Greene, he writes, “Music technology has tended to bring about a blurring (in the sense of a loss of distinction) of the spheres of music production and consumption” (Greene 6).  This is one of the key issues that must be addressed when arguing about an appropriate application of Copyright law.  Copyright write must serve the ever-changing cultural contexts that music is produced, disseminated, and consumed within.  Personal Computers have saw to the democratization of music production and consumption.  Any individual who has access to a modern computer can simultaneously be a music producer and consumer.

Likewise, the Internet has brought much of the information of the world to ones’ fingertips.  Right now, I can buy almost any type of music online.  Right now, I can buy a professional music-recording program online.  The democratization of these operations is evident in the Internet.  Thus, the loss of distinction that Greene speaks of above continues to complicate the approaches that individuals use to understand the concepts of musical authorship, and ownership.  This should not discourage people from understanding creative works in an authorship/ownership perspective.  It should only serve as a method of awareness.  Encouraging people to make inquires such as: where is this popular culture coming from, what were its’ intentions, and how will I respond to it?  Reactions that should support the usage of music technology in ways that redefine the dominant cultural understanding of music authorship and ownership, just as mash up artists do.

Due to these cultural redefinitions of developments and usage in music technology, these technologies and their applications have more often times that not been meet with tension (or even opposition) to an established cultural aesthetic of music.  In the article Making Beats by Joseph G. Schloss, he states, “The history of hip-hop sampling, like the history of most musical forms, is a story of dialectical influence.  Innovations are accepted only if they conform to a preexisting aesthetic, but once accepted, they subtly change it” (Schloss 42).  This quotation aids in the understanding of how a given subculture, in this case the hip-hop subculture, and their musical practices become accepted as authentic techniques to communicate ones’ identity.  But this leaves the question, how can one justify ‘remix culture’ and still keep the notion of Copyright intact and functional?

Copyright is considered a bundle of rights.  It consists of the right to control the copying of a work, the right to make adaptations of a work, and the right to issue copies of a work to the public.  A compulsory license then makes up of these next two sections, which are: the right to perform a work in public, and the right to broadcast or send transmissions of a work.  These latter aspects of Copyright are used to force the holder of it to grant the use of the work to others.  The former aspects are sections of Copyright that were originally aimed at encouraging the production of creative works, providing some what exclusive rights to the creators of the content, so that they may be able to make a living off their works.  Thus nurturing more works to be created.

The problem that producers of creative content face now is that Copyright law has been changed by corporate America.  Where the limit of Copyright used to be 14 years until the work would fall back into the public domain, corporate authorship is now 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier.  This is crazy.

Here is why.  The United States’ Constitution expresses Copyright as such: “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”  The key words are ‘limited Times’.  We must limit the control of corporations, not extend them to nearly a century of control.  Monetary compensation for creative works should not be the only way to reward someone for their ideas.  But it is.  A problem we face in the United States is that we have no standardized way to address the value of works in non-economic terms.  As of now the record industry focus on making money.  Money is very important.  Money makes the world go round, right?  To some extent yes, but it is more important to be aware of what one produces to be consumed.  Money does not have this awareness.

If money talks, people listen.  If youth culture talks, dominant culture turns a blind eye.  This needs to change.  This is how: culture uses dialogue to establish authentic ways to use music technology.  Copyright needs to reflect the dominant conception of musical authenticity, what ever that may be.  Copy right is necessary, just as regulations on alcohol consumption are necessary.  Legislators in both instances just need to understand that culturally established relationships are implemented  before legal relationships are considered.

Culture and Copyright may both be consciously guided to establish conceptions of creativity in progressive ways.  These progressive conceptions should be defined by the amount of happiness they produce.  Our job as privileged Americans is to increase the happiness of the world.  Conceptualizing progress in only economic terms will not be enough to meet the many challenges of the world.  Cultures will use the tools they are able to get a hold of in ways to entertain and spread the happiness of the largest demographic possible, despite the boundaries of legality.

