Sheet Music to Napster: Music Distribution Tech 97
I'm going to focus on distribution technology, and by "distribution," I mean everything between the artist and my ear. The company that puts CDs on the shelf at Best Buy is an important part, but I'm looking at the whole journey: from the moment the song is done to the moment it's heard (including, notably, audio reproduction).
There have been many examinations of how technology has affected the creative process, from Bach's popularization of the well-tempered scale (exchanging a small harmonic sweetness for huge harmonic flexibility) to Les Paul's electric guitar pickup. But I want to look at how music spreads after its creation.
And of course the whole point of this is to build up to tomorrow's discussion of Napster and peer-to-peer digital music trading in general. Stay tuned :)
My utopian/dystopian personal vision of the not-so-distant future is of two kids on the playground at recess, MP3 players built into wristwatches, trading the latest cool songs via geosynchronous satellite. There are a thousand reasons that might never happen, but technology is not one of them. The tech to make that happen will exist in my lifetime. The questions are whether the law, and the economic structure it creates, will allow it, and also whether our musical culture evolves to the point where such trading is desirable or even relevant.
Let's start off with a cursory look at the last 200 years, and then pick a few examples to check out in more detail. So what was the American music scene like in the 1800s?
Two words for the century's prevailing trend: women, and keyboards. Imported pianos were coming into the States in the years after the Revolutionary War, and in the decades to follow, the pianomaking industry moved onto American soil. One Frenchman wrote in 1788 of the growing American love affair with pianos, "God grant that the Bostonian women may never, like those of France, acquire the malady of perfection in this art! It is never attained but at the expense of the domestic virtues." (Loesser 445; see end for bibliography.)
Not much changed over the next century. Skill at the piano became entrenched as a domestic virtue of its own. By 1820 the music-news periodical Euterpeiad was founded, with its supplementary sheet music being almost entirely for the piano -- and when circulation began to fail it appealed more directly to its target audience by adding the subtitle "Ladies' Gazette" and adding essays like "Scheme for Getting a Husband" and "An Illustrious Female." (467)
The tone of early American composition was set by precisely this fact: that the piano was an instrument played by genteel young girls, who of course were always in search of a husband, and later by proper fiancées, wives, homemakers, mothers -- all the delightful niches that women of the time were expected to fill.
Typical early American compositions intended for the home player were devotional ("Nothing True But Heaven," "Arrayed in Clouds," "Home of My Soul," "Last Hope"), languid and emotional ("The Dying Poet"), puppy-lovey ("Youth, Love and Folly Polka"), and always, always the sentimental ("The Maiden's Prayer"). "Death and religion were frequently the subjects." (468, 500, 505, 506, 544)
In fact, the sappy sentimentalism of the songs crammed down the pianists' throats is almost impossible to overstate. "In ladies' mythology, poets are sweet, gentle creatures -- a little like children or possibly canary birds -- and it is delightfully heart-rending to think of them dying."
The tragic death of the innocent was a daily occurence; Loesser is too funny not to quote in full:
"An average song of the period began by extolling the beloved creature in the first verse, then killing him or her ruthlessly by unspecified disease in the second or third. Sometimes the last stanza was a graveside lament...
"To be so full of feeling that you lose control of yourself, that you tremble or weep or faint or drop dead, was wonderful, was a blessing, a thing to live for, to boast about, to pretend to. Now, nothing is an easier incentive to strong feeling than death, especially the premature death of a loved person. Thus, the cheapest way for an author to arouse 'feeling' was to kill off a child or sweetheart." (499)
Nothing like that ever happens in modern pop music, of course.
"By the middle of the nineteenth century," writes Loesser (419), "the piano infatuation had passed its peak" in Europe, but certainly not in the States. Was it universal? No, only perhaps "eight percent of the nation's youth" (540) played the piano, but this was by far the most common way that popular music spread. Its popularity continued well into the 20th century.
That is the key here -- popular music, music of the people, most of whom did not bother to attend concerts. The CD player of the 1800s was the piano, its CDs were sheet music mailed directly to the home, and its sound system was the mother's or daughter's fingers. That latter fact, that the "digital" reproduction was almost exclusively through female digits, stamped much of an entire century of American pop music with an impossibly sentimental, shallow, sticky, and often maudlin character.
(I hope I don't have to point out that this was surely no fault of the women in question; society crams people into roles and demands that they perform.)
But by the end of the century, for the first time in the history of humanity it was possible to reproduce music without a human being. First came the player piano (which had actually been invented over 50 years before, but never perfected). At the same time came a rapid succession of technologies which could (poorly) reproduce any sound. The CD was no longer sheet music which had to be interpreted; the CD had become the player piano roll and the phonograph record.
As before, reproduction tech influenced the character of the music. Could a player piano reproduce a slow, soft Beethoven movement? It could try, but because the paper rolls allowed for no dynamic subtlety, every key would have been banged out exactly as loud as the next. If anyone tried selling a Beethoven piano roll, they lost their shirts -- evolution in action.
Instead what we got was ragtime -- fast and raucous, danceable, driven by rhythm. Perfect for mechanical reproduction on an out-of-tune upright. The player piano grew in popular from 1905 to 1925, when it reached the pinnacle and, over the next decade, died off.
The early disks brought in their own genre, too. For a brief period in the first decade of the 20th century, opera staged a comeback -- because without electrical microphones, there was almost no other type of music which could be recorded well. In 1902:
"[Italian tenor Enrico Caruso's] voice was perfectly suited to the talking machine; it emerged from the horn with such clarity and power that it seemed to fill the room with music. Unlike sopranos and bass voices, the full range of the tenor fell within the narrow band of sound frequencies picked up by the recording horn...
"Caruso recorded ten songs for his $400. ... As his son recalled later, the sale of records made a small fortune for his father (about $5 million)..." (Millard, 59-60)
But the big change in musical genre came with an even bigger musical reproduction technology, one that slammed into the American consciousness right on the heels of World War One: radio.
The medium of radio was formed (like the internet, but more directly) through the intervention of the government. It's a complex story, but here's the short reason why radio took off so quickly:
"There were too many small companies competing with one another. Experienced businessmen like Edison saw no commercial future in the technology. For once, Eldridge Johnson of Victor agreed with him: 'The radio industry is going to be fighting over patents for years. We are not going to put out a radio.'
"Nobody could have expected the intervention of the United States government, which stepped into the business in the aftermath of World War I and negotiated a peace treaty. The formation of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in 1919 pooled the important patents, which were largely in the hands of General Electric, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), and Westinghouse..." (137)
The consolidation of technology created an open standard, and radio took off like no technology before it. In three years the country went from almost no broadcast stations to 200, and 700,000 receivers, and its growth continued to accelerate.
The history of American music in the 1920s is the history of black music coming into the mainstream. Until and through the war, white America's perception of blacks in music was limited to atrocious songs supposedly representing black culture, typically by white performers (who didn't need the blackface to make records, only an exaggerated accent). Typical humorous songs were "I'd Rather Be a ****** Than a Poor White Man" and "No Coons Can Come Too Black for Me." (98) Some black artists participated in making these, and less offensive, records (but of course got no royalties; Scott Joplin died poor). But mostly, the black America that was sold to white America was a sick parody, performed by and enriching white singers and musicians.
All that began to change in the years 1920-25, and in my opinion, the real success story of radio is this, its role in jazz, the first original American art form.
Erik Barnouw describes the effect of the radio -- a distribution channel which gave away music for free, remind you of anything? -- on the record industry:
"Within months of the start of the broadcasting boom, the bottom dropped out of the phonograph business..."
