On Sun, 3 Oct 2004, John Thornton wrote:
> This misses the point. Music is not about technology. Was Woody Guthrie
> kicking himself thinking "damn I wish I could mix more sound effects into
> my stuff"?
Were you one of those people who booed when Dylan went on stage with an electric guitar? Music and technology are inextricably linked. Even Guthrie depended on the existence of woodworking and metalworking technologies! There's less of a distinction between Guthrie and industrial pop bands like Nine Inch Nails than you assume: both genres are techno-cultural products of their times.
> There has always been and will always
> be good and bad music. You could find both easily 40 years ago and can
> today. Creating music is no more democratic today than 40 years ago.
I agree that there is always good and bad music, and that's more or less independent of the technology available. However, the recording and distribution of music is way, way more democratic than it was decades ago in the U. S. Getting your music out to people other than your friends was dependent on an incestuous, elitist system consisting of record labels, DJs at major record stations, and music distributors. Today, for better or worse, people who are not the products of this studio system can get mp3s of their music heard by a mass audience. This is a substantial change.
> More technology isn't necessarily more creativity.
> The opposite may be true.
Yeah, I agree: the computer technology provides more options, but that doesn't always produce more creative music. However, the fact that it allows the possibility of new musical forms is overall a good thing (how many Guthrie wanna-bes strumming 3-chord folk songs do we really need?). Let a hundred flowers bloom (take that seriously, not facetiously).
Miles