Due to this, Copyright law must be tailored to fit the way in which people consume and produce music; it is as simple as that.  If Copyright Law does not serve the majority of people who use and produce music then whom does it serve? It now serves the corporations.  This is not bad, but it must be limited.  How this will be limited is up to our Congress, and that my friends is a whole other mess.



Remix Culture

Ester Dyson once said “I think copyright is moral, proper. I think a creator has the right to control the disposition of his or her works – I actually believe that the financial issue is less important than the integrity of the work, the attribution, that kind of stuff” Emerging technologies have complicated ideas about music ownership, the legal dimensions of music copyright, ideas about composition, and emerging practices of “remix culture”. Copy right issues have gone on before music issues were created with other forms of art such as books and plays. Copyright issues are forever evolving and they will continue to change in the future.

By definition copyright is “a form of intellectual property that gives the author of an original work exclusive right for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation, after which time the work is said to enter the public domain (wikipedia)” What this means is that the artist of a particular work gives part of its ownership to someone else to promote it. Many artists and people in the business get very caught up in this idea and sometimes it brings down the integrity of the music itself.

As of recent, a new form of music has emerged in popular culture known as remixing. This is when a DJ, will talk many songs and combine them making one into one super song.  An artist who has really paved the ay in doing this is a man who goes by the name of “Girl Talk’”. Along with paving the way for a new music genre Girl Talk is also paving that way for copyright laws. When asked in a formal interview “Do you think your success as an artist is going to have any effect on copyright and sampling laws?” Girl Talk responded with “I don’t know, I think it may have already. I haven’t been sued, which I think speaks volumes because of how far reaching the last album was. The album was talked about in Congress during a trial on internet law. Anyone who could have potentially sued me has probably heard it and they’ve been open to it.” This shows that the original artist are open to the idea of having their music for remixes. People are ignoring the laws and technicalities, in order to allow some one new to explore.  Girl Talk also stated “Night Ripper [one of his albums] is a piece of music that most people have treated as an original album. Everyone from Rolling Stone to blogs review it like an album, as opposed to a DJ mix or something” He could not do what he did, if copyright law was enforced “It’s an album composed of all samples, and if I was trying to clear all the samples and pay royalties to everyone, it would be impossible.” In the genre of remixing, the actual original songs are the instruments, not tradition instruments. Girl Talk argues that all music is technically remixed “First of all, the people playing these instruments didn’t invent them. Second of all, the cord progressions, note systems, and way they tune their instruments are all defined by someone else. Even their styles are influenced by someone else.” So by his logic, every song ever created should have copy right issues.

With the ever growing Internet, songs are likely to be mashed up whether artists like it or not. The outcome is better if the artist and the record companies just endorse the mash up industry. With websites such and Youtube and Myspace, and programs such as GarageBand and Audacity people are going to just create and distribute whatever they want anyways and it will be impossible to track down each individual.

Historically speaking, this idea translates very well to literature.  Not all passages, ideas and concepts are constantly sited. It would be impossible. Words are not all the different then pieces of songs. If authors were all paranoid about using pieces or words or ideas from other peoples work then we would never get anymore material. In some respects, we have to allow borrowing in order to obtain growth.

In conclusion, B.B King once said “I don’t think anybody steals anything; all of us borrow”. I think that if people were to be less strict about copyright laws we could see a lot more musical development and growth, within and industry that is likely to do it anyway. As Ester said, its not about the legal process of getting to the art, it’s about the art.

Napster: The Pavement.

In 1988 the commercial steps towards investing the world wide web into the private sector of homes across the world began. The innovations to the computer and the USSR’s launching of Sputnik, as well as the creation of ARPA (Advanced Research Project Agency) established the foundation for what would lead to the mecca of home entertainment, communication, and desktop resources. The original 1.5 megabyte/second speed of the first Internet browser was followed by the creation of e-mail, on-line encyclopedias, an endless supply of fun websites, and file sharing. As the kinks began to be worked out of the Internet production line, and users began increasing as computers were found in more and more homes, the age of instant communication began. Not only communication of words, photos, and templates, but now, of music. In 1999-2000 Shawn Flanning and Sean Parker created a user-friendly interface so WWW users could share music and skip the option of paying for their favorite artist’s album. The rise of Napster and its popularity has led to many disputes between the new distribution and the ownership rights and royalties of the record companies and the artists themselves.