(Don't worry, there's a happy ending -- apparently the record industry managed to struggle through somehow.)
"...But 'race' records held their own. Millions of people were turning to the radio music box, but evidently the buyers of 'race' records were scarce among them." (129)
Either that, or the radio was stimulating sales of real(ish) black music at the same time it crushed other genres. Were black Americans the only consumers of black music? Not for long. The alternative to radio's "potted palm" music (Muzak) lay in artists like Paul Whiteman, a white man who crowned himself the "king of jazz" and brought black music to white audiences:
"Paul Whiteman was winning wide bookings and beginning to make a fortune, and others followed; now and then they were heard on the air. The radio audience would begin slowly to become familiar with this music, especially through late-evening broadcasts from night clubs. The infiltration was progressing. In due time, in the wake of their music, Negroes would follow.
"But not yet. In 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, the potted palm ruled supreme." (131)
Here is the key -- and it's something I haven't seen written about. This may be an original theory or it may be completely obvious to everyone else. Radio, by allowing for the first time anonymous distribution of music, crossed color lines. The racist pre-war record companies refused to allow black musicians to sell an honest version of their music. But once that music was on the radio, in the palatable and infectious style brought by Bessie Smith and Earl Hines, even if the intended audience was black, any white listener could tune it in, in the privacy of their home.
Few respectable white people would have the courage to flout public opinion by walking across the tracks to a black record store. But black music was, quite simply, better than the sentimental crap being pushed on white America. And it was the distribution medium, radio, that smashed the color barrier. Over the course of just half a decade, it was the distribution that raised an entire genre of music from absolute obscurity in America to the country's, even the world's, hot new style.
That's my theory. I freely admit I don't have a lot to back it up. If you have a lead on something to help prove or disprove it, please let me know.
Radio and records remained the twin music distribution technologies for half the century. Improved recording tech -- the electrical microphone in the 1920s, ever-more-sensitive mikes and higher-fidelity phonographs, longer-playing records -- made the crooners and the harmonically complex jazz possible. Big bands ruled until Les Paul made it possible for four teenagers with part-time jobs to make the same "bigness" of sound as thirty professional musicians. The in-car radio took music out of the living room and with it some of the forced aura of serious listening.
The latest refinements in distribution tech -- the reproduction portion of the chain -- include the cheap subwoofer, which for the first time make it possible for music with phat bass to be properly heard (by yourself and all your neighbors). And we all know about Napster, Gnutella, and the plain old FTP site, whose effects on musical genre are yet to be felt. More on that tomorrow.
But for a last example of distribution tech, I've got to mention a little-known technology invasion, one described in Peter Manuel's book Cassette Culture: Popular Music and Technology in North India.
Until 1978, protectionist economic policies kept India from absorbing many of the gadgets the West took for granted, including the cassette tape. Once imports were opened up and the middle class began to grow:
"The real cassette boom has happened mostly since 1984 or '85... because the costs of these raw materials has become dirt cheap." (62)
The dominant musical culture into which cassettes were suddenly introduced was that of film music...
"...which has been generated by a handful of corporate cinema directors and superimposed on a mass listening audience. And it is precisely this aspect of Indian popular music that has changed so dramatically with the advent of cassettes, which has allowed diverse smaller producers to usurp the dominance formerly enjoyed by multinationals... and the corporate film industry." (14)
And the result?
"The homogeneity of Indian film music is most evident in the uniform vocal style, as perpetuated by ... especially by Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar. Lata, as claimed, may indeed have sung in eighteen different languages, but she cannot really be said to have sung in more than one style. ... a film-music critic could recently write, 'Today it is difficult to imagine a female voice that is not Lata Mangeshkar's'" (52-53)
Once again, when a new distribution medium is suddenly introduced to an entrenched system, the short-term effect is lost sales, but the long-term effect is the opposite:
"Piracy has been the nemesis of the cassette industry from its inception. Indeed, the same factor that fueled the advent of cassettes -- particularly, the ease of duplication -- have ... bled many legitimate producers to bankruptcy." (78)
"...cassettes led Hindi film music to suffer an even greater proportionate decline in India, while its sales expanded in real terms due to the growth of the market as a whole." (32)
The song form of the ghazal is described as "an Urdu poetic form sung in light-classical style." The distinction between the film ghazal which was popular through the 1970s and the modern ghazal which began to replace it is the subject of much of Manuel's book. And he notes that the technology is responsible for not only that musical form's transformation, but its eventual replacement:
"'Pop' Goes the Ghazal
"The modern ghazal, as we have seen, has emerged and, to some extent, was deliberately created by the cassette industry in order to appeal to a large sector of the pan-regional, Hindi-speaking North Indian bourgeoisie." (96)
"The extent to which the ghazal vogue has been declining since the mid-1980s reflects less a shrinking of its potential or real audience than the emergence of rival cassette-based musical genres." (103)
And what has been the overall effect of small-time musicians and producers, using an easily-copyable medium, usurping the dominance of the corporate film industry?
Answers vary depending on musical form. Parody, for example, has become very popular, assisted by Indian copyright law which is much more tolerant than the U.S.
For religious music, the answer is mixed: devotional cassettes have led to a decline in live performances and "depersonalization." On the other hand,
"Cassettes have become the first and in many cases the only mass medium to represent the extraordinary diversity and richness of India's myriad forms of local religious song and discourse." (129)
But if we look specifically at the growth of "regional music" -- or what I usually hear called "local artists"...
"Cassettes have also greatly diversified and increased the number of performing artists." (157)
Good changes or bad changes, it's indisputable that the introduction of a redistributable music technology dramatically changed the North Indian music scene in just a few years.
I'm going to propose something radical. I'm going to claim that the current system of pop music, funded by centralized capital which loses money on 100 bands to make it all back on one megahit, distributed through relatively closed channels, promoted mainly through essentially-free mass-market play on commercial monopoly airwaves, and fueled by the dollars of 10-to-24 year-olds' disposable income, colors our popular music just as much and just as fundamentally as the social structure of the female pianist colored the pop of the 19th century.
Not only am I unsure of what changes are coming down the road, I don't think I dare predict whether they're going to be changes for the better or worse. But whatever happens over the next decade or two -- unless Microsoft succeeds in converting the Turing machines on our desktops into rented Play-Skool gadgets -- peer-to-peer music trading, legal or otherwise, is going to shake things up big-time.
Those kids on the playground at recess, decades from now -- what kind of music will they have available to trade? If there are no major labels to underwrite recording and promotion costs, will there be any more big, slick, impressive bands touring nationwide? Or will acoustic folk make a comeback? Will local bands be all there is? Will big expensive stadium rock be underwritten by beer and cigarette companies? By Citicorp?
Will the Street Performer Protocol be the only way for the Backstreet Boys' next incarnation to make any money? ("Give us $50,000,000 and we'll release our next album." "Can I pay you not to release it?")
If there's less money in the system, will that mean worse music because there are fewer choices? Or better music, because the people who still do it are those who perform for the love of it?
Will production costs plummet because nobody is able to pay them without centralized capital? (Studio time is a huge cost in making an album, and it all has to be paid before release.) What will that do to production values as the price of the computer portion of studio recording goes to zero? Will pop, in a future without major labels, still be the crunchy, glitzy ear candy that it is today? Or will the glitz have to be replaced by, say, oh, I don't know, lyric, melody, and harmony?
I'd like to say I have answers to any of those questions. But we'll just have to wait and see.
Tomorrow: part three, a criticism of current peer-to-peer music trading and a humble suggestion for a grassroots open standard that could change the face of music for decades to come.
