The future of the Music Industry

As we are probably well aware, the record industry is declining in the number of sales. With the ease and convenience of online downloading, sales are dropping quite quickly. So what does this mean for the future of music?"The labels fully understand that recorded music, streamed or downloaded, is going to be free in the future (we’ve argued this relentlessly). CD sales continue to decline by 20% per year, and the only thing that’ll stop that trend is when those sales reach zero. Nothing will replace those revenues."
"By 2013 (maybe as early as 2011) it’ll make sense for the labels to finally reorganize their business models around the reality created by the Internet and person to person file sharing services. No longer will the labels be tied to revenue limited to sales of master recordings - by then most or all artists will be under 360 music contracts that give the labels a cut of virtually every revenue stream artists can tap into - fan sites, concerts, merchandise, endorsement deals, and everything else."
"What this means for us music consumers - don’t expect much to change for the next few years. But sometime in the next decade we’ll see a real renaissance in how music is distributed and consumed. And who knows, a decade after that we may have all forgiven the music labels."

Radiohead releasing In Rainbows

Radiohead released it’s seventh album brilliantly on October 10, 2007. Music listeners could digitally download the CD from their website making whatever payment they wanted. Beneath the payment option it read only ‘it’s up to you.’ By the end of the day 1.2 million copies of the CD were downloaded.
“On the deliriously satisfying In Rainbows, Radiohead returns to a more straight-ahead (though subdued) rock sound. Much hubbub has been made about this record's innovative release. Radiohead allowed fans to pay what they wished to download fairly low-resolution tracks from the band's own website. Like so many innovations, it already seems funny both that it was such big news and that someone else of similar stature hadn't done it sooner. Some pundits were appalled that it took awhile to download the tracks if you tried to do it at the same time as thousands of other people, while others decried that the group was trying to kill the music industry (or save it). -Mike McGonigal

Changing Musicians Role

The musician’s role will change drastically with increasing music technology, they will need to adapt to be successful rather than relying or huge record labels. I remember reading (unaware of the exact source) the uncontrollable music piracy in Japan. Musicians must find new avenues of income like advertising for products or appearing on television shows along with continued live performances. Now with the limitless availability of digitally acquired and insurmountable music in people’s hands, consumers and music fans are not going to like getting their music any other way. Music artists who fail to utilize and embrace the Internet’s wide distribution are naive. The Internet’s publicity for music is grand, any musician unaccepting of that is not truly making music for the sake of being heard. I also think that big record companies will become less necessary, if musicians can acquire the technology and knowledge themselves I think they will take the opportunity and be more self sufficient. This will in turn shape the recording industry.

Gerd Leonhard on "ABUNDANCE - The Future of Music"

Music 2.0?

MusicGiants SoundVault

Listening to ipod earbuds is one thing, but “good living-room speakers, wall-rattling home theaters and stereos, or slick car audio systems” are indefinitely another. MusicGiants is planning to sell the SoundVault, a digital music player that would completely bypass connection to a PC by loading songs directly.” They aim to convince music consumers still cooing over their iPods,” that there is something better. Experts predict “master” song copies will be sold and later compressed to fit any smaller version of music player. Digital music if it hasn’t already will be networked extensively throughout homes.

Burrows, Peter. “Is this Digital Music’s Future?” Business Week. 2 August 2005. 11 June 2009. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2005/tc2005062_3663_PG2_tc024.htm

Craving Quality

Currently we are content with music in its small compressed MP3’s, but eventually people will begin craving better quality and higher fidelity. Most MP3’s that people are currently listening to are so highly compressed, ”stripped of millions of digital bits that leave them with about one-tenth of the data found on a CD track.” A small inventive company called MusicGiants is soon to begin selling downloadable CD quality songs off of the internet. They will be more expensive and require more storage space but when listening devices become bigger than ipods and their small speaker hook ups, people will demand listening to better quality.

Burrows, Peter. “Is this Digital Music’s Future?” Business Week. 2 August 2005. 11 June 2009. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2005/tc2005062_3663_PG2_tc024.htm

Cordless Music Experience

I predict that music will eventually become entirely cordless. Instruments, speakers and microphones will soon just have all sounds transmitted void of cords. Headphones for portable music players will soon become closer to Bluetooth devices. Ipods and portable music players could someday completely be compacted to the size of a Bluetooth.

Music's Inevitable future

David Bowie said that “music itself is going to become like running water or electricity….it doesn’t matter if you think it’s exciting or not; it’s what is going to happen.” After doing the last project on Climate Change, running water and electricity may not be so inevitable, so I have re-arranged the quote. Music itself is like change, it is indefinitely what is going to happen with new technology. I find it nearly impossible to predict the future of music in 10 years, 20 and 30 years. It is assumed society will continue to be increasingly reliant on technology, craving certain advances and eventually wanting to revert back to certain quality.

CMX Music Downloads: It's Flaws and Future

It was a bigger deal a few years ago: stick a popular music CD in your computer and you'd be greeted by a Flash application containing some music videos and maybe some desktop wallpapers. To some, it was a bonus to having a CD.
Mostly though, the applications were a giant pain in the seating equipment, forcing music fans everywhere to learn what the hell "disable auto-run" meant. Now, imagine that, only with all your songs contained in the same application as well. From what we understand, this is the crux of a new proposal from the think-tanks at the world's largest four record labels.
Known internally as CMX, it will be a music-distribution format--essentially a single download containing all album tracks, the artwork, liner notes, some music videos and whatever else they've got lying around the office--that the labels hope will rekindle the love of buying entire albums, rather than picking the four good songs from whatever A-lister's latest release.
The perks of established artistsAs a standalone product, CMX could suffer a tragic fate reserved solely for products launched on the back of these very A-listers. In fact, the Times even outs U2 as a possible beneficiary of the new medium, whose next album could spearhead a CMX "soft launch."
Good job, because it'll need the money U2 has behind them to enlist the developer, designer, coder, and distributor elite to produce and peddle the unusual, paid-for downloads fans are going to be encouraged to want. But that's only one part of the potential problem.
The perks of the value-adding techniqueAnother clot in the CMX bloodstream could be agonizing: "Where are my MP3s?" and related concerns. It'll be the top item on any sales site's FAQ list, right after "What is CMX?" and "Why don't you just release a DVD?"
So let's put it in black and white right now: if you don't get standalone, DRM-free MP3s as part of your CMX download, it is absolutely, entirely and completely doomed.
Offer a CMX download for free if a customer buys all the album tracks, and then perhaps you're onto something. But woe betide you if you charge extra--your customer already paid extra by buying the whole album, and in your collective position chaps, that's really something.
The perks of knowing your audience"Think about the importance of the gift market for albums," a spokesperson for the Entertainment Retailers Association told the Times. "Online it's stripped down to the bare music, and there's a lot more to an album than that."
There's a word missing in his or her statement. Can you guess what it is?
It's "physical," and it should've come right before "album." "There's a lot more to a physical album than that." But online, there are different advantages: instant (and satisfying) ownership of an album, and quality embedded artwork to look at on your MP3 player or iPhone. It may seem superficial, but it's what matters to the people who are paying for downloads. Other paying customers do buy a physical CD.
What might happenClaims that the record labels are "dinosaurs" that "just don't get it" and "deserve to fail" are daft in some respects. They're an old business trying to stay afloat. The problem--and the reason we love to hate them--is that they've been going about it backward for years. And it's finally coming back to cripple them, like a man suddenly finding himself undergoing heart surgery after decades of enjoying nothing but gravy-soaked pies and champagne.
This is what will probably happen: CMX will launch with a few massive acts behind it, and the downloads will look stunning, but choice will be limited to your most A-list of A-listers. You'll pay more, and they won't work on an iPod. Apple will do its own proprietary version that will, and that's a story for another day (or now, if your're impatient).
The whole thing will fall flat on its face, because only hard-core fans will pay. Everyone else will ignore this thing that doesn't work on their iPod, won't play on their Walkman, and can't be burned to a CD for listening in the car.
What should happenCMX will be an open format with its own standards, and any label or band can produce a CMX version of an album. They'll be offered by sites such as Amazon MP3, 7digital, and Play.com when, and only when, you buy a full album download. That way, the labels get their album sales, the fans get their MP3s and music-video-ringtone-package-thing as a bonus.
But really, this is only a bandage over a still-bleeding ax wound: the biggest flaw with full album downloads is that, by and large, they cost the same as a physical CD, so why bother? Just lowering the cost will do far more for sales than bundling these bonuses for the hard-core fans.
Anyway, your thoughts are extremely welcome and will find a cozy home in the comments section below. CMX--or whatever it launches as--will quietly arrive later this year, almost certainly costing more than a CD album from Amazon.

Works Cited: Lanxon, Nate. "CMX downloads:its flaws and future."news.cnet.com. 11 Aug. 2009. 13 Aug. 2009<http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10307467-1.html>.

Music Taxes Will Kill Music Innovation

Forcing people to buy music whether they want to or not is not a solution to this problem. The incentives created by such a system are perverse - guaranteed revenue and guaranteed profits will remove any incentive to innovate and serve niche markets. It will be the death of music.
Music industry revenues will be a set size, regardless of the quality or type of music they release. Incentives to innovate will evaporate. There will only be competition for market share, with no attempt to build the size of market or serve less-popular niches. Forget labels building new brands and encouraging early artists to succeed - they’ll bleed existing big names for all they are worth and work hard to keep anything new - labels, artists, and songwriters - out of the market. New entrants just means more competition for a static amount of money. Collusion by existing players will run rampant. Soon labels will complain that revenues aren’t high enough to sustain their businesses, and demand a higher tax. It will go up, but it will never go down.Asking the government to prop up a dying industry is always (always) a bad idea. In this case, it is a monumentally stupid, dangerous, and bad idea.

Works Cited: Arrington, Michael. "The Music Industry's Last Stand Will Be A Music Tax." www. techcrunch.com. 10 Jan. 2008. 12 Aug. 2009<http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/10/the-music-industrys-last-stand-will-be-a-music-tax/>

Where is File Sharing leading the Music Industry?

It is becoming more and more difficult for the music industry to ignore the basic economics of their industry: unenforceable property rights (you can’t sue everyone) and zero marginal production costs (file sharing is ridiculously easy). All the big labels have now given up on DRM. They haven’t yet given up on trying to charge for their music, but it’s becoming more and more clear that as long as there is a free alternative (file sharing), the price of music will have to fall towards free. You can disagree as to whether it’s “fair” that the price of recorded music will be zero or near zero, but you can’t disagree that it might happen.

Works Cited:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/10/the-music-industrys-last-stand-will-be-a-music-tax/

iPod future

As we are all aware, the iPod is the music phenomenon of our decade if not our century. But will it continue to dominate the world of portable music? Recent studies "suggests that people are making the jump from older iPods to newer models, a trend backed up by our recent iPod survey. The iPod Classic (defined as any generation of video-playing iPod) is the day-to-day music player for 31 percent of respondents. Fifty-two percent of all respondents have owned one or two iPods, and 34 percent bought their first model in 2003 or 2004.

As chips continue to get smaller, more powerful, and cheaper, it stands to reason that Apple could beef up the other versions of the iPod, the Shuffle and the Nano, with additional capabilities and features. Certainly, it will be able to keep increasing the amount of storage available on each device, the single largest request of MP3 player shoppers who responded to our poll. Wi-Fi capability was the second-most desired trait in a future iPod."

"Also, basic mobile phones are growing more and more capable of handling simple music playback, said Ross Rubin, an analyst with The NPD Group. And at some point, the ability of manufacturers to add more and more capacity will outpace the growth of the average individual's personal music library, he said.

The iPhone and the iPod Touch are the kind of innovative high-margin products that Apple likes to have. In a crowded marketplace, you need to find some way to differentiate yourself, and Apple has traditionally focused on making high-end products with great design that are easy to use."

So the future of Apple and the iPod is uncertain as is the future of anything, but as of now, these products are still on the top of everyone's list and looks as though they can keep up with the competition.

Other Music Technologies

We think of music as instruments and singing put together to make a song. But there are other types of music technologies that are advancing. We are seeing surround sound systems more frequently, and this is a relatively new advancement but one that is becoming quite popular and desirable. This is a video about predictions of this new phenomenon in the world of sound. It is rather long but even the first few minutes have you hooked. Also, it does contain some explicit language so viewers watch with discretion. Click on FSOL-Stereosucks

http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=ZhM&q=future%20music%20technology&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv#

what does the future of music have in store?

"What is the future of music? Has it become a business of lamentations and lawsuits against electronic sharing, foretelling the end of recorded media as we know it? Or is there something much more interesting happening here that offers exciting new opportunities?"

This is a question that I am sure many have thought about. It is hard to make predictions about the evolution of music technology now into 10, 30, or 50 years from now. Many of the predictions that were made in the past about technology today sounded far fetched but have come true.

"But isn't piracy destroying the industry? "There are two forms that are currently labeled piracy," says Kusek. "You have the wholesale replication of CDs and DVDs. To me, that's counterfeit products and is obviously not to be tolerated. It is certainly evil and criminal, and bad for business."

"But the other kind of behavior that is labeled as piracy -- downloading files and trading files with your friends -- I'm not sure that I would put that in the same camp. Often there is no profit margin, there's no distribution network, other than yourself and a handful of people that you know. Generally, you are not selling files to your friends."