The speed at which the Internet was now able to comfortably communicate with other computers and servers reached an ideal point as Napster logged its peak of members with almost 26.5 million users around the globe. As quickly as the world wide web had been established, it had become a house hold commodity. And as the amount of Napster users continued to rise, the amount of records being sold was also said to be decreasing. This Internet sensation was putting a hold on the record industry in many ways. Users of this music sensation that were able to get their hands on their favorite artist’s album and were able to share it with other users before the album was even out. A major downturn for the record companies because the release date for albums is an important distribution strategy in order to capitalize on the highs and lows of the market. Napster’s influence on pre-releasing records by artists with big names, such as Metallica, Madonna, and Dr. Dre placed a dent in the sales of their early 2000 recordings. As Napster had reached its all time high, it was about to reach a crashing low.

The mecca that was Napster was now engulfed in lawsuits from the multi-million dollar record companies for infringing copyright, contributory of infringement, and vicarious infringement of copyright. Napster was at fault for not paying royalties for all the songs that had traveled through their servers. As Napster began the court process, its users were booted from the addiction of music collection. And when there was to be no more headphone wearing cat, its users fled to the next server down the world wide web. Napster lost on all three legal conflicts and was forced to relinquish everything to bankruptcy and/or another company. It has been almost eight years since the illegal version of Napster was available to its users, but yet this controversy continues. The record companies are continuing to eliminate as many of these file sharing societies as possible, while users continue bouncing around the web looking for the next big thing to be hidden from legal view. As more and more people have been scared out of illegally downloading mP3′s from peer-2-peer sharing, torrent reactors, and digital sample downloading, more and more legal, pay-to-listen servers have grown. The record companies have begun capitalizing on the Internet sensation that is music downloading. But as each existing website gets shut down, it seems like it is only a matter of time, merely seconds, before a new and improved version has been altered and modified to suit the users needs. The technology that has been neatly gifted to its consumers, is home to an unlimited amount of ideas to continue the illegal process.

So if big name artists and record companies are upset as we, the previous purchasers of records now Internet felons, continue to illegally download music in an age of web space, how will there ever reach a conclusion? In my eyes, the concept of illegally downloading music is like speeding while driving down your favorite scenic road. The signs are everywhere of what happens when you break the law: speed limit signs, caution signs, and news reports of accidents. Even though the most people who own a vehicle are aware of these risks they take when they drive, they continue to speed and break the law. Because of concerned policy makers, law enforcement is increased and patrol the area. But even then, the driver continues to elude the directions to stop speeding by purchasing radar detectors. And thus, people continue to speed.

The record companies are never going to stop competing with the addicted music lovers, and we are never going to stop downloading music. Until the next innovation in the distribution of record producing hits the mainstream music society by storm the chase will always continue. And as those who continue to speed may get caught, there are always going to be a surplus of people that never will. I do not admit that it is not illegal to download music through miscellaneous websites throughout the world wide web, I just have come to the realization that there will always be someone doing it and that no matter how much is poured into the want to ‘deconstruct’ these social networks, as long as the need is there, the supply will continue. There never will be a mutual understanding between those that produce and distribute music and those who consume it. Napster paved the road for the access of music to people around the globe. Albums are a commodity that come with a price and for music to be shared and enjoyed and distributed to a larger fan base, resources such as Napster need to continue.

the final journey. or blog.

Benjamin Disraeli once said “Were it not for music, we might in these days say, the Beautiful is dead.” And that much we know is true. People love music, they always have and they always will. Whether it is a one-man sting band deep in Appalachia or downloading the new Radiohead album in to an Ipod, the one thing that remains consistent is that it is something people want to hear. What differs is the way they choose to seek it out. Throughout history, this has evolved as technologies and music have grown and changed. Music related technologies have affected the historical development of music in terms of production, consumption and distribution. Technologies such as records, the radio, CDs, Ipods and the Internet have shaped the way we hear and experience music. Not only has the way we heard it been changed, so has the way it is produced, throughout the passed century issues such as record labels, copyrights and the “remix” culture have been introduced. While the passion for music is still there, many things revolving around it have changed.