Bibliography:
Loesser, Arthur. Men, Women and Pianos: A Social History. 1954. The definitive story of the piano and its players, from 1654 to 1954. Slightly more anecdotal and entertaining than you'd expect a history book to be. Might be good beach or airplane reading if you really, really love the piano.
Millard, Andre. America on Record: A History of Recorded Sound. 1995. From wax cylinder to vinyl LP to CD. Approachable, often geekily technical, for example, giving Edison props for trying to invent a home movie machine -- a VCR, essentially.
Barlow, William. Voice Over: The Making of Black Radio. 1999. Picks up at WWI; I only read the part about the transition from records to radio and skimmed the rest, but hope to get back to it soon. For the record, Barlow disagrees with me about the role of radio in promoting black artists in the 1920s; see his pp. 22ff. But one of his footnotes led me to...
Barnouw, Erik. A Tower in Babel: A History of Broadcasting in the United States, Volume I -- to 1933. 1966. Includes a thorough look at the spread of black music pre- and post-WWI which I found enlightening.
Manuel, Peter. Cassette Culture. 1993. Cassette-tape technology only hits northern India in the 1980s, and it changes musical culture.
Technology has stifled creativity. (Score:1)
Besides, 'artists' don't even write their own songs anymore, hell, can they even write!?
The stealth horse in riaa content management (Score:1)
Explain Rap Music (Score:1)
Next time you crank up that car stereo, remember that prejudice is a learned behavior and I've learned to hate Rap Music. For me, the people that play it are not far behind.
been done, to an extent by Coil. (Score:1)
Chao
A good article, but it has one grave error (Score:1)
The sheet music you have dug up was not even intended so much for enjoyment, as it was for exhibition. In "high society," young women were expected to behave like trained poodles; the mountains of bad 19th century piano sheet music are some of the last remnants of that era (good riddance, too).
Smokie the Bear says: (Score:3)
Well done! (Score:3)
Sentimentality in early American music: Blame this on Stephen Foster. He was very literally the Michael Jackson or Disney of his day. It seems that there's always been a market for desexualized sentimentality- whether it is Stephen Foster's songs about dead lovers, Disney with its 'land of 10,000 uncles' (and NO direct sexual relationships or families with actual children- Huey Dewey and Louie did not arise from a duck f**king a duck, but sprang from Walt's forehead, and their biological parents are NEVER to be referred to), or Michael Jackson's songs of mistrust and betrayal (see 'Billie Jean'), it's as if direct sexual relationships are 'too hot to handle' for the pop market. Dead lovers are 'safe', rejection and lamenting is 'safe', blocking out the whole area of family and relationships is 'safe' and so Pop has always tended to reward artists who had a need to repress themselves. (Michael Jackson is, or was, a Jehovah's Witness- this colors his work in pervasive ways).
So when you say "Nothing like that ever happens in modern pop music, of course" you couldn't be more wrong! The theme of loss or failure to keep a relationship continues right up to Britney Spears- who burst onto the scene with a song in which she apparently sings from the perspective of a girl in love with her abuser! Hit me baby one more time... but... trust me... (and you can tell that no, this is a vain hope- but how sentimental to have such a hope, and to be faithful to one who doesn't deserve that faith...)
As for black music supplanting 'potted palm' music, this is to some extent simply a matter of the narrowing of pop, very similar to what's happening today. When you can _only_ hear 'potted palm' music, anything else becomes more desirable. The restricting of choice lays the seeds for its own rebellion. Black music became fashionable- was co-opted, assimilated into white music again (I don't mean Elvis- I mean Pat Boone singing white bread versions of Little Richard), and hit continual limits all along the way. For instance, before Michael Jackson, there was no black music on MTV. Period. It took Michael to break the color line there. Then, R&B radio began being steadily assimilated into the Top 40 format- playing more and more of a homogenous mix of black and white artists, until there was no real line between black and white anymore because it was ALL 'pop', ALL 'top 40'. The distinctiveness of black rhythm and blues had affected Pop but been assimilated into it and rendered unrecognizable.
What the future holds is best illustrated by Electronic music, but not stylistically. The consolidation of radio into a single limited stream causes pressure, a hunger for other choices and other sounds, but instead of other radio choices turning up, with the Internet the result is suddenly a capacity for virtually infinite choices.
The effect of this on Electronic (which was the first to really make heavy use of the new medium, what with computer geeks liking beepy noises and all) was a wild proliferation of genre beyond all outside comprehension. People will ask, What is drum & bass? What is detroit? What is chill-out? How does ibiza trance differ from acid trance? The distinctions are all-important to insiders but incomprehensible to outsiders. This is because the Internet allows the one monolithic stream of pop culture that was Radio, to be broken into a million tiny streams.
Radio and pop culture tries to deal with this by literally infiltrating teen culture and stealing cultural ideas- such as 'rage rock', which resulted in the manufacturing of Limp Bizkit as a mainstream pop direction. But the twist is, once a cultural niche is seized and turned into mainstream culture, it is already stagnant- Limp Bizkit ensures that rage rock is already dead to the true teen culture. It's an intrinsic failure- mainstream culture _can't_ be all things at once. It inevitably tries to consolidate, and in doing so it loses relevancy and becomes soulless product- in the sense that it doesn't represent anyone's genuine feelings or concerns or desires.
As the internet continues to affect music distribution, the most significant thing to look for is total balkanization. This is a good thing! There will never be one single culture outlet that suits everyone. But there will be a thousand different streams to choose from, all of which are a little more removed from pop culture, all of which take a bit of effort to find, but once you find them you discover a whole new world with its own rules and history and definitions for things. Little bits of the thousand streams continually bubble up into mainstream culture like Trance music being used to sell cars, but communications has finally developed to the point that there will never be a single Pop mainstream again.
It's similar to transportation- after a certain point, people just stopped growing their own food, and now they use transportation to get it (which has its own problems). We are at the point where people will stop looking for a single art and culture source, and will turn to the Internet and easily find forms of art and music that are personal to them, in great profusion. We will witness the decline and fall of Top 40- provided that we continue to bring 'the consumer' not simply repackaged free 'Top 40', but the full range of choices the Internet makes possible.
It doesn't matter if you can get Britney Spears on Napster. What matters is if you can find some sort of easily listenable music on some random web page, freely listen to it, and go and find more, when it's NOT Britney Spears. For the first time, it's more important to look at what the RIAA is _not_ selling, if you want to know where the future is heading.
The problemn with modern distribution (Score:3)
Modern music isn't an art, it's a science (and yes, I believe the two are mutually exclusive categories). Music is a product made by machines in factories. Every so often, the supervisors will check with the QA department, perform a few tweaks here and there, and run off a new batch.
The supervisors are the record companies, the machines are the [obviously horrendous but popular ] "artists", the QA department is marketing.
This is only possible due to centralization and control. It is possible to see, down to the last disc or listener, exactly what people are buying, in what quantities, what makes them make that decision, and what they like. Then they just guess what people want and make more of it. No business risks, no controversies, no experimenting, no variety, no worth.
A less formal and concrete distribution system, especially one with substantial anonymity (like Jamie's description of early radio, or P2P) is a much better medium for an art form. It prevents this reduction to formulaism and gives the artists more freedom to do what THEY want instead of trying to please someone, because the latter is now entirely out of anyone's control. If the music is good, someone will listen to it.
The technology exists, now the ball is in the audience's court. Napster and current P2P programs have done enormous damage to the potential for a system like this by gettin people hooked on free music. Any system that involves the audience paying will now be rejected, since they know they can get it for free.
There are two paths we can go to from here:
- The record companies win. Music is ever more tightly under their control. They keep on producing crap and people keep buying it. This can only go on for so long; sooner or later even the teenage airheads who listen to Britney Spears will realize that pop music has been crap for years, and stop buying it. The record companies will maintain their grip on the music production systems of the world, but with slipping sales. But there's no chance to replace them because any other system gets snapped up into the cartel and dragged down with it (I'm deliberately avoiding things like Gnutella here for the sake of argument). The music industry is over, the global distribution system breaks down. All music is now strictly local and live. Bad ending.
- Or, the audience grows some ethics and becomes willing and able to pay for what they listen to. Someone invents a system that lets people give artists money for their music, and PEOPLE ACTUALLY USE IT. The supply of new bands for the record companies dries up since there is now a better way to create art and survive with it (not that this will reduce their production, see second half of above scenario). However, this is very unlikely because, as we have seen, people are greedy bastards.
I don't use Napster because I think it is wrong. I also buy perhaps 1 CD a year, and only if I have extensively previewed it through free (legal) channels to see if it's any good.Re:Isn't it ironic (Score:1)
Come on, go ask any rock star why, as a pimply-faced teenage boy, he wanted to become a singer/guitarist...
Don't forget Fender! (Score:3)
Leo Fender played a bigger role in this than Les Paul. Fender's 1951 introduction of the Precision Bass was a landmark event. At last, you could HEAR the bass. It's first deployment was in Lionel Hampton's band, in the hands of Monk Montgomery, Wes's brother.
Revisionist (Score:1)
The real Threed's
--Threed
DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, IIRC - NT (Score:1)
The real Threed's
--Threed
It's not the quality of recording.... (Score:1)
Re:Radio != Napster (Score:3)
Not at the time they didn't. This was "within months of the start of the broadcasting boom," circa 1920 or 1921. There were no royalties being paid at the time.
In 1922 the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers began contacting radio stations and demanding royalties, under the 1909 copyright law which said they controlled the right to perform works publicly for a profit. As Barnouw writes, "Broadcasters were, at first, incredulous. Could the song writers be serious? Wasn't radio helping to popularize their music?" (p. 119) The broadcasters protested that they were not playing the music for profit, that it was an act of charity (the exact term is "eleemosynary").
In 1923 ASCAP sued WEAF in New York and in August won their case; radio stations were indeed for-profit enterprises. That sparked the creation of the National Association of Broadcasters which eventually hammered out the payment deal you allude to.
But there was no such deal in the early months; records were bought once and played on the air without royalty payment.
You need to read more and assume less :)
Jamie McCarthy
Re:Piano roll was the first? (Score:4)
OK, you got me.
The first player piano -- which was, actually, more like a piano player -- was invented in 1825 by a Mr. Courcell, who called it the "Cylindrichord." You actually wheeled it up to a piano and it hit the keys. And a pneumatic device called the "pianista" appeared at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876, too.
I didn't count them either because, well, they weren't popular.
Good call on the music box, though.
Jamie McCarthy
Re:OT:I hate extrans! (Score:2)
I guess it's a Slashcode thing.
Re:Radio != Napster (Score:1)
Note that part of the reason that radio sounds so crappy (besides the fact that the transmission medium is subject to loss through environmental factors) is that is it compressed (limited, actually) before it is transmitted in order to maximize the signal strength. For those less familiar with the terminology, compression for audio sets a threshold for loudness attempts to keep the audio signal at a consistent level - you can hear this when someone speaks over music in the middle of a song - it sounds like the volume is being changed but in actually it's an effect of the compression. Limiting is the name for the extreme form of compression used by radio stations.
Now if radio was digital instead, maybe we could actually have jazz recordings on radio that didn't lose those great dynamic qualities . . .
Re:Piano roll was the first? (Score:2)
The wax drums used by the first Edison music boxes are sure neat. Still usable today (though obviously the quality leaves much to be desired.)
Re:Radio != Napster (Score:1)
... which would make sense, because unlike recording artists, songwriters don't have to pay for studio time, "promotional expenses", music videos, etc. They don't have a huge advance to pay back before they can start making money.
Re:Radio != Napster (Score:2)
1) An artist writes, performs, and records a song.
2) The artists' record label hires an "Independent Promoter" to "convince" radio stations across the country to play the song. The "convincing" usually involves payments of several hundred to several thousand dollars per radio station per song.
3) Each newly enriched radio station "decides" to add the new song to their rotation.
3) The "Independent Promoter" bills the record label for thousands of dollars per radio station that has "decided" to play the song.
4) The Record label pays the independent promoter, and charges the expense to the artist as a "recoupable expense", meaning that the bribe comes out of the artists' royalty payments. This can easily come to $500,000 or more per song. There's a lot of radio stations to bribe, and the "independent promoters" have basically taken over the system.
5) Each time the radio station plays the song on the air, it pays a statutory royalty of 7.1 cents per composition or 1.35 cents per minute of playing time, whichever is greater.
Note the insanely low radio station statutory royalties. In other words, yes, the radio station is paying the artist -- in the same sense that a single raindrop is irrigating a field of corn.
6) The record label credits the artist with their usual percentage -- usually about 10%. Meaning that each time the record is played on the air, the artist receives approximately 7/10ths of one cent. This isn't money that goes toward the artist though. This is money that goes towards repaying the advance, including "promotional expenses -- the bribes!
The main purpose of statutory royalties for radio broadcasts is to create the illusion that the system is fair -- that "artists get paid" when their songs are played on the radio. Actually, it is the artists who pay through the teeth to get their songs on the radio.
Re:Exceptions: Player Pianos and Female Pianists (Score:2)
It is just as true today as it was then. You can make more money selling mediocre music that appeals to the lowest common denominator then you can make selling brilliant music that only appeals to or is only accessable to a small audience.
Scott Joplin wrote incredible, gorgeous music, but very few people could play his compositions. I spent the better part of two years learning a handful of his rags, and it required daily practice to play his songs perfectly. They are VERY difficult and very complex, both rhythmically and harmonically. A Joplin rag is not the sort of thing that you can fake. You can't just improvise around the melody, because his songs constantly change tempo, rhythm, and key. You can simplify them, but then they lose their beauty.
In the early 20th century, there were a handful of (white) musicians whose claim to fame was that they could play ragtime fast -- and I mean REALLY fast -- two or three times as fast as it was supposed to be performed. The result was a dumbing-down of ragtime. The complex rhythms, harmonies, and modulations were replaced by easy-to-remember key changes, and ragtime became jazz.
It should also be remembered that Scott Joplin died penniless not because his music didn't sell, but because he was defrauded by his music publisher John Stark, who made millions on Joplin's sheet music, and left Joplin to die penniless.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
some myths. (Score:3)
Yes, it takes someone with technical savvy.
Yes, it takes a computer guru and an audio guru.
but the biggest resounding yes comes from the fact that it can be done, and produce "studio quality" results. Nutral-milk hotel is a great example of a band that recorded in the garage (without technical savvy and horribly overdriven vocals... but that was the desired effect) and made it quite well (ok they aren't ACDC, but they are published and getting radio play far away from their own town)
You don't need a recording studio. You don't need to sign with a label. You can sound as good or better than the Million dollar bands (not hard actually) and best of all you don't need to sell your soul.
The current music and film industry has no power anymore.... it's just taking some time for the general public to realize it and start finding the alternatives..
BTW, I have seen better movies at film festivals over the past 2 years than hollywood has produced in 5.
You win, Troll! (Score:1)
So, trying to tell me that Nirvana was a studio creation? Are you out of your mind?