"I don't think that file sharing and downloading of music is going to stop," says Kusek, "until there is something easier, and better, and cheaper, and more appealing. So as I argue in the book, why not embrace that behavior, license and tax it, and somehow derive money from it? Make it easier to find music, improve the quality of the files, and make it easier to record, instead of trying to fight it. It seems a completely losing battle; People are never going to stop doing it as long as the price of CDs is too high. So why not go with the flow and embrace it?"

'So the future of music may be bright after all. "I would really encourage the manufacturers to try to develop new formats," says Kusek. "I think that is the only way they are going to be able to survive. DVDs will sell for quite a while, but they are going to run into the same issues. New formats are the key, and trying to really understand people's behavior shifts. This Internet, digital networks, cell phone, wireless thing is not going to stop. It's just going to grow and get more pervasive. I don't think that it has to be an either/or choice, if the formats are right, and they are in the middle, and are married to that network. In one form or another, I think there is lots of potential."'

Possible Future Scenario

<-(Music Stations in a Starbucks in Seattle)

You're sitting at Starbucks and a friend who just swiped his credit card into the store's music kiosk to download a brand-new mixtape onto his MP3 player tells you about a rare My Chemical Romance track he heard last night, which you proceed to download with a few clicks on your cell phone.



Or maybe you discover a hot new underground MC and pay $20 to join his fan club, which allows you to rhyme alongside his "Second Life" avatar whenever you want, suggest songs for him to play at an upcoming show in your town, or maybe even contribute some ideas to the lyrics he can add to a song he's writing with a group of fellow fan-club members.



Such scenarios are right around the corner. In this rapidly evolving technological world, the music industry is seemingly willing to try anything to find new ways to stop the fiscal hemorrhage caused by downloading.



And we mean anything. We talked with label executives, managers, booking agents, artists and future forecasters about what the next big revolutions in music might be (not all of them are quoted in this story). And the one thing almost everyone agreed upon is that you will be able to consume music just about anywhere and any way you want.



They talked about everything from "personal subscriptions" to your favorite artists that will give you unprecedented access to them, to custom MP3 player mixes you'll be able to buy with a quick credit card swipe at the local coffee shop. Some envision virtual concerts in "Second Life," complete with virtual merch, as well as a long-hyped celestial jukebox that could beam virtually any song ever recorded directly to your MP3 player.



A few of the changes they predicted are already on the way, like Apple's recent deal with EMI Music to sell digital-rights-management-free songs at a premium (see "iTunes, Unrestricted: Apple, EMI Agree To Drop Digital Rights Management"), which some think could lead to other major labels jumping aboard that wagon. Add that to the buzz that's been building since Apple's legal settlement earlier this year with the Beatles' Apple Corps that could pave the way for cheap, pre-loaded iPods containing an artist's entire catalog or song selections, to be sold at airports, bus depots or even at a concert.



Whether our experts think that cell phones are the new iPods or concerts can be attended without leaving your home, music will only become more portable, customizable and bite-sized in the next few years.



Works Cited: Kaufman, Gil. “The Future of Music.” www.mtv.com. 16 May 2007. 4 Aug. 2009.

What Will Become of the Radio?

“Radio is a powerful medium. It's not dead but ... it has lost its soul. Radio is a companion. It's a very personal medium, and they've taken the personal aspect out of it."
"The media today does not seek truth, it seeks success," say Harrison of Talkers. "It seeks victory. Nobody is hired to do a talk show because they are going to save the world or educate people or benefit humanity. Radio historically has been a street medium - a mass medium of popular culture. That's what radio is. Radio is not dead. It just doesn't have much of a future, because of monumental changes that are unfolding as we speak. Radio in the future will be very street, it will just be less magical."
"What I call mono-media," he says, "that is to say, radio, television, newspapers, film - all of these different institutions of the 20th century - will no longer exist on separate venues. Looking at McLuhan's 'the medium is the message' - the venue of radio being an appliance that has AM and FM, the venue of TV that is an appliance, the venue of film that you watch on a disk or you go to a movie theater, the venue of a book that you put on a shelf and hold in your hand, a magazine on the stand - these venues will no longer exist as entities separate from each other. Thus, the culture of creating programming for them will become different because culture is so impacted by the venue, meaning, the medium is the message. When the medium changes, so will the message. So will the culture. And the medium now is a medium that combines all of those hitherto separate concepts. The idea of a radio station coming in on an appliance that is specific to radio, that is an audio-only medium, the theater of the mind, if you will, is, in fact, going to be obsolete. This is happening right before our eyes, and it is accelerating so quickly. Will there still be radio stations on AM and FM in five years? Yes. But they will seem weaker and far less important than they do today.
"Your typical radio station will become a production company as opposed to a broadcast facility. Everybody will be a production company."
Harrison's prophecy is borne out in a conversation I have with Charles Kireker, the new owner of Air America.
"It's definitely a new frontier situation, a listener, a viewer, a reader, they are all doubling back on each other with all the new technologies ... PDA, the cell phone, Internet and so forth."
I asked an old-fashioned question, using my limited vocabulary. "What made you decide to buy a radio network?"
"We're a media company," he says. "We're not a radio company."
Whether it is called a media company or radio company, will the radio still be around in say 40 years?

Works Cited: “The Future of Radio.” www.hear2.com. 29 Sept. 2008. 4 Aug. 2009 <>.

Blue-Ray Discs Replacing CD's?

Neil Young’s ‘Archives’ Shows the potential of new formats. New formats have driven the music industry forever. That and new music. While Blu-ray may not be the “next big thing”, it shows what can be done with more storage and bandwidth. The evolution of music formats will determine the path for the future. MP3 was the last major music format and the industry missed monetizing it entirely.
“Anything is possible in the Blu-ray disc edition of “Neil Young: Archives, Vol. 1 (1963-1972),” the most technologically advanced mega-boxed set in rock ‘n’ roll history, arriving with a hefty thump on store shelves Tuesday.Young, a militant guardian of the analog waveform (notably, the vinyl LP) who dismissed the CD era as sonic sludge, has found purist’s heaven in a new digital format, Blu-ray, that’s still trying to push the consumer acceptance needle past indifference.
How big is the climb? Young has used “ice picks” to describe the sound of early CD. Where a vinyl LP is a continuous analog waveform, a CD is a digital approximation. The CD takes 44,100 numerical samples each second, each sample in 16-bit chunks. At 22 kilohertz, the theoretical high-frequency limit of human hearing, that 44.1-kilohertz sampling rate produces as few as two samples. It’s what makes the higher frequencies fatiguing, even grating, to some ears.
In recent years, DVD-Audio pushed recorded digital music to 24 bits and 96,000 samples per second. Now, Blu-ray goes even further with music, like “Archives,” at 24/192,000 or, as it’s more widely known, 24/192. With more digital information comes a more lifelike representation of the original source. An elaborate timeline, a horizontal scroll, lays out Young’s career amid world events and includes access to supplemental music, vintage concert video and future BD-Live downloads.
The music is also cataloged in a virtual file cabinet that stores each song in a folder with album art, recording date, credits and handwritten lyrics. As the music plays, a vintage Dual cassette deck, Ampex reel-to-reel player or KLH turntable might be the video backdrop, a lit cigarette in an ashtray next to a coffee cup the ambience.”
So will Blu-ray discs not only be for movies but music as well? What will be next?

