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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.

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