The record, or the phonograph, was an innovative invention. Created by Thomas Edison, it was the first time people could listen to music that wasn’t being played live. People could enjoy music over and over, and listen to it well doing other daily tasks. It became a more regular part of people lives. But with this invention, musical artist shad to change the way they operated. The violinist Itzhak Perlman once said “people only half listen to you when you play—the other half is watching” and now that watching was no longer available the music had to be perfected. Artist’s also had do get used to the idea of repeatability. The performances were now being judged over and over again rather then just once. “For listeners, repetition raises expectations. This is true in live performance; once we’ve heard Beethoven’s Fifth in concert, we assume it will start with the same famous four notes the next time we hear it. But with recordings, we can also come to expect features that are unique to a particular performance—that a certain note will be out of tune, say. With sufficient repetition, listeners may normalize interpretive features of a performance or even mistakes, regarding them as integral not only to the performance but to the music.” (Katz). This also changed the way artists developed musical styles. “Repeatability has also affected musicians in their capacity as listeners.” From this, artists where able to hear themselves and others and learn and grow and develop new styles. Without the development of the record, music would not have appropriated as fast and we wouldn’t not have genres such and rhythm and blue or even rock and roll. Performances also had to be shortened to fit on the vinyl record. Many adjustments were made to make records and useable and convenient part of our society.

Along with the invention of the record came the invention of the record label. By definition a record label is “a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion, and enforcement of copyright protection of sound recordings and music videos; conducts talent scouting and development of new artists and maintains contracts with recording artists and their managers.” What this means, is that rather then just producing and sharing music. Artists now have managers telling them what to do and how to do it. And in return they get a cut of the profits. What seemed so simple had become a very complicated process.

The radio was invented by Thomas Edison in the late 1800’s and was first used for military purposes. On Christmas Eve, 1906 first radio program broadcast, from Ocean Bluff-Brant Rock, Massachusetts was heard. Ships at sea heard a broadcast that included a playing of “O Holy Night” on the violin and a passage being read from the bible. For the first time ever in history, people could hear music together that wasn’t being played live, unlike records it was at the same time. And they could hear it all over the country. Radio could bring people together like never seen before. It was revolutionary. It was that radio, along with records, that allowed for nation wide stars to be made. It was the beginning.

The CD player was a transition between the radio and today technologi3w. The Walkman led into the Discman, which revolutionized personal music players. CD’s how ever and really just smaller more portable albums and more user friendly then cassestes. While CD’s them selves were not very revolutionary they were smaller and more functional and portable. They led us into great things.

The Ipod did a lot of things; including get Steve Jobs his job back at Apple. “Ipods have won several awards ranging from engineering excellence, to most innovative audio product, to fourth best computer product of 2006. Ipods often receive favorable reviews; scoring on looks, clean design, and ease of use” (wikipedia). Some might say the Ipod is they invention of the millennium thus far. With it came the idea of portable anything, but mostly music. When the Ipod came out things changed even more. No longer did people have to lug around cases beyond cases of CDs, now they could just carry millions of megabytes of music in their pockets. The Ipod was a second coming for Steve Jobs and for the music industry. People could now just buy songs rather then full albums, which affected music sales greatly. An issue that came up before but never has been as prevalent since the coming of the Ipod, is social unavailability. Since music invokes such nostalgia within people this capability is extremely comforting and appealing. It’s understandable why people feel a desire to surround themselves with the familiar, but is it leading to a society of isolated beings? The Ipod gives people something to while they are walking, reading, or eating. While that is useful it also hinders possible social interaction. Krystal a second year student at the University of California, Berkeley says “There are numerous positive effects of iPods on both individuals and society as a whole. Not only do they fill the ears of listeners with music that makes them happy, iPods also maintain personal space, encourage self-expression, and strengthen community”. Itunes it self is now a multi million dollar corporation and is far exceeding the sales of any record store. Ipods, whether they have helped or hindered, have certainly changed the course of the music industry.