Works Cited: “The Potential of New Music Formats.” www.futureofmusicbook.com. 2 June 2009. 4 Aug. 2009 <>.

Future Music

The music industry of today looks nothing like it did 20 years ago. There are tons of reasons, most of them having to do with digital technology. From phonographs to records to iPods; not only is music changing but so it how it is distributed. It’s hard to imagine what music will be like twenty years from now. Will we be listening to music through a chip that is placed behind the ear? Or will the new digital technology completely crash and society will have to use the methods of music distribution from the past.

Cultivate Music Appreciation Among Children

Music appreciation is a universal language, one that crosses barriers of race, age, gender, and social class. Cultivating an appreciation of music among children is especially important, as making and listening to music can enhance and promote language development, coordination, creativity, and social skills, as well as cultivate a better understanding of one's history and culture. Indeed, much of a culture's ideals and heritage are embodied and preserved in its songs and music.
Yet despite the important role music can play in children's development and education, it is often afforded little or no place in the curriculum, especially in areas of the world where funds, facilities, and personnel to teach even basic subjects, such as mathematics, reading, and writing, may be lacking, or where budget cutbacks have eliminated music appreciation programs. In many such cases, it is up to dedicated volunteers to help bring music appreciation and the magic of music making to children.
Young people are naturally drawn to music, and this attraction can also help them learn other subjects. Music has been proven to help develop parts of the brain that are used for academic work, for example, such as math and reading. Exposure to music can also significantly enhance children's spatial reasoning, logic, and sensory motor skills. And it rarely takes long for children to move and dance with the music they hear or make themselves. Such a response heights their appreciation of music and provides them with physical exercise as well.
Music appreciation does not have to be a costly endeavor. In fact, with a little imagination – and children are often masters at imagination – musical "instruments" can be created from everyday materials: dried gourds and seeds can become rattles, empty boxes and hollow logs can become drums, and metal lids are transformed into cymbals. The voice is a natural instrument, and children can be taught music appreciation through singing traditional songs as well as making up their own melodies.

Works Cited:

Mitchell, Deborah. "Cultivate Music Appreciation Among Children." http://www.charityguide.org/. 29 July 2009

Why Should Anyone Study Music?

Why do we study music in schools? Isn’t it enough to know what you like? Why is it important to know anything about Bach, Beethoven, or Dizzy Gillespie? Who cares what a fugue is? They never play a fugue on my radio station, do they? And why can’t they make up their minds about who wrote which symphony? If Haydn wrote more than a hundred of them and Mozart wrote more than forty, how did Beethoven write the Ninth Symphony after they were both dead? Why teach someone to be a musician? If someone wants to be a musician, all he or she really needs to do is learn a couple of chords and swear a lot. Good looks and a choreographer wouldn’t hurt, but music schools don’t teach those things. Speaking of music schools, why would anyone choose music as a college major? Hardly anyone makes a living playing piano or trumpet anymore. What else can you do with a music degree, other than teach? The answer to that final question is probably the easiest to provide. Music majors at UAH earn a Liberal Arts degree, which qualifies them for numerous music and non-music careers. Specifically, UAH music graduates are currently pursuing careers in performance, education, retail music, arts administration, music therapy, software engineering, recording engineering, church music, radio, banking, insurance, etc.

Works Cited: Bowyer, Don. "Why Study Music?." www.uah.edu 27 July 2009http://www.uah.edu/music.whymusic.html>

Music Quotes

The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, “Is there a meaning to music?” My answer would be “Yes.” And “Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?” My answer to that would be, “No.” ~Aaron Copland

Here are some quotes stating what music is. The idea about what music is to one person has already been discussed but the importance of how and what the meaning of music is to a person cannot be stressed enough. Some people may not know how to say what they feel the meaning of music is so they can speak through what others have said in relation to how they feel.

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music. ~Gustav Mahler

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony. ~Benjamin Britten

Music can change the world because it can change people. ~Bono

Music happens to be an art form that transcends language. ~Herbie Hancock

Music is higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. ~Ludwig van Beethoven

Music should be your escape. ~Missy Elliot

One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain. ~Bob Marley

Works Cited: Music Quotes @ www.brainyquote.com

Mixing Techniques

What is mixing anyway? If you're in a recording studio mixing an album, or feeding the sound to a video tape or to an audio cassette for example, then you are performing a sound reproduction task. If you are mixing the sound for a P.A. system, then you are performing a sound reinforcement task.

Sherman Keene suggests in his book, Practical Techniques for the Recording Engineer, that there are eight properties to a good mix which are as follows:
1. Powerful and solid lows2. Proper use of the very powerful mid range areas3. Clear and clean highs4. Proper but not overburdening effects5. Dimension - some sense of depth6. Motion - movement of the instruments using pans to heighten the music7. At least one true stereo track (e.g., strings, piano, hopefully something used "up front" in the mix)8. Some acoustic information - not just delays and reverb
Although his comments are directed at doing an album mix, they are true for a sound reinforcement mix as well. Only six and seven are slightly irrelevant for our typically mono sounds systems. If you sit down with this list in front of you and listen to a few of your favorite albums, what he is trying to say will begin to sink in. Then the concept can be applied to your own approach to your mix.

The best mixing engineer is often a musician. This is primarily because a musician knows what to listen for. He has spent years developing this sense. One way to look at it is that you are constantly shaping the overall dynamics of the music.

So is mixed music original, if so in what way?

Taipale, Curt. “Music Techniques.” www.churchsoundcheck.com. 1988. 27 July 2009

Music, Mind & Meaning

Why do we like music? Our culture immerses us in it for hours each day, and everyone knows how it touches our emotions, but few think of how music touches other kinds of thought. It is astonishing how little curiosity we have about so pervasive an "environmental" influence. What might we discover if we were to study musical thinking?

Have we the tools for such work? Years ago, when science still feared meaning, the new field of research called 'Artificial Intelligence' started to supply new ideas about "representation of knowledge" that I'll use here. Are such ideas too alien for anything so subjective and irrational, aesthetic, and emotional as music? Not at all. I think the problems are the same and those distinctions wrongly drawn: only the surface of reason is rational. I don't mean that understanding emotion is easy, only that understanding reason is probably harder. Our culture has a universal myth in which we see emotion as more complex and obscure than intellect. Indeed, emotion might be "deeper" in some sense of prior evolution, but this need not make it harder to understand; in fact, I think today we actually know much more about emotion than about reason.