Ok, maybe you just mean that "I don't like Modern music." That's fair. But if you try to tell me that Nirvana, NWA, or Richard D James are machines in a factory, then you're either misled or misleading.
--
Re:Piano roll was the first? (Score:1)
The player piano, and later tools, could play any arbitrary music, as long as it was in the right format.
--
A small point.... (Score:3)
True enough, at first. You fail to take into account the reproducing pianos, developed shortly after 1900, which could faithfully reproduce the performance of the person cutting the roll, including dynamic and tempo variations. These rolls and pianos were remarkably faithful to the original performances (especially considering the technology used), and rolls of Rhapsody in Blue cut by George Gershwin have been used in concert as recently as the mid-1980's.
More info on these pianos can be found here [demon.co.uk].
The ethics of so-called "piracy" (Score:2)
--
Re:some myths. (Score:1)
I think Fugazi is a better example though. NPR News featured them on a Sunday afternoon a couple years back. They've recorded all of their many albums in the basement of a house, and distribute themselves.
Re:Piano roll was the first? (Score:2)
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
Re:Radical? (Score:1)
I think the words you're looking for here are: John Tesh (though Shaquille O'Neill would be a close second...)
Player pianos were better than Jamie suggests. (Score:4)
Actually, the players did have dynamic variation. As before, reproduction tech influenced the character of the music. Could a player piano reproduce a slow, soft Beethoven movement? It could try, but because the paper rolls allowed for no dynamic subtlety, every key would have been banged out exactly as loud as the next. If anyone tried selling a Beethoven piano roll, they lost their shirts -- evolution in action.
Actually, player pianos did have dynamic variation.
Originally, rolls came from player organs. These were simple to make, the air was blown at the roll, and where a hole occured, the air blew through, and into the pipes to make the sound. This mechanism was carried into the player pianos, so that the width of the hole indicated how hard the hammers should strike, while the length indicated the sustain. Here [tiac.net] is a good article on how it all works, and if you want to order some Beethoven for your player piano, here [player-care.com] are some, including the Moonlight sonata, my personal favourite Beethoven piece.
Re:Recording costs will not dissapear. (Score:1)
(WooHoo! Somebody else mentions tips!) Ahem.
I'm only a listener, and not a music professional by any stretch of the imagination, but if I were a performer getting a lot of tips (hopefully e-gold tips, for the sake of shameless plugging) and if I thought that a good deal of the quality of my listeners' experience was due to the recording-dude, I'd damn-sure share the wealth just to keep him around and happy to work with me.
JMR
Music will go on... your job may not (Score:2)
Real lovers of music recognize that many of their favorite records were made by those who continue to make music despite lack of commercial success. You may disagree, but then again, you probably like Steely Dan. None of my favorite bands now are making much money, nor are they ever likely to. It doesn't stop them.
Any musician with a good ear and enough dedication can learn to record their own music. Many do, although you dismiss them because they aren't paying your bills. That doesn't make them or their fans any less happy with the results. No doubt, really talented engineers will continue to reap big bucks, but honestly, mostly bullshit and hype and connections reap the big bucks, just like in every other profession.
But the real point is, that when the actual dollar cost of creating and distributing your music is so low, new musicians have a lot of motive to take advantage of this, even if the cost is learning to use their extremely inexpensive tools. I'll still buy their music - preferably at live performances where I know they'll get more from my purchase, and I'll probably listen to a lot for free, too. But the idea that their music will start sucking because no one will make Michael Jackson money anymore is stupid, when you look at it straight on.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
wtf? (Score:2)
I think I read something like that in RS, 20 years ago. Hell, that's been a perennial complaint of listeners for years.
The music of the future will be computer generated (Score:1)
These brain waves will generate hallucinations and strange feelings, and some will cause responses predictable to marijuana intoxication, or LSD "trips" or even Ecstacy.
Predictably, the algorithms for creating drug like hallucinations will be made illegal, and we all know how well that will work.
Eventually, we'll spend all our free time hooked up to a computer hallucinating. Can you imagine that, an entire nation spending all their waking hours on computers?
Re:Radical? (Score:2)
"local" bands (Score:1)
First point:
If by local bands you mean bands not signed to major labels, aka indie rock bands, then, since many already tour nationally, and charge less for shows, then there is no problems with the gigantic corporate rock mess. This happened in the late 70's and early 80's, punk was accepted because many people stopped wanting to pay to hear rich prog-rock bands play 3 hour long concerts in stadiums where the only seats actually sold had a crappy view of the band. Point the second:
Who owns all of the stadiums now? The Tweeter Center, the Fleet Center, all arenas are owned by huge mega-corps anyway, the combination of these owners, and TicketMaster's near Monopoly on Tickets, means that Stadium concerts cost over $50 per seat in the crap sections, where you spend most of your time staring at a concrete support.
You don't go back far enough .... (Score:2)
Our modern day concept of owned music is a result of the sheet music industry - which needed a ubiquitous instrument and players (ie the piano).
Anyway in human history owned music is a blip on the time-scale of things - maybe 150 years at most - who's to say it will stay that way for ever, the circle may well turn and popular music will be owned by the people again - it might mean that musicians may not be able to make billions (or the illusion of billions) of $$ but we might get more cool music and less manufactured crap
For money vs. love of the art (Score:2)
"... better music, because the people who still do it are those who perform for the love of it?"
As far as I know, making money and making good music are not mutually exclusive. In the same vein, artists who couldn't care less about the paycheck and just love the artistry aren't necessarily any good.
I just wanted to mention this because it frequently seems to be implicit in the argument that if one's doing it for free and the love of music, said music is going to be quality - in my experience this isn't a given.
Modern music is still changing,but how much. (Score:1)
Jazz,showed alot of harmonic complexity during its mainstream era. But, lets not forget that BigBand was more commercially played during war time (I mean Glen Miller and Count Basie)
Computers in Music? Yea its a reality. In the symphonic genere, there has been more dealings with tape. Mostly atonal and/or mixed-metered is what it has come to.
---
Adam, BM.
Re:Modern music is still changing,but how much. (Score:1)
Re:Well done! (Score:2)
erm.... sarcasm perhaps?
sheesh...
Okay, I know that I'm probably not in the majority, but these questions are all TOTAL no-brainers... If you can't tell d'n'b from detroit, or Goa from ibiza "trance" (read handbag) YOU'RE DEAF. To then actually be able to explain them in the absence of examples is probably different, but it's the same as discerning bluegrass/rnb/country/jazz or whatever....
Right, now apart from those points, good rant!
Buckets,
pompomtom
Isn't it ironic (Score:3)
Re:Radio != Napster (Score:2)
The other interesting parallel is that shortly after the advent of radio, there was the Great Depression and the record industry lost serious financial ground. There year over year profits at one point went down something like 90%, and the entire industry almost went out of business. This is typically attributed not to just the Depression, but also radio; since people had access to "free music" they stopped paying for it. It wasn't until much later, I think after WWII, that the music industry recovered. We're not in a depression now (though ex dot-commers may think so
This era in the early 30's was one of the darkest era's in recorded music history. There was a ton of good music in the early through mid/late 20's, and the late 30's, but the early 30's was a musical black hole due to the bad economy. The mid/late 70's were also bad for the same reason.
Re:some myths. (Score:3)
My favorite example of this historically is Phil Spector whose goal was to make music sound good on teenager's transitor radios - to make little jewels of pop (which was a step back from the 'hi-fi' era of the 1950's). You can watch music change between the LP and the CD eras even though the fundamental recording process was the same (the only part which changed was analog to digital). The change to uninterrupted play, longer tracks, and random accessibility brought real change to how much was composed by the best artists in the height of the CD era.
