I just finished reading Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur. An indictment of what I’m doing right this second, of course. I may have all of my students read his section on the music business. Keen discusses Tower Records, and I remember well going to their Atlanta store in about 1995 or 1996, and having the feeling that if there was a recording I wanted, they had it, or they could get it. It was the last place I ever saw new LPs on sale, too. Now, I couldn’t even tell you where the nearest good record store could be found (though I did pick up a used copy of a CD of solo piano music by Charles Wuorinen and Morton Feldman at the Hastings store in Liberal). I order from Amazon, CDBaby, and Archiv, none of which is as much fun or as satisfying as some of the fantastic record stores (and music departments of bookstores) I’ve frequented over the years (the highlights–Barnes & Noble at Easton Towne Centre and Borders on Henderson Road in Columbus, Joseph-Beth Bookseller in Cincinnati, Tower Records in Atlanta, Used Kids and Magnolia Thunderpussy in Columbus, Streetside Records in Cincinnati) . The BMG Classical record club has shrunk its monthly selection of classical music to four pages in an omnibus catalog–an insult, really, although as I get older there is more music that I already own, so it gets tougher to please me.
More to the point–I would respond to Keen by saying that, while the surge of technological music-copying has been disastrous for the “record industry,” it has been a boon for the “average” musician. I would remind Keen that his precious “music industry” has–put simply–conned much of society into believing that you need a record contract and a team of professionals to make music. For the past fifty years, Americans have been letting others make their music for them, and I see that changing now.
Any public school music teacher or church music minister can tell you that musical talent is spread around fairly thickly. There are many who can sing or play well enough to entertain themselves and those around them, or to use their musical skills in worship, and it doesn’t require a college degree or a big break. It appears that the public is starting to once again recognize this.
I never understand the person who comes to me after hearing me play or after listening to one of my pieces saying, “that’s amazing, I could never do that.” Those people are selling themselves short. The human mind is a flexible, resourceful thing, and it can learn to do nearly anything, given time and motivation. I don’t believe that anyone is musically hopeless, but the music industry wants us to believe that we are. No more! Any teenager who has played with Garage Band for ten minutes can create a decent sounding song… not strikingly original, but an indicator of a strongly developed sense of musical taste. To paraphrase one of my professors, Gregory Proctor, if you ask the mechanic down at the garage to come up with a song, he can do it… maybe not a good song, but a conventional song that fits the musical culture he has been steeped in. We now hear more music than ever–it surrounds us, and compared to our ancestors, we are all probably musical geniuses.
To the end though, because it’s late, and there isn’t that much point in inflating the blogosphere with my midnight musings. In the realm of music, technology has the potential to remake folk music–where Keen sees billions of self-taught musicians condemned to anonymity, I see the nameless, shapeless forces of true folk music, building a common culture on the backs of unremembered musical mediocrities. Where today my students don’t have four folk songs in common, perhaps Web 2.0 will allow the culture of personal, meaningful music to be restored to the vast millions who don’t have record deals. I don’t know what technology means for music–especially for my music. I hope it means more live music, more amateur music and a greater importance in our culture for music as an activity that enriches the lives of those who participate.
Tags: amateur, culture, folk music, Gregory Proctor, Keen, music, record stores, technology
Hey there doc. I’m offended that you didn’t EMAIL me the opening of your little interactive salon. Excuse me for not being active on facebook.
Seriously, I look forward to reading the musings of the most intelligent person I’ve ever met. Hope things are going well out there…run down to Amarillo and eat that 72 oz steak for me, will ya?
(I love that I’m infecting your site with a little ‘lowbrow’) – heh heh heh.
Matt (and the rest of us)
Hi Matt,
I read your entry and although I did not read the work by Mr. Keen, I agree with the points you made.
I also wonder about how the relationship between musical knowledge and the ability to understand and/or appreciate what you are hearing. For example, my best friend (from High School) and I are Mahlerites, and have had ongoing intense dialogues about his works since 1963.
My friend is more musically knowledgeable than I am, and frequently tries to reference a passage in terms like, “The open sevenths” and “the transition from Key A to Key B” as a source of wonder. While I have a musical background, I could care less about such stuff. I am solely concentrating on the passion and emotional impact of the music and how I react to what I am hearing. I could care less what musical tools are in use – I just know how I feel when I hear it.
So my question is, as the “musical” delivery and performance technology evolves, what does that mean to the average listener (not to the performer).
I reviewed Andrew Keen’s book and philosophy in video and blog form. Personally, I think he is incredibly short-sighted.
Video Form: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=XCFIfPlrAvE
Written Blog Form:
http://www.speakmediablog.com/2008/09/social-media-keep-up-or-fall-back.html
Jennifer A. Jones
Speak Media Blog
Jennifer’s review in SpeakMediaBlog is very much on pitch–I can’t say that I agree with all of Keen’s statements about Web 2.0.
Here is my problem as a classical musician and consumer of classical music: I have not found an internet retailer that even compares with the experience of visiting, for example, Joseph-Beth Bookseller’s classical music section, or Tower Records in 1995. If there is a CD that I want, I can certainly get it from Archiv or CD Baby or Amazon, but I have to know exactly what I’m looking for in order to find it. I have to spell the name of the piece correctly (always a challenge in dealing with foreign languages), and I may even have to go to the record label’s website in the end and order the CD through them.
What is lost is the art of browsing. There is a great difference between a site telling me what it thinks I will like (based on what I bought before) and my looking at everything they have to offer. Most classical music sections are sized so that I can start with Alkan and work my way to Zemlinsky in a half-hour or less, skipping through the eighty-seven recordings of the Messiah and the Brandenburg concertos along the way. The occasions when I’m in the store with money to spend, but I don’t know what I want are when I get some of the best music I’ve ever bought–“I wonder what they have by Hindemith today,” “Wow! A Carlos Kleiber recording I don’t have,” “I wonder what a symphony by Joe Jackson sounds like.” If there was ever something specific that I wanted from Tower or Joseph-Beth, I could order it with no less trouble that I can from anywhere else. It is browsing that is the problem.
The internet has corrupted the term “browsing.” Browsing is seeing what’s there by quickly scanning, whether it’s library shelves, the used-record bins or my own collection. It requires that the senses simultaneously comprehend multiple choices, which may or may not be related. In the record store, Bach is right next to Bax, and I could quickly make that leap. On Google or Amazon, I only get results that are related verbally in some way. Not only is there too much information, it often isn’t the right kind. For example, a person searching for information about my music would probably get referenced to the Internet Movie Database because of a movie character with my name.
Should the information be out there? Yes, whole-heartedly. Has the internet improved that way we find that information? Not always.