It has become taboo for music theorists to ask why we like what we like: our seekers have forgotten what they are searching for. To be sure, we can't account for tastes, in general, because people have various preferences. But this means only that we have to find the causes of this diversity of tastes, and this in turn means we must see that music theory is not only about music, but about how people process it. To understand any art, we must look below its surface into the psychological details of its creation and absorption.

Works Cited:

Minsky, Marvin. "Music, Mind, and Meaning."web.media.mit.edu. 1981. 27 July 2009

Musical Recording at Sweetcreek Studios

Music is a ubiquitous omnipresent force coursing throughout the world. Collectively the world composes the grandest and most diverse symphony, but within are small and unique songs, gifted musicians and extraordinary instruments, all of which are precious gems we have the honor to record and later hear again. Last week I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon at my friend’s recording studio, Sweetcreek Studios in Ottsville, Pa. In 1997 they began mixing analog tapes, reel to reel time. In 2005, they’ve become a Digital recording studio where all sound is managed in computer based files. The next few posts will hopefully shed light and bring awareness on present audio recording!
Sweetcreekstudios.com

Recording Environment

They have created a superb recording environment at Sweetcreek, also a very chill place to hang out and listen to music! It’s size, not warehouse where sound gets lost, but high ceilings and a large open room to provide natural acoustics. The high ceiling captures sound height and depth and the wooden floor gives off a notably warmer tone. Cushions and foam pieces are placed throughout the rooms to either absorb or reflect specific sounds. Instruments are scattered throughout the studio: organ, piano, drums, but “the best bands bring their own.”

Basic Tracking of Record

The recording process would differ depending on the type of music being played. A singer and acoustic guitarist would simply come, play and record. A 2 or 3 piece jazz, folk or bluegrass band would come and jam with sporadic microphones to pick up the live experience of their music. We are going to follow the more complicated recording process of the Rock Band.
The band recording process would begin by the band bringing and setting up their instruments: drum kit, bass, guitars, amplifiers, etc… The guitar’s amplifiers get put in and recorded from an “iso booth” to isolate the sound so it doesn’t bleed.


Next you’d set necessary microphones up to every instrument, even every different kick drum and snare. Here’s where you’d say “testing… (tap tap) 1, 2, 1, 2,” you must get the microphones levels checked. All musicians would now be playing with headphones on, adjusted to musicians needs, only what they care to be hearing. The drummer hears a metronome, a steady tapping to keep time. To the computer goes the drum, bass and guitar sounds as separate components to later fix any mistakes. Most of the time it takes about 6 or 7 takes of a song, once the band is satisfied they’d move on to the next until all tracks are laid.

The Final Tracking, Mixing and Mastering of a Record

Once the basic tracking has been laid, you move onto final tracking, Mixing, and finally the Mastering. Final tracking is where you add dub guitars, audio clips, tambourines or shakers and then finally vocals are recorded and integrated. Mixing is when the mixer adjusts what the listener will actually hear from their stereo, bringing it to record quality. They are adjusting levels here and EQing (equalizing). All tracks are added onto one stereo track: Left and Right. Compressing is the last task, you’re regulating volumes so you can hear everything, softer sounds just as well as the loud.



Here are levels, notice all are in the green...

For Mixing and Mastering it is best to have separate people, fresh sets of ears. Some bands even go to entirely different recording studios. Mastering is tedious; here you mess with song order, gaps between fades, song fades and take a final EQ.

If everything is a go, the record is written.

Other Audio Recording

Audio recording is more than simply records for artists. At Sweetcreek Studios they do audio restoration of old records. Work for lawyers, for example bring a taped harassing phone call to court room quality. The more boring medium of commercial voice overs. They do sound and live recording at shows or festivals, recently were at Tinicum Arts Festival. They set up speakers, amplifiers, microphones, cords and sound boards. “Their playing, we’re mixing, audience is hearing… all kind of happens on the fly.”

Sweetcreek Studios

Here is a short clip from Sweetcreek Studios that day, they are drum dubbing. Notice the software is ProTools, which is current editing software used in most digital recording studios.
Sorry about my amateur video capture!

Music in Video Games

Guitar Hero hit creating a cultural phenomenon. The video game sensationally has people who once wouldn’t think to pick up an instrument, now through their video games simulating just that. To a wide array of popular music, the player simulates the playing of guitar with a hand held device. It takes coordination matching notes from screen to the color coded frets of the guitar. Meanwhile you must keep rhythm and strum. Rock Band takes this a step further adding also drums and vocals. “The series has sold more than 25 million units worldwide, earning US$2 billion at retail, claimed by Activision to be the 3rd largest game franchise after the Mario and Madden NFL franchises”- wikipedia

Another musically influenced video game is Dance Dance Revolution. The player stands on a dance platform and while watching sequences of arrows, tries to dance and hit the corresponding arrows on the mat under the feet.
http://www.seriousgamessource.com/features/DDR.jpg

Turntable

The turntable is a fascinating instrument. It is often used in hip hop and other music, sometimes sampling or mixing works of other musicians. This could be paying homage or criticizing.



Here’s a comparison between an Analog and a Digital turntable. In listening to this I was like… hmm. They sound exactly the same?! I was expecting the vinyl to sound more authentic and the digital to sound clearer. Here is an interesting thing in technology when instead of improving sound; they are trying to keep it the same as the original.

I was having fun with this old school scratch interaction...
http://www.turntables.de/turntables99/enter.htm

Music Today vs. the Past

"Also known as the Age of Technology, 20th Century Music took full advantage of new technologies as they became available. Not constricted by rules of the classical period, composers had the stylistic freedom to write however they pleased." Music in the past had a distinct and unique sound specific to that time period. For example, the use of the piano dominated classical music which gave the name to the Classical era. The same applies to other eras of music history. The new advancements that were discovered at that time is what was popular. However, things are quite different today. We have had an enormous amount of technological advancements in the 20th century and so as a result we have many different categories of music; pop, rap, hip-hop, jazz, rock and many more. Never before in history was there such a wide selection of music. We have come a long way since medieval times and with all the choices we have today, we begin to wonder: what more could the future possibly bring?

Evolution of Portable Music Players

Music has been around almost as long as humans have been. But perhaps the most quickly advancing aspect of music is that of portable music. From the Walkman to the cassette player to the CD player, which have only been around since the 70's and 80's, we have had many advancements in only 30 years to get to where we are today. The first i-pods were mind blowing and they continue to get smaller and hold more music. "The original iPod, released in 2001 combined a 5GB hard drive with a rechargeable battery pack and a paradigm breaking user interface. Marketed by Steve Jobs as “1000 songs in your pocket,” the iPod didn’t necessarily do that much differently under the hood from other MP3 players, but it had a sleek design (by 2001 standards), a unique and simple navigational system, and the Apple brand name to back it all up...With their one-two punch of form and function, Apple continues to dominates the portable music player market today. Over the years Apple has continued to release a plethora of new iPod models, including the recent addition of video playback, and the forthcoming iPhone.Only time will tell how portable media players will evolve. With innovations like touchscreens, high definition video playback, wireless streaming, low cost solid state memory and more on the horizon, the first 50 years was just the beginning."