With electronic distribution, there are too big changes to music: (1) the possible length of music and (2) the prominence of singles.
1. Broadband is only at something like 10% of Internet users, so if electronic distribution takes off, you can be sure the suppliers aren't going to leave out the vast majority of computer users. This means that files are going to be limited to a few megabytes each. You can guarantee that anybody who wants a hit is going to shave off any extra fluff of every song to keep it accessible.
2. When organizing collections of music, it is much easier to deal with individuals tracks instead of albums. Albums for the last thirty five years have been quite distinct from merely a "collection of songs". They have themes, they are unified, and the music could not be conveyed as just songs. But with online delivery, doing albums becomes difficult.
IMHO, neither of these two changes makes music better...
An interesting read, about how records change music and how we perceive it, is The Recording Angel by Evan Eisenberg, which should be required reading for anybody involved in the aesthetics of music as far as the Napster debate goes.
Music on Demand ain't all it's cracked up to be (Score:2)
*wave* hi JonKatz
An interesting anecdote to the publication of one of Haydn's works (which applies to most composers during the baroque and later periods of popular music): Haydn's newest piece was anticipated with great expectation. His publisher was taking pre-orders on the score while Haydn finished it up. Imagine that? A score?! Sheet music? WhatdoyoumeanIgotta play this stuff to listen to it? *Teen cocks head ala RCA dog*
Imagine, no CD's, records, tapes, broadcasts. People (although probably only the wealthier class) actually got all excited about a new score coming out. They went out and bought the paper copy, brought it home, learned, practiced, and played it. That was pretty much the only method of reproduction that existed. If you wanted to hear a performance you'd have to go to one. You as a listener didn't control when and where the performances happened, so if you wanted music on demand, you had to play it.
"Damnit, Gustav, didn't I tell you to stop turning those pages so loudly."
Contrast this simpler form of music on demand to today's digital streaming, napster, cd's, Direct TV, DVD's etc. These days you have access to thousands of hours of music at the touch of a button, from anywhere, while you're jogging, driving, sitting, or studying. Where are we going? Obviously consumption of music has risen each year since CD's where introduced. Since Napster came along, CD sales have increased over 50%. I'm sure the average music collection of Americans has grown considerably as well, both in pirated and legal works.
I pondered all this while listening to music and enjoying myself. It was easy, I sat there and listened. Imagine how long it would have taken me to write Bach's Passion of Matthew? It's a lot easier to listen to it than to write it, or play it. Playing it would require me to study it, Bach, and other performances by Bach devoteés. I would probably have to learn other pieces by Bach first, study technique, history... wow. That's years of preparation, careful dissection, and practice. It is certainly easier to listen to it.
But music is big business there days. "What is going to sell?" the Sony execs ask. Creation is falling on fewer and fewer shoulders all the time. Symphonies around the country have been failing at an alarming rate. Pop music, never a bastion of creative integrity has gone from hiding pre-fabbed bands, keeping the secret that Milli Vanilli didn't actually, write, sing or produce their own songs, to just doing it right there on the TV for millions to see. Who cares if they have talent. They look good, they can dance... the corporate interests will take care of the slick packaging.
Does it matter that it's not quality, that it doesn't demand back from you? No, I'd rather just sit here and consume and consume.
Does it make you wonder why America is the fattest country on the planet? Is it also why we're the hungriest as well?
Re:I must quibble. (Score:1)
This is one of the glories of the humanities, that in the absence of the empirical data of the hard sciences or the statistical data of the social sciences it is arrogance and erudition, bombast and namedropping that carry your thesis.
There is no more vicious pit of vipers than a post-bacc English program.
I must quibble. (Score:2)
I have to call attention to this from the pull-quote. This is a grand example of a pervasive conceptual disjunct on
I have a suspicion that some of the motivation for software libre is akin to this, but I am not prepared to defend it yet.
The Other Editors Live! (Score:2)
Bach (Score:2)
One should be careful not to translate the "well-temperiert clavier" as the "equally tempered piano". The discussion of what Bach actually meant with the title is still going strong in the academic circles, but it is not at all sure that he meant an equal temperament as we know it now (for one thing, they had no electronic meter at Bach's time, so every temperament was set by hand and gut feeling - hardly equal by modern standards).
Also, it is blatantly wrong to credit Bach for the invention - or popularizing - of the equal temperament, it was known to theorists amd lute/guitar builders at least in early 1500's, but practicing musicians were not (at all) willing to make that compromise - they valued the pure intervals too high.
- Heikki
who actually owns a harpsichord and can tune it, with only a tuning fork and a keen ear!
Player pianos and the music for them! (Score:2)
Well, the player piano - or organ - rolls had been known long before Beethoven. True, the "modern" gallant style did not fit well for such scrolls, but organ or harpsichord music of Scarlatti, Couperin, Handel, or Bach was composed for instruments that were not supposed to be capable of "Beethovenian" dynamics - and still more than well suited for seriously good music!
Re:Piano roll was the first? (Score:2)
Re:Radio != Napster (Score:1)
<P>No, they don't. They <i>get paid</i> for every song they play. Independant promoters get paid by record companies, and stations get paid by independant promoters. That's oversimplifying, but basically how it is. Why would a record company charge money for radio play, when radio play is the main thing that makes the records sell and thus give the record company profit?</P>
<P>You obviously didn't read Jamie's article yesterday (which was part 1 of 3). Also try the articles "Pay for Play" and "Pay for Play II" (not sure if the second article name is quite right) at Salon.</p>
-Grant
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Re:Just a note (Score:1)
Your English teacher was only partially correct.
From Oxford English Dictionary.
Bibliography:
A list of the books of a particular author, printer, or country, or of those dealing with any particular theme; the literature of a subject.
The revolution will not be digitized... (Score:1)
With Vivendi's purchase of mp3.com and Bertelsmanns purchase of Napster... when exactly does this "big shakeup" that you mention occur? I think it's been made quite clear to us what happens to any audio sharing mechanism that becomes too widely used. It gets bought by the major labels, just like airplay on commercial radio. It's not like they are cash strapped. Anyone who has been paying the slightest bit of attention to the online music scene can clearly see that "the revolution will not be digitized", as the recent Salon article put it.
maru
Re:You win, Troll! (Score:1)
Keep in mind that Ruthless was founded because Easy E wanted to get out of the drug dealing business. NWA, although not a studio creation, was created for the sole purpose of generating revenue.
maru
Re:Something's broken (Score:1)
Admittedly, the style is a bit more readable, but it's got the specious--no pun intended--comparison to science (it's just like evolution!), the pandering to the perceived audience (you teenaged MTV-watchers are important, yes you are!), and the overemphasis of the importance of technology (forget creativity and marketing, it's really about neato gadgets!). And that's just in the first paragraph.
Something's broken (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Also Bebop... (Score:1)
But yes, very valid point. Don't forget bebop though. I guess bebop isn't that huge of a deal, but it's one of my personal faves so I had to point it out.
Re:The music of the future will be computer genera (Score:1)
As long as they can keep it out of the workplace, no one will have a problem with this. Perhaps they'll ban headphones.
Re:wtf? (Score:1)
what i want to add in (my two cents) is that i seem to remember something about later radio, 50s radio, in which elvis and a few other rockabilly artists could NOT get on the air because they sounded "too black". did people become more discerning listeners as radio tech improved or was it something else? given that i have heard much 20s and 30s radio type music, i would say it was something else. i'n not sure how to put that though. it's almost like once people got accustomed to the radio, the barriers of the "real world" entered into radio as well.
later on, the comment about popular music being shaped by the primary digesters, i defintely agree with that. it also reminded me instantly of frontline's little documentary thing "the merchants of cool", only thing missing is a mention of the feedback loop that marker research generates.