The Internet also changed the course of music, if possible the most out of anything. Music is now more or less free. You can get songs off of YouTube, download them illegally or listen to your Pandora station. People still purchase music, but it is not as necessary. Music communities are more accessible and it is easier to learn more about music making people want to acquire more whether it be legally or not. With the Internet is also easier to ride up as an artist. The term “youtube star” has helped many into musical careers. Myspace and Purevolume also provide places for up and coming artists to get their music out. People can use computers and the Internet to create and listen to remix’s. No longer are instruments the soul source of music creation. Now you can use computers to syndicate and recreate musical sounds and enhance them. This of course creates issues with copyright and ownership of music. On a whole the Internet has enhanced the musical world for the listeners but not necessarily the artist.

In conclusion, technology has shaped music all throughout time and it is very likely that it will continue too.

History of Technology and Music

The history of music is intertwined with the technology of the time. Each new technology somehow enhanced music and changed the way that people interacted with the music. The road that music had to follow in order to get to today was a long one. Even today, music is constantly evolving with the new technologies and the people who use that technology in creative ways.

Before the phonograph was invented, music was only heard live. There was no way to record sound and thus, music belonged only to the artists who had live shows. People had a connection to the artist and the artist’s music through watching the expression during live performances. Music was never for personal use and was not heard daily.

Once the phonograph was invented, there was a drastic change in music. People could now record the sounds and play them back, even if it was imperfect. The artists had to learn how to optimize the performance of the phonograph in order to get the most preferred sound played back. This brought about new techniques used to make music and also allowed a more personal use of music for the general public. “Even when recordings aren’t winging their way across continents, they can move easily within our daily lives, detaching music from its traditional times, venues, and rituals” (Katz 16). Now people could buy albums and hear their favorite songs while making breakfast. This was also the first time that people could hold music in their hands. No one would ever thought that you could hold something that could play your favorite songs back to you in your own hands. This was a big step for music.

However the phonograph also changed the way music was made. Not only did the musicians have to learn new techniques in order to preserve sound quality, they also had a limited time for each song. While they could split songs amongst many tracks, many performers chose to conform their music to this limit. “Practically speaking, however, the time limitation encouraged performers to record shorter pieces. …It was not long before the time limitation affected not only what musicians recorded but also what they performed in public” (Katz 33). It was obvious that the new technology drastically changed they way that artists made their music.

Another change for music that came with the phonograph was the issue of repeatability. When artists play their music live, no two performances will be exactly the same. While they will play the same songs, the notes that are played may be slightly different. A note may be out of tune, or in a slightly different place. Or the dynamics of a song may differ. However, when the song is recorded, that recording will always be the same. The song will never change in any way. “With sufficient repetition, listeners may normalize interpretive features of a performance or even mistakes, regarding them as integral not only to the performance but to the music” (Katz 25). This difference causes expectations from the listeners. When they have been listening to the recording they will assume that the live performances should sound exactly the same. This affects the way that people listen to music and how they expect certain songs to sound like.

Once the radio was invented, personal use of music was even more prevalent. People could now listen to music wherever they wanted. Radios became a part of many homes in America it drastically changed the way music was marketed ad they way people listened to music.

People started trying to find uses for the radio in everyday life. They started coming up with ideas that would be of use in the military, on boats, soothing animals or children, and allowing the women of the home to listen to their favorite programs. Businesses would also start to use radios as a way to attract customers. This would provide the customers with a more comfortable feeling.

Another aspect of the personal was that there could be multiple radios in a household and the multiple channels allowed people to listen to what they wanted easily. This created more personalized music. People began to have favorite stations or types of music that they enjoyed listening to and would use the radio in order to listen to that music. Artists would use the radio to become more intimate with the listeners by using the new technique of “crooning.” “Whereas the other styles…were clearly intended for listening in public spaces, with the singers singing as loudly and/or as penetratingly as possible, crooning was just the opposite – it was as if the singer was singing only to you in your home, through the miracle of radio” (Taylor). This was different from the phonograph, in that the phonograph was not used in these intimate spaces and did not allow for the listener to fantasize about the song.  The “crooning” of the radio allowed it to enter the private lives of the listeners, while the phonograph was geared more towards the public space.