The First Portable Music Player

In our generation, when we think back to the first portable music players, we more often than not think of CD players or Walkmans. In fact, there were more before that in earlier generations, the first portable came out in the 1950's. "Back in 1954, I.D.E.A. released the very first portable transistor radio. The Regency TR-1 radio measured 3″ x 5″ x 1.25″ and featured an analog AM tuner...The TR-1 tuned stations by a simple gold dial and played through a low-fidelity monophonic speaker. It retailed for $49.95 back in the day, which would make it cost around $325 in today’s dollars." After this, came the Walkman. "Back in the 1970’s and 1980’s Sony was the king of miniaturization, and in 1979, they released the first truly self-contained portable music system, the TPS-L2 Walkman cassette player.The Walkman’s real innovation was its size, measuring only slightly larger than a cassette tape itself. Featuring a pair of portable, lightweight headphones and operating on AA batteries, it ushered in a new era of portability. The original Walkman retailed for 33,000 Japanese Yen, which would be around $274 US dollars today. The Walkman went on to sell millions of units and spawned numerous variations and imitators for many years after its initial release."

The Positive Influence of Music

Music can have a positive impact on learning, health, and wellness.

We know that for most children and many adults, music is a "right-brain" dominant activity. Based upon that, music may be a powerful and perhaps dominant means of facilitating positive and expressive feelings that can be experienced individu­ally and in groups to take them outside themselves.

In other words, music provides a symbolic means of objectifying feelings and emotions, which then can be dealt with. Music-making can be an emotionally cathartic experience, as feelings which are often "bottled-up", sometimes due to lack of words to identify and describe them, are released through music. After music-making, we often hear musicians, young and old, com­menting that they feel better, energized, and renewed.

UP: Music has the wonderful ability to lift UP spirits. Parades, pep rallies, school socials, church services, concerts, radio and television, and recordings are examples of situations and pro­cesses through which most of us have experience our moods, emotions, and feelings being lifted. There are both psychological and physiological explanations for why and how music can and should be used for this purpose during a stressful time.

As music stimulates creative and imaginative thinking linked with positive emotional feelings, individuals experience a transformation or transition of being lifted UP from mundane concerns. When these are the result of music experiences that produce what psychologist Abraham Maslow termed "peak experiences", there is a temporary sense of being lifted UP beyond the limitations of normal time-space constraints, often resulting in a sense of non-linear time and feeling of being "one with the music".

Music can have a positive influence on many aspects of our lives. In a recent release from the American Music Conference, the following 10 Fast Facts were included concerning the impact music can have on learning, health, and wellness.
(1) Music has an obvious impact on the brain and should be supported and encouraged, especially in early childhood education and through­out all stages and ages of learning.
(2) Playing an instrument strength­ens eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills, as well as concentra­tion, memory, and attitude.
(3) Research shows that music training improves spatial-temporal reasoning in preschool children. which is necessary for learning math and science, as well as other subjects.
(4) A recent study showed that a curriculum combining piano lessons, educational math software, and fun math problems, helped second graders achieve scores on advanced math concepts and Stanford 9 math scores comparable to those of fourth graders.
(5) Students who make music have been shown to get along better with classmates and have fewer disci­pline problems.
(6) Young people who are involved in making music in their teenage years score 100 points higher on the SAT's than those who don't play music.
(7) Senior citizens who are actively involved in music-making enjoy significant health benefits. For example, studies show that music activates the cerebellum and therefore may aid stroke victims in regaining language capabilities.
(8) Many of the challenges that plague older Americans appear to respond positively to active music­ making. For example, scientific studies show improvements in the brain chemistry of people suffering from Alzheimer's Disease.
(9) Studies show that older Ameri­cans who are actively involved in music-making show improvements in anxiety, loneliness, and depres­sion-three factors that are critical in coping with stress, stimulating the immune system, and improving health.
(10) A breakthrough study demon­strated that group keyboard lessons given to older Americans had a significant effect on increasing levels of human growth hormone (HGH), which is implicated in such aging phenomena as osteoporosis, energy levels, wrinkling, sexual function, muscle mass, and aches and pains.

Harvey, Arthur Dr. "Musical Inspirations: The Positive Influence of Music." musicalinspirations.com. 10 July 2009 <http://musicalinspirations.com/data/html/music-for-health-services/85.cgi>.

Pop Music Today

Today, pop music is identified by teen artists such as Britney Spears and `NSync, yet it encompasses an enormous variety of different styles of music.

Lee Austin, a disc jockey at radio station 93.7 in Houston, said today's music contains a healthy mix of many different genres.

"Pop today is an amalgam of many different formats," Austin said. "A radio station can play an artist like Staind and go right into Britney Spears. You have rap, R&B, hip-hop and rock all occupying pop music, resulting in more diversity on the charts than there has ever been."

While pop music today is diverse, some people argue that it lacks depth and sincerity.
"Pop music is very generic," said Jeff Cassidy, a sophomore business major. "You just take a catchy base rhythm and add some uncreative country lyrics and there is your next million-dollar single."

Recent studies suggest that the average American youth spends four to five hours per day listening to music. Music is believed to influence anything from a person's grades to a teenager's perception of sex and violence.

Many music critics seem to feel the current teeny-bopper trend is ending. Lagging concert attendance and an older, more sophisticated fanbase seems to indicate that a new type of pop may be emerging.

Ross Huchinson, a junior biological systems major, said it is about time for a change in pop.
"I think the pop music of today is catchy for the time being, but as the teenagers grow up, they don't want to listen to the same stuff," Hutchinson said. "There is a constant recycling of popular tastes, and I think the Backstreet Boys have just about run their course."

Travis Lyons, a writer and TV producer, said the attitude surrounding the recent tragedy of Sept. 11 of self realization and peace will dominate the music scene for the next few years.

"The recent world events will cause artists to reflect on themselves and our day-to-day existential concerns resulting in a more heartfelt and individualistic sound, reminiscent of the rock and folk music of the late '60s and early '70s," Lyons said.

Proesch, Micala. "Music Style Has Evolved Through the Tears and is Still Changing Today." media.www.thebatt.com. 5 Oct. 2001. 10 July 2009<http://media.www.thebatt.com/media/storage/paper657/news/2001/10/05/AggieLife/The-Music.Style.Has.Evolved.Through.The.Years.And.Is.Still.Changing.Today-515927.shtml>

Zune Launched by Microsoft

20th century bore witness to a music revolution. Zune is the new music and entertainment project from Microsoft. It was created with the spirit of communication in mind. Microsoft feels that entertainment should be based on shared, connected experience. A social experience.