Re:The music of the future will be computer genera (Score:1)
geosynchronous gobbletygook (Score:1)
I feel obliged to snark at this with my networking hat on - the biggest reason that this wouldn't ever happen is that it would be remarkably stupid to impose the 600+ ms delay of a geosynchronous satellite link for a data transfer between devices a foot apart from each other. :P Networking over satellite is great for remote locations, but to the playground you'd want to be on a wireless LAN or maybe MAN in the future.
Re:Radio != Napster (Score:3)
Well a lot of people actually DO want their music for free, and much more to go with that. You could find them in Central City Napster at one time, now they are tagged with ip numbers in the wide cyberdesert called Gnutella. And if free music means free speech, free software, free ideas, free art experience, free source codes, free dvd codecs, then yes I think I want it too.
Whether I support an artist or not should in the end be MY choice, not the coice of some record exec who thinks he`s the king of the world. If things were "free", only one thing changes: the level of control. And quite frankly, many artists, supposedly "protected" by that kind of "control" in reality don`t have a choice either. They are used, often pushed and abused, and in the end simply forgotten. There is no 'art' here.
Re:Explain Rap Music (Score:1)
Rap as an artform by itself is not bad. I am not a fan of rap as such, but some rap is not too bad. I remember one particuarly funny one from the late '80s, Nitemare on My Street (I don't remember the Artist) that I enjoyed. "Gangsta Rap" is another story. Songs about Rape, Murder, etc. is where the hate is - and IMHO is not cool. Rap in and of itself is not bad, just like any other form of music.
Radical? (Score:2)
This is not radical at all, although it is not immediately intuitive to someone who has not been deeply involved in the music scene. Artists and Musicians see this all the time, where the current establishment oozes praise over their pet projects, often and usually to the penalty of the talented no-name palying in the corner bar.
All too often it is who you know.
An example in the tech field is the IPO market. Who made the connection was often based on who knew who, and not on the merit of ideas. For every idea that got funded in silicon valley, I am sure there were hundreds, if not thousands around the country that got nailed because bankers demanded the souls and the first born of those looking to get started.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
Re:Amusing (Score:1)
I doubt that X actaully receives our dollars these days, Billy Zoom left after the fourth album in the mid-80's and the albums weren't as good after that. Heck, they even wrote:
"we're the last american band...to get played on the radio"
One More Legacy of Music He Forgot... (Score:1)
Technology is enabling diversity of recording (Score:1)
Not only is technology changing distribution, but it is also changing recording big time. Studio time is quite expensive, unless the studio is in your bedroom.
Today, a moderately zippy PC can replace: multitrack recorder, mixer, effects units and even synthesizers. A modern studio certainly may have better acoustics, equipment with more dynamic range, etc. But, the gap between the quality of what comes out of a commercial studio and what can come out of a bedroom is shrinking significantly.
So, less money in the system doesn't mean that acoustic folk will be the only style left standing.
Just a note (Score:1)
What you have at the end is *not* a Bibliography, but a Works Cited page.
A Bibliography is an exhaustive list of *every* work that has something to do with your paper. For this paper, that would mean your Bibliography would run on for *pages*. You would have to list every single source that not only you used, but were used in the books you used, as well as any sources even relevant to music distribution.
A Works Cited page is what you have here - a simple list of the works of other authors that you have cited.
Just thought I should correct you on that, and let you know that in the English classes I took, you just failed!
Re:Just a note (Score:1)
But still, in this case, I don't think he should have used the term 'Bibliography.' The reason, as by your definition:
This paper is not on a particular author, printer or country. Instead, it is on a particular theme (history of the distribution of music). Therefore, by the definition, by using the term Bibliography, he should have given a list of books that deals with his theme (again, history of the distribution of music). What he listed was hardly a definitive list.
I think that's more along the lines of how I meant to say it in my first post. Thanks for clarifying, though!
Piano roll was the first? (Score:2)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the music box arrived well before the piano player -- in 1776 [slmnet.ch].
My prediction (Score:1)
Except, of course, if a) greater quantity leads to greater quality of which is doubtful, or b) I'm interested only in a particular kind of music. The latter is where P2P really shines. I just love the "hotlist" feature of Napster, but any kind of a grouping by musical preferences would do. I don't have to listen to crappy latest hits on radio, I can just pick stuff from people whose preference I trust.
Ah, the prediction: even if the music being produced and marketed doesn't change, the music being listened to will. The audience will diversify.
Re:Something's broken (Score:2)
No, no, it's still working fine. There's not a single instance of "(foo) [is|will become] The New (bar)" anywhere in the entire article...
Nothings broken... (Score:1)
Re:Radio != Napster (Score:1)
Are you sure that's right? It's true that radio stations do have to pay performance royalties (as do anyone else who uses a recorded composition). But these royalties are distributed though societies such as ASCAP and BMI to the songwriters or publishers. The record companies don't see this money, as it usually goes right to the songwriter.
The record labels also have to pay statutory royalties for the mechanical reproduction of a composition. Again, these go to the songwriters or publishers. Unless an artist writes their own songs (some songs are only written by certain band members, unless the band credits all songwriting duties to the whole band), they will see none of this money. And unless the artist signs some draconian contract promising these performance or mechanical royalties to some other entity, they should get all the proceeds from their songwriting royalties.
You are right about the small percentage that artists get from the sale of their albums. But it's a well-known fact in the record industry that publishing rights are where the money is. If you write a hit song, even if you're not the artist (how many pop and country stars do you think write their own songs?) then you'll definitely be pulling in some dough.
Re:Recording costs will not dissapear. (Score:1)
I mean, look at many blues and jazz and Alternative CDs. They were produced on a far smaller budget and less professional facilities than Britany Speers is, yet who is the higher paid engineer.
I think that the only major place where there is no way around getting a highly trained and experienced and expensive professional is when recording classical music and opera. Those two rely on understanding the mechanics of large rooms which are a lot more complex than figuring out how to mic a guitar amp in a small theatre.
Re:why music has split... (Score:1)
I can thing of a few - Alice Dee Jay, Chemical Brothers, Fat Boy Slim et al.
Most fans of electronic music that i know feel as if they're the only ones, or at most, part of a small group.
Over here in britain and ireland the charts are saturated with electronic artists and obscure one hit wonder DJs.
Re:Recording costs will not dissapear. (Score:1)
Putting excellent inexpensive tools into the hands of an amateur doesn't make that person a pro, any more than tinkering with gcc makes me a programmer. Except for that rare natural genius, being a good sound engeneer takes years of effort and training.
Precisely the best way to become a programmer is to tinker with gcc, Java, perl, ruby, python, etc. It may come naturally or it may not, but given the right toys and enough time, talent will manifest itself. Same with sound engineering--I don't have much money, but I have both interest and talent and am eagerly awaiting some of the Free sound-editing software packages.
P2P is great. (Score:1)
Exceptions: Player Pianos and Female Pianists (Score:2)
distribution and genre diversity (Score:2)
Though it might sound far fetched, I'm sure you've seen examples, such as a single user sharing very good collections of hard core rap, arabic, country, and religious music at the same time. Or someone who is sharing almost terabytes of top 40 with about 10 songs of 70s Indian film music (and maybe 3 Javanese gamelan pieces) thrown in. This is a lot more diversity than any student radio station will give you, and the list goes on...
