Press Pause Play

         

Music Technology 

In the movie Press Pause Play it is recognizable that music and art is becoming more and more democratized in where music and art that took months to make in the past, now can be done in the matter of minutes. Every year that goes by the creativity of these certain things are becoming into more of a cacophony. "When you fall into the trap of confusing the artist and the audience and believe that the audience knows more than the artist is more authoritative, is more creative, more talented then art ends. Then you have something else, you have cacophony, you have simply an apology rather for democratization and it's wrong to confuse democratization and culture political terms with the creation of art which by definition is for better or for worse an elitist business"(Andrew Keen). Today it is become so easy to create music on the internet that critics are just discovering and messing around with new internet technology that it becomes less of an art and music institution. These artists have the power; everything happens around the artist. Real artists can develop their own brands. According to Andre Stringer and Tracy Chandler who work for Shilo stated that people can self produce a music video or a song and still be very successful. "There is an essence in the world of make it happen, do it yourself, who cares what the man says, who cares what the world says, you go out on the streets and skate. It's not like a designated team to set of a baseball game and it's like you just do it"(Tracy Chandler). If people are self taught then one will be as successful as one would if they were in filming school. Some may think that people don't need film school to be successful like the members of Shilo but not according to Adam Watson. Watson differently as in when popular film producers win awards and none of them had not gone to film school and usually doesn't hear about ones that haven't been in filming school. It is easier for film students to describe the way they are filming in well known film terms then trying to describe the filming process when hadn't gone to school. Technology has made things easier to produce where people can be successful even when they didn't go to school."It's that idea of this grey gew and this idea like if you have itty bitty bio machines that can replicate themselves there's nothing to stop the world being covered in grey gew. These little things are going to replicate themselves until there's nothing left of the world except for these little machines. Our culture potentially might sicome into that same principal where if everybody is a musician and everyone is making mediocre music, immensely the world will be covered in mediocrity... People become comfortable with mediocrity which to me is the danger"(Seth Godin). If mediocrity keeps reoccurring in the future years creativity would be completely destroyed. Today, people rely on technology to make things sound and look better which then becomes an even bigger democracy in the world.

Seth Godin

   

Modern Day Music 

          When using technology when producing music it's easy to fix just about anything to where the music doesn't sound like the artist themselves. By fixing and editing major things to the music being song is not creative nor has the performance present anymore. "In our post-Industrial age, because of atomization, loneliness, the breakup of community, the way to somehow reify, or