Wireless Technology=Spontaneous Sharing

Unlike other digital music players on the market today, Zune features wireless technology that enables friends to spontaneously share full-length sample tracks of select songs, homemade recordings, playlists or pictures among their Zune devices. The full tracks of these songs can be listened to up to three times over three days, and, if the recipient enjoys the song she hears and wishes to buy it, she can flag it on her device and easily purchase it from the Zune Marketplace, which features over 2 million songs. A consumer has the choice between downloading individual songs and "Zune Pass" subscription plans. This is especially attractive for the MySpace generation, who frequently use the power of community to share common interests and promote social networking.

“Music comes from social places,” Matt Jubelirer, Zune product manager, explained at today's preview event. “But over the years, it started to become an isolated experience – people would listen with their headphones but not talk to the people around them. We wanted to add the social back into entertainment.”

Microsoft & Newsboard."Microsoft Launches Zune this Week."www.musreview.com.13 Nov. 2006. 10 July 2009.

What are "Oldies"?

The term, "oldies," refers to both popular music from the 1950s-1970s and the radio format that specializes in this type of music. "Golden oldies" usually refers to oldies music exclusively from the 1950s-early 1960s. Oldies songs are typically from the R&B, pop and rock music genres but may also include country, movie soundtrack, novelty, and other types of popular music played on the radio from around 1950-on. Pop music genres that had their heyday before the 1950s (e.g., ragtime, big band) are generally considered "too old" to be included in the oldies radio format. Oldies music radio stations, which typically feature bands and artists such as (to name a few) Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Little Richard, Pat Boone, Sam Cooke, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, the Rascals, the Association, the Temptations, the Who, Elton John, and Fleetwood Mac, cover a wide variety of styles including early rock and roll, rockabilly, doo-wop, surf rock, girl groups, the British Invasion, folk rock, psychedelic rock, baroque pop, soul music, Motown, and bubblegum pop. Oldies music also overlaps with classic rock which focuses on the rock music of the late 1960s and 1970s as well as newer music in a similar style.

The phrase, "oldies but goodies," was first coined in 1957 by renowned deejay Art Laboe who, at around that time, used to get frequent requests from his listeners for songs from the early 1950s. A central figure in L.A. radio for over half a century, Laboe was the first deejay to play rock and roll on the West Coast and one of the first to play black and white artists on the same show. In 1959, he put together the first LP to feature (mostly older) songs by different artists. This immensely popular compilation album, entitled "Oldies But Goodies," stayed on Billboard's Top 100 LP's chart for over three years and has, to date, spawned some 14 sequels.

Soon after the release of Laboe's first "Oldies But Goodies" album, the phrase, "oldies but goodies," became commonplace and by around 1960, people were waxing nostalgic for 1950s doo-wop which was already starting to be classified as "oldies." Little Caesar And The Romans' 1961 hit, "Those Oldies But Goodies (Remind Me of You)" and its sequel, "Memories of Those Oldies But Goodies," both pay homage to early doo-wop and doo-wop artists. This wave of nostalgia brought about a doo-wop revival in the early 1960s which was the first of many nostalgia movements in pop music since the term, "oldies," was first applied to older pop music.

While "golden oldies" has remained a constant over the years, the larger body of pop music that we still call "oldies" today - which is made up of core golden oldies songs plus more modern material - is not fixed but has been gradually expanding forward in time to keep up with changing demographics. Nowadays, oldies music is generally considered to include all of the 1970s, even disco, and the same is expected to be true someday for the music of the 1980s, now often described as "retro." Oldies music is also expanding in breadth as thousands of long-forgotten tunes from the 1950s and 1960s that never made the Top 40 in their day are being rediscovered and resurrected. Whether because of nostalgia, curiosity, or a genuine love for good music, the oldies format has maintained a huge following and will probably continue to do so for many years to come.

Works Cited:

Gold, Amy. "Oldies Music-Definitions and History." 2005. 24 June 2009<http://www.allbutforgottenoldies.net/free-content-articles/oldies-music-definitions-and-history.html>

History of Hi-Fi Music Players and Media

Before MP3s, compact discs, and even cassette tapes, there was hi-fi. “High fidelity” is a term given to a high-quality reproduction of sounds or images. Hi-fi technology was the most popular during the 1960s and 1970s however; the background of hi-fi technology began in the 1920s. It began with the production of microphones and other electronic amplification devices.

Technology has come a long way, from a reel-to-reel machine that basically used a magnetic recording tape to long playing records and finally to compact discs and MP3s. With the affordability of digital quality sound, you can enjoy surround sound and other capabilities from the comfort of your own home. Though many people now prefer digital quality reproductions, others still stand by the quality produced by the earlier methods of reel-to-reel and vinyl LPs. Ideally, the method of high-quality recording you choose to enjoy is a matter of individual preference.

Works Cited:

"The People History."www.thepeoplehistory.com. 24 June 2009 <http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/hifi.html>

Evolution of the Treble & Bass Clef

Evolution of the Treble Clef:
In early written music (before 1750) the treble clef could be found drawn on different lines of the staff. G on the first line was known as "French style". on the second line it was known as "Italian style". The practice of having a variety of clef positions in old music came from a desire to avoid ledger lines.

Evolution of the Bass Clef:
The bass clef evolved from the letter "F".
It establishes the note "F" on the fourth line of the staff.

Works Cited:

"Learning Activity 6"www.cybermusicacadamy.org.24 june 2009

An interesting question arises as new advances come about in the music industry. Since there are so many technological opportunities as far as recording goes, are people making less music? Things are changing and today people are unaware of how privileged we are to have such easy access to music. Yes people were more dependent on music in the past, today it is everywhere. This link will take you to a video of an interview with Professor Anthony Seager and he brings up some interesting points in regards to this question.

http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos/did+more+people+make+music+in+the+past

Music technology from past to present

As we are all becoming more aware, we are spoiled today when it comes to being able to click a button and hear the song we just heard on the radio. But during the 1800's and before, everything was performed live and that was the only way we got to hear music. Since then, with the help of Thomas Edison and his phonograph, analog recording came about and remained popular for many years. Until digital recording was introduced in the 1980's." Tape can also have multiple tracks. Multiple track recording can record individual tracks of sound (such as drums, guitar, voice, etc) on one tape. These tracks are later mixed which is adjusting the levels of individual tracks to make a master tape. Adding effects such as, delay, echo, flanging, and phasing was also found to be possible with tape recordings.

The cassette tape, released in 1964, displaced the LP record. This medium [HL4] was available in most homes, cars, and in portable devices like the Sony Walkman. Also, the availability and functionality of tape recording devices helped in the success of the cassette tape."