However, it took a long time for the radio to benefit the musicians. For a long time the radios would play the music and the musicians would not get any money for it. “For most musicians in the United States considering their jobs, it was difficult to say which was the greater evil: radio, records – or the film industry.” (Chanan 83). Eventually, through boycotts and bans, the artists were able to get the royalties that they deserved from the major music companies.

Eventually they recording studio became an extremely important tool for both musicians and record labels. This brought on a lot more creativity and also brought in questions of authenticity. The recording studio allowed artists to use samples and cut and edit their own music in order to create a whole new art piece. Music began to be written for recording and not for live performance. A lot of music during this time would not have been able to be played the exact same live. It is meant for the record and the radio. “…as if the studio had become a huge musical instrument at the producer’s disposal” (Chanan 144). The studio required more than just the musicians. Now in order to produce a successful album using the studio, the musicians required a producer to direct the musicians and engineers to work the equipment.

Of course with all the people who were now involved with the making of music, problems in ownership and authorship arose. “As musicians, engineers and producers became ever more involved in different facets of the recording process, two things happened: authorship became diffused, and uncertainty in the relations of production led to power struggles for aesthetic control of the finished product…” (Chanan 145). The recording studio was the main thing that sent this long debated problem in motion.

The recording studios also gave rise to the debate about authenticity. Many of the songs recorded in the studio could not be preformed live and thus were not considered by some to be authentic. Others looked at them as a different kind of artistry. They considered the studio to be an instrument in itself.

Then comes the issue of remixing and hip-hop music. These artists would take beats from songs and dub over it. This caused problems with musicians and was even banned for a time by Jamaican radio. “This is not just a new kind of sound or even a new musical style, but a transformation of music, in which the ‘misuse’ of music becomes a new norm” (Chanan 150). While this makes the creation of music a little more accessible, it brings the debate about ownership to the forefront.

Another technology that drastically changed how music is distributed and viewed by the public is the Internet. One of the greatest changes that the Internet has made is the easy access to music. With the Internet, people can easily share music with each other with no cost. The music companies were completely unprepared for the wave of file sharing and put bans on it. Instead they put up sites where you can download music for a small fee. However, this did not stop people from committing piracy and downloading the music for free.

Music is viewed by most people as tracks. It is simple to have music libraries of over 5,000 songs. This also brought about the creation of playlists, which allowed people to organize their libraries in genres or whatever order they would like to listen to their music. This gives a whole new experience to the listener. Not only can they listen to it at home, but MP3 players allow people to have portable music libraries, where you can listen to music wherever you are. Like the first recordings, it has the issue of repeatability that will never be present in live shows. It also makes recording and mixing much easier. Any person with a will to do so could make music right in their own home, with the most basic set of skills.

Music and technology will forever affect one another. Music will evolve with technologies and technologies will be invented with the purpose of making music even more accessible and easy to create. Technology is constantly evolving and it has been going at an increasingly fast pace. Whenever these new technologies come forth, they seek to enhance the creation and the enjoyment of music. Just how they will change the music industry, no one can predict.

Ownership and Technology

Technology and music have always affected one another and changed they way that music is thought of and they way that music is received by the public. Especially in recent years, technology has become more personal and has allowed the ordinary person to better express and share their creativity. It has also allowed people to get their hands on music with little effort and sometimes without compensation. These technologies have redefined authorship, ownership, originality, and they are also trying to redefine copyright.