The difference from the Radio & Jazz example is that no such genre will become immensely popular through Napster, but as time goes on we might see more of a hybridization of the worlds music. At the very least, we might see diversification of individual tastes, which (at least here in the US) is stiflingly uniform at present.
Just my $0.02
Cowtamer
--taming the ferocious wild cow since 1994
YOU'RE A WRITER NOT A MUSICIAN (Score:1)
Go see the history for yourself. (Score:2)
--
Intresting Read... (Score:1)
Now, as an amutuer musician, here's my take on this. Record companys in theory are a GOOD thing, as they would allow lesser known acts to get a chance. Very, VERY few people can actually afford to produce quality music and distribute it.
The current labels, for the most part, evil, but beleive it or not there are some who generally try to do the right thing as far as allowing fair use of their propertys. For example Albert Records out of Australia, their main act is AC/DC (YEA!) and they have published all AC/DC lyrics at http://albertmusic.com/acdc_lyrics.htm [albertmusic.com].
Re:It's not the quality of recording.... (Score:1)
He was able to do things in the studio that sound better than 90% of engeneers out there today with 1/10th the gear. That's the difference I'm talking about, not mega-label glitz factories.
Re:Music will go on... your job may not (Score:1)
My point was that it takes lots of time and effort to get good at this, and that means not making money somewhere else. All else being equal, a pro will allways be better than a weekend warrior for the simple reason that they get more practice and have more oppertunities to develop and learn.
"Real lovers of music" will certainly enjoy a good song performed well whatever the format, but should also care that the beauty of the artist's work reach their ears as intended.
Recording costs will not dissapear. (Score:2)
Putting excellent inexpensive tools into the hands of an amateur doesn't make that person a pro, any more than tinkering with gcc makes me a programmer. Except for that rare natural genius, being a good sound engeneer takes years of effort and training. The reason their so expensive is thay can usually cannot work 40 hours-week unless they are emplyoed by 2 dozen or so top studios in the world, at which point they can charge an arm and a leg for being the very best.
What worries me, both as a listenner and as a music professional, is who will pay these people in the future? Digital tips and performance fees and so forth are all well and good for performers, but if noone is to make any money from recordings in the future, quality will reflect that price.
Re:Next wave of music is computer music. (Score:1)
Sorry, but most of the new music blows, all pop is crap, alternaturd is just that. Everyone sounds like everyone else...
Remember the guitar solo?? metaledge.darktech.org metal edge bbs!
Shilling songs (Score:1)
Those kinds of songs had a renaissance in the 1970's in Norway. Obviously Norway had different conditions, so the stories are not quite as romantic, but more about the fight against the elements. Typical themes were the inevitable death of sick children and beloved horses. One heart breaking tune was "Svarte Blakken", a story about a horse dying from exhaustion to get a child to the doctor. The combination of the lyrics and the tune was extremely powerful, and would make even the hardiest of men weep.
They were called shilling songs because that was the price for the sheet music. Did any other countries have a shilling song revival, too, or was that just a local phenomenon?
sometimes you have to (Score:1)
Re:some myths. (Score:2)
Interesting you said that. I knew someone from Napster forum that supplied his music for free on Napster, despite being offered contracts by major labels. Why? Because he did not want to compromise his musical style to fit the marketability requirements set by big labels. I have heard his music. It is excellent and of high sound quality.
Find the music here: S A O [mp3s.com]
Enjoy!
why music has split... (Score:1)
disclosure: i like pop. i liked it when i was a teeny bopper in high school, i like it now. the beatles' music will always be good -- but for the most part, it will also always be pop.
the other "musical camp" i see forming is very isolated anti-marketing disenfranchised music. (there's also the variation on this, like radiohead or REM, who seem hate the public eye, but haven't tossed in the towel yet. i like to think of this as 'pseudo-disenfranchisement'). but take most electronic music these days, as an example. there's a big-ish market for it, but very few artists have stepped up to the plate and said "yes, i will gladly sell my soul for millions and millions and millions of dollars." (moby perhaps being the most annoying exception, imo.) most fans of electronic music that i know feel as if they're the only ones, or at most, part of a small group. the you go to an orbital show and --hey presto!-- there's 4000 people in your city who you would never have guessed listened to electronica. there's bands that have intentionally avoided the lure of major-label success (cf. the amazing band Godspeed You Black Emperor! [brainwashed.com] whose songs' blatant anti-corp. attitude should be an adbusters.org pep-rally theme). but they're well known...they're just not ubiquitously famous like, say, Brittney.
i do have a point: the advent of technology (and ubiquity thereof,) has made good music by good musicians easier to make and distribute. if you like death metal, you join a death-metal mailing list and you'll have access to a fucking worldwide network of people who have similar tastes...some of which will invariably be making some of that music themselves.
most musicians i know couldn't give the tiniest shit about being famous; and most would content themselves with making enough money to pay for expenses, equipment, etc.
so, for the most part, they'll give it away, or at the very least, sell it to you for very cheap prices. (e.g., mp3.com, or selling via home pages, etc. i've seen people going from doing this to releasing stuff on indie labels, which may not pay for that new-giant-organic-living-breathing-LCD-monitor, but will certainly ease the pressures off the artist personally.)
this is not to say that the major labels will all die overnight; i doubt that they'll ever die. but the people who give a shit about the music they listen to -- and however much the latest teen hit sensation(s) shake body parts, they're never going to write anything with the meaning of any 60's or 70's rock song -- will slowly fade further into the margins (they just don't make classic rock like they used to...) until several things happen:
A) major labels try to market pseudo-classic-rock(or your favourite non-mainstream style of music) and fail miserably.
II) online music services die (well...napster, anyway. USENET and gnutella won't ever really die.) the good thing about this is that indie labels will thrive again.
thirdly,) everyone will give up watching TV, attend live concerts, read more, think independently often, and not blindly follow what they see on TV.
well, I can dream.
-d.
--
Slashdot: When News Breaks, We Give You The Pieces
saturation - the dilemna of choice and visiblity (Score:1)
While the independent music market has been revolutionized with technologies that allow the indie to create, publish and promote their music, we've seen such an explosion in the industry that I think it has become increasingly difficult to be heard.
If you take mp3.com [mp3.com], they've got thousands upon thousands of artists in their system; and unless you've got the cash and working extra hard to promote your music, website, etc., you're just a drop in the bucket of hundreds of thousands of independent artists. Not only is that an issue for the independent artists, but also for the end consumer. With so many choices--and many of them poorly produced, recorded, written, etc.--the independent artists out there are generally given (or contributing to) this stereotype of a less-than-professional and poor-quality music category... the indie. (like the kid down the block who just downloaded a hacked version of Acid and Cool Edit Pro, bought a cheap radio shack microphone and is now a self proclaimed artist).
While there are a number of quality independent artists out there (and I've worked with a number of them on various projects), there are infinitely more artists out there who do a half-assed job at presenting their art. Does the technology really revolutionize the industry? Sure it does, for the hard-working and refined artists out there. But I think that it has created this illusion, that just because indie's have the power to create, publish and promote their own material, quality can be overlooked as merely an optional element in their music.
I think the indie artists of today need to ask themselves some pretty tough questions; questions like:
And there are dozens of other questions that independent artist really out to ask themselves before pushing their product to the public. But I think the big challenge that technology has created for artists today is the saturation factor, which poses the issues of too many choices available to the consumer and insufficient visibility (when constrained by your budget and the resources available to you).
Good article! Keep up the great work exposing the current music industry for what it is.
Michael
dock72 music group [dock72.com]
committed to the development of today's artist
Technology also enables production quality to bomb (Score:1)