After the cassette tape lost its popularity with the invention of the CD in the 1980's, music technology continued to change from there. Although CD's today are still rather popular, the i-pod is slowly taking over.

As we are all aware, music has come a long way since the first violins and cellos and the like. Technology has then advanced to record player and being able to record music. This video is a brief but effective visual of how fast musical technology has evolved.

The Role of Music in Society

Music has almost been around as long as we have and ever since then it has been affecting society. However, society affects the music that we listen to as well. As quoted in this particular website, "Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." Music has been that way in the past, and actually not much has changed since then. "Music reflects and creates social conditions – including the factors that either facilitate or impede social change. The development of recording techniques in the latter half of the 20th century has revolutionized the extent to which most people have access to music." So while back in the days before the technological advances such as recording were around, music was more difficult to access so it was more appreciated. "It is powerful at the level of the social group because it facilitates communication which goes beyond words, enables meanings to be shared, and promotes the development and maintenance of individual, group, cultural and national identities. It is powerful at the individual level because it can induce multiple responses – physiological, movement, mood, emotional, cognitive and behavioral. Few other stimuli have effects on such a wide range of human functions." So music can be very relaxing, therapeutic, but also unpredictable. Every person perceives music differently. So in conclusion, the way music affected society in the past and vice versa is relatively the same today. While technology advances, the affect music has on us is still the same.

? What Is Music ?

According to Webster's II: New Riverside University Dictionary, music is "the art of arranging tones in an orderly sequence so as to produce a unified and continuous composition".

Is there really only one definition of music? Music is however a person portrays it. The definition of music is different to everyone. To one person it may mean relaxation, another horrendous noise. Music is unique in each person’s life.

Music is Science
It is exact, specific; and it demands exact acoustics. A conductor’s full score is a chart, a graph which indicates frequencies, intensities, volume changes, melody, and harmony all at once and with the most exact control of time.

Music Mathematical
It is rhythmically based on the subdivisions of time into fractions which must be done, not worked out on paper.

Music is a Foreign Language
Most of the terms are in Italian, German, or French; and the notation is certainly not English; but a highly developed kind of shorthand that uses symbols to represent ideas. The semantics of music is the most complete and universal language

Music is History
Music usually reflects the environment and times of its creations, often even the country and/or racial feeling.

Music is Physical Education
It requires fantastic coordination of finger, hands, arms, lip, cheek, and facial muscles, in addition to extraordinary control of the diaphragmatic back, stomach, and chest muscles, which respond instantly to the sound the ears hear and the mind interprets.

Music is all of these things, but most of all….

Music is Art
It allows a human being to take all these dry, technically boring (but difficult) techniques and use them to create emotion. That is the one thing science cannot duplicate: humanism, feeling, emotion, call it what you will.

So what is Music to YOU?

Works Cited:
Yoshimura, Kathy. “What is Music.” http:// www.cwrl.utexas.edu. 22 June 2009.

34 Top Composers

17th Century
1. Antonio Vivaldi
2. Johann Sebastian Bach
3. George Frederic Handel
4. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
5. Joseph Haydn

18th Century
6. Ludwig von Beethoven
7. Franz Schubert
8. Felix Mendelssohn
9. Frederic Chopin
10. Robert Schumann
11. Richard Wagner
12. Franz Liszt
13. Alexander Borodin
14. Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky
15. Johannes Brahms
16. Johann Strauss

19th Century
17. Giuseppe Verdi
18. Antoni Dvorak
19. Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov
20. Gustav Mahler
21. Claude Debussy
22. Giacomo Puccini
23. Maurice Ravel

20th Century
24. George Gershwin
25. Sergei Rachmaninoff
26. Bella Bartok
27. Arnold Schoenberg
28. Arthur Hoenegger
29. Igor Stravinsky
30. Irving Berlin
31. Aaron Copland
32. Leonard Bernstein
33. John Cage
34. Klheinz Stockhausen

Works Cited:
Aubuchon, Vaughn. “Most Famous Music Composers Summary.” http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com. 2004. 22 June 2009<>

The History of Recorded Music in the 1900’s-1920’s

1900 E.R. Johnson first used the “His Master’s Voice” trade mark.

1901 Berliner and Johnson joined interests in the Victor Talking Machine Co. The original etched plate method of reproduction was being replaced by recording on a thick wax blank. Bitter litigation between rival companies alleging patent infringement almost destroyed the entire business.
1902 Caruso had made his first of many records, and records by Dame Nellie Melba were released. The popularity of the cylinder had begun to decline.

1903 The first 12 inch diameter records were released on the Monarch label. HMV Italiana released Verdi’s “Ernani” on 40 single sided discs.

1904 Fleming invented the diode thermionic valve and, later, Lee de Forest the triode. Electrical recording had become a possibility.

1906 The Victor Company’s Victrola model gramophone first appeared. Victrola was to become a generic term.

1908 Edison continued to persevere with the cylinder machine but the disc was proving ever stronger competition.
1917 The first jazz releases on cylinder helped to delay the final demise of this format. Leopold Stokowski, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, began recording for the Victor Company at the Camden, New Jersey studios.

1919 Electrical recording was in the experimental stage. Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra produced the first million seller with “Japanese Sandman” coupled with “Whispering” and began a major new popular music craze that boosted the record industry throughout the decade. Garrard Engineering, a subsidiary of the British Crown jewellers, commenced manufacture of precision clockwork gramophone motors.

1922 Mons Remy of Belgium and Messieurs Dolon, Renaux and Debrabant, of France, together applied for a French patent covering constant linear speed recording. In England Noel Pemberton Billing independently developed a similar system, UK Patent 195,673/204,728. Pemberton Billing is also famous for founding the Supermarine Aircraft Company which made the Schneider Trophy Winners and the Spitfire of World War II.

1923 The record business was becoming seriously depressed by the growing popularity of radio.

1925 The first “electrical” recordings were issued by Victor and Colombia in the US. In March, Alfred Cortot electrically recorded works by Chopin and Schubert in Victor’s Camden Studios. The first commercial electrical recording prompted all other major companies to follow suit. In June Jack Hylton and his Orchestra used the technique to record “Feelin’ Kind O’ Blue” at the HMV Studios at Hayes, Middlesex. HMV also released the first electrically recorded symphony.

1927 Bartlett Jones of Chicago was granted a US patent for dummy head (kunstkopf) stereo. “The Jazz Singer”, not the first but the most famous talking picture was released. The British Broadcasting Company started taking the gramophone seriously by commencing a regular long running record programme presented by Christopher Stone, brother-in-law of the novelist,

Compton Mackenzie, the founder and first editor of “The Gramophone”

1928 The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) bought the Victor Talking Machine Company.

Works Cited:
“Music CD Industry.”www. http://www.soc.duke.edu. 2 April 2000. 22 June 2009<>.