The issues with copyright and authorship have always been an issue when new technologies have surfaced. Once bands were able to record their music and mix it in the studio, many things changed. In order to record their music, musicians had to rely on others to produce their music. “As musicians, engineers and producers become ever more involved in different facets of the recording process, two things happened: authorship became diffused, and uncertainty in the relations of production led to power struggles for aesthetic control of the finished product…” (Chanan 145).  Authorship of music was not so simple anymore. The band members were not the only creators of a certain piece of music, authorship now had to take into account the producers and the engineers. While the public might not have considered them the true artists of the piece, they were still a part of the process and thus deserved compensation and the rights to authorship. However, this amount in which the producer was considered an author also differed in what type of music was being created. “In popular music the producer, whatever he did, clearly held the secret of success; in classical music the aim was the transparent rendition of a natural musical object,” (Chanan 146). Authorship and the amount that each “author” is entitled to the ownership of a musical piece has always been a debated issue. The ability to record and mix music was the start of a different way of defining ownership and with the increase of new technologies the debate still continues today.

With the rise of the Internet, authorship has become even more fluid. For one thing, an artist can completely pass up a producer by simply posting their music online. These artists usually don’t get any money for what they are doing, but the music is their own. They are the only authors of it and once they get known on the Internet, they can start charging for albums. In this way, they can bypass the need for producers and engineers. “Creativity thus is expressed and made public in a range of forms that both underpin, support and disseminate the original performance-through live music events; service and outreach workshops and programs; the creation of CDs, DVDs, and videos; graffiti/aerosol artwork; clothing; equipment (such as skateboards); IT and website design, creation and maintenance: (Bloustein 203). Also, with the new technology, they can make great music without have any other members in some sort of ensemble. With all the recording and mixing techniques, a single person can make a complete song that will sound like a full orchestra playing. He is the one and only owner of these songs.

However, these artists also tend to do covers of popular tunes. By doing this, the artist is no longer the sole owner of the song. These are tracks that he cannot make any money off of without dealing with copyright. Thus, in these cases, who actually owns those tracks become more difficult.

Things get even more confusing, with some of the more creative online videos. Some videos, such as the Playing for Change videos that we saw take a song that was created by an artist and has many different people from many different places around the world contribute into this cover of this famous song. While, the original artist of the song may own the song itself, the actual art piece that is the video, is owned at least by the producers, the many different people in the video, and the engineers. Legally the songs that they use are copyrighted, so they the owner of the song is the original artist, culturally the video seems to be owned by whoever shot and edited the video together. Thus, ownership of the video itself is difficult to place.

Originality is something completely different. It is an opinion of the public and it only matters in a legal standpoint when you think about marketing the piece as original. However, this does not mean that the topic of originality is unimportant. On the contrary, originality is something that many people will look for. Music that is simply a copy will be looked down upon.

Technology has had a large impact on originality. Just like when recording and mixing allowed artists to think about new ways to make music, the internet has allowed normal people to make original pieces of art. This may take the form of a video such as the ones that Play for Change made, or it may have other different forms. The Internet allows for endless possibilities when it comes to creating an original piece of work. Thus, when someone fails to create anything original, they will be looked down upon by whatever Internet community they are a part of. In order for artists to get their name out through the Internet, they must have some sort of originality to their work. If they succeed in having this originality, then they will become popular through their fans and can start selling their product.

In this way, they can escape the ties of production companies and everything that they made will be their own as long as it doesn’t infringe on copyright. This seems to be the easiest way to deal with the issues of ownership and copyright. However, it is difficult to resolve the issues dealing with copyright and ownership, especially where fans are involved. There doesn’t seem to be a way to resolve these issues where everyone would be happy. The Internet allows for the creation and sharing of music without the help of record labels and distributors. While the artist may be able to make some money by selling their works through the Internet, they will never make they same amount as if they had the help of record labels. The users, however, will get the music any way they can with the least amount of effort. Thus, if they can download it off the Internet they will. Buying CD’s seems to be something of the past, when it is much easier to have something online and then transfer it to an MP3 player. Thus, there doesn’t seem to be a way to solve things equitably. Someone is going to have to lose out in the end, whether it is the record labels or the fans. With the fluid definitions of ownership and the easy access of the product as a consequence of the Internet, piracy will continue until the legal laws about music change to suit the needs of the fans.