In 1979, when the first SONY Walkman was presented and manufactured for public consumption, it forever changed the way the public would interact with music (“Sony History”).
Since then, music has been the focus of ever-changing, more technologically advanced, portable media. Of all areas of humans’ artistic and recreational lives, music has been the most affected by the availability and innovative advancement of portable media. This advancement shows no signs of slowing down, and, arguably, will be the single most important tool for the music industry and for musicians to maintain connections with the consuming public (aka: fans) for the future.
In 1984, the portable CD-Player made it possible to have even better quality recordings available on the road, anytime, virtually anywhere. Now, with the ever-decreasing cost of digital storage, the increased sophistication of listening devices (headphones, portable speakers, etc.), and wireless networks; music can be accessed, purchased, created, and messed-with/mashed-up, instantly, anytime, anywhere.
As a musician, I have mostly good feelings about this. I love being able to carry the music I’m learning around with me for instant access. I also love being able to record my lessons/coachings to my portable digital device, and re-call them and listen to them whenever I wish, archive them to my computer, and/or play them for friends. I have several applications on my iPod Touch that allow me to play with music, namely the Theraminator, Ocarina, and Tonepad; while applications such as Metronome, iTick, and FingerLite (piano), allow me to accurately practice detailed aspects of the music I am learning.
The main aspect of portable media that I find less appealing is the current cost vs. quality ratio, (although that is changing). When the Massenberg panel spoke to our class about quality and sound engineering, and played examples showing how quality (and the perception of it) has changed over the last 20-30 years, it was very apparent to me that the industry, particularly where portable media is concerned, has a long way to go with matching quality to portability. Musicians are not the only ones to care about quality, especially sound quality. If the general public has not been given a choice about sound quality (as in the case of mp3’s), they don’t know what they’re missing, and as we have discussed, louder is not always better. If the quality of delivery improves, it will make the experience more enjoyable. Now that it is possible to store more data in smaller format, there is no reason why quality should suffer. A major current marketing trend is experiential marketing; if music can be connected with a particularly positive experience in high quality format, the music (and/or what is connected to it) will sell more.
Of course none of this addresses the fact that so much music is available for free online. This is one major area where innovation and further creativity are needed. If the public believes that the music they want to hear should be free, where does that leave the creator/producer of said music? One of the answers might be found in diversification of/interaction with the music.
As we have seen/discussed with such guests as Karen Collins and Brian Whitman, the way the public interacts with music is also changing. The public is no longer comprised of just passive listeners (although there are some who will remain so). If there are specific tracks of songs made available to the public that they can mess-with on their portable media device to create something new, and they are willing to pay more for that track, how is that a bad thing for the original creator of the tune? Tools such as Audacity, available for free online, currently allow you to do this, but not necessarily legally, and not to a very sophisticated level for the average user. A portable version of Audacity would allow such things to happen on portable devices. The use of music in gaming also influences this – actions performed in a game that trigger sound ‘effects’ can (in one sense), be considered composing/creating. What if games were created where the purpose or intent was ‘action composition’? If these ‘composition’ games were portable, and you could record the music for further ‘messing-with’/mash-ups, what would happen then? The public already supports live performances of video-game music, so the potential is there. A whole new area of composition is waiting for the adventurous musician/composer/gamer.
The future of cell-phones is also very closely tied to portable media. There is already little to no distinction between the media player, telephone, organizer/calendar, game-player etc., for the iPhone or for other comparable products. A recent article in the New York Times (“Cellphones”) points out that users can take a photo, or just scan an item of clothing that they like in a store window and purchase it, or have it shipped to them. This already happens with music. There is an application for the iPhone that ‘hears’ and identifies the music playing, then asks if you wish to purchase it. Why not at a live concert? You see a band/performer you like, you find their music on your portable media device, and you purchase it right there. Wait – this already happens! Whether it happens in the store, in your home, or at a concert, is up to you. The key for the future is to make this possible for smaller musicians, and taking the power (and some of the profit) away from the large distributors and putting it back with the musicians/creators.
One last area that I have not addressed is how portable media can affect live performances of music. Over the last few years, more big-name acts are charging more money for live shows. (eg. Seeing The Cult play live in Vancouver in 1989 for $20 cdn (floor seating) vs. going to see The Police in Montreal in 2008 for $120 – second level up in the stadium. Portable media could be (and probably is) used to advertise live performances of smaller acts (integrating social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace). The expansion of these features is the future of accessibility to music. A combination of cloud networks and subscriptions will likely be the way that the public will consume music for portable media in the future. You’ll subscribe to music channels (live or otherwise) on your cell phone/media device the same way you subscribe to cable/satellite television channels (music or otherwise) right now.
Portable media will never replace the ‘experience’ of a live performance, but the ability to experience the music in a more active, integrative, and better quality medium will be a big selling point. Portable media is here to stay. How we integrate this into our musical lives is up to us.
Works Cited
Rosenbloom, Stephanie. “Cellphones Let Users Point, Click and Purchase.” New York Times 26 Feb. 2010. 28 Feb. 2010.
Unknown Author. “Sony History: ‘Why No Record Function?’.” Web Page. 2009. 28.Feb.2010 , .
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment