Jenna Schwartz - Synthesis Essay

Music’s Accompaniment of Sensory Rather than Visual Elements

The presentations of Justice Gomery and the law students have made it clear that the deficiencies of copyright law have forced the music industry to change. The statement that “music will continue its transformation into something that accompanies a visual element” only partially reflects how music has been evolving and will continue to evolve in the future. To me, music has always derived its value from its ability to engage individuals’ emotions and it will continue its metamorphosis alongside changes in mediums that enable individuals to feel increasingly connected to music.

In my mind, two major changes in society has made the auditory sense alone, insufficient to link individuals’ emotions and music. First, advancements in technology has created sensory input overload. This means that there is now a multitude of ways to interact with music. Second, the Internet’s ability to make music available freely has driven down its monetary value to listeners. The combination of these two factors implies that in order for music to be valuable, we must find new ways to connect listeners’ emotions to it. Visual elements are certainly helpful to this end but it is only one piece of a larger puzzle.

I postulate “music will continue its transformation into something that accompanies sensory elements.” Specifically, it seems that some members of the music industry have recognized that the more senses that are engaged alongside music, the more likely we are to feel a sustainable emotional connection to it. The combination of our visual experiences and our ability to interact with music both tangibly and intellectually better reflects the progression that music has been making.

It is undeniable that many of the recent successes that we have seen in the music industry have resulted from music’s accompaniment to visual elements. I am not convinced however that visual elements alone will amount to a sustainable model. One needs look no further than consumers’ increased appetite for live music over the past decade. As Donald Tarleton explained, despite stadium shows having reached their golden age in the 1980s, more people are going to see concerts than ever before. The creation of the 360-degree deal reflects the fact that record companies have been trying to take advantage of this. The 360-degree deal replaces traditional recording contracts between artists and record companies with agreements whereby the artist signs over a percentage of record sales, concert revenues and merchandise to a given record company.

While these deals signal that record companies may view the accompaniment of music to visuals as the future of music, to me they suggest the potential to repeat past mistakes. Tarleton noted that thus far, consumers have been willing to pay to see shows despite dramatic increases in ticket prices. I expect that this will only continue until the sooner of 1) price increases that are too high or 2) the advent of a cost-effective means to achieve the concert experience. For example, with 3D technology soon to be making its way into homes, how long will it be before someone finds a way to use the Internet to stream the equivalent of a stadium concert into our living rooms? In the future as I see it, musicians will have to go beyond merely performing to create value for listeners. It is for this reason why I believe that more than visuals will dictate music’s transformation.

Many examples from the presenters that have come to speak to our class serve to illustrate my point. For one, I view Pop Montreal’s ability to maintain its success as distinct from stadium concerts precisely because it does not only rely upon the visual element of performance. Pop Montreal provides its ticket-holders opportunities to get involved with music which include but are not limited to: hands-on workshops in its Symposium, giving ticket-holders the ability to become a vendor/collector in its Puce Pop and getting children to play music in its Kids Pop. Importantly, while these sorts of events do take advantage of some visual element, they also allow individuals to engage with music in a tangible and intellectual sense. It is this multi-sensory participation that will sustain the connection between the ticket-holders and the festival in a way that will never be replicated by technological advancement.

That said I do not purport that technological advancement detracts from individuals’ ability to engage with music in a meaningful way. On the contrary, other speakers have demonstrated that technological advancement can be leveraged to create value by enhancing listeners’ sensory connection to music. Brian Whitman’s discussion of software that allows users to manipulate music is a case in point. These programs not only allow users to hear and see what they are doing but also to physically effect changes to the composition that they are working with. I hypothesize that the combined effect of auditory, visual and participatory cues cause users to feel a sense of ownership over and attachment to the piece that they are working with. Whitman provided support for this hypothesis when he pointed out that known artists have started licensing their songs for manipulation purposes and that such artists are now generating more profit from the manipulated versions than from sales of the original versions of the same songs.

Karen Collins’ various projects looking at the links between interactive music and gaming also corroborates my hypothesis. She noted that the gaming industry has realized how important it is to tie auditory music cues to visual on-screen cues in order to maximize gamers’ sense of control over the game. It is thought that so doing will keep them playing in the long run. This is reflected in the legal challenges that Whitman raised concerning the licensing of non-linear and interactive music. These legal challenges exist because programmers have recognized that the interaction between control, sound and visuals must constantly evolve to keep players emotionally tied to the game. These and other examples confirm that music will continue its transformation into something sensory rather than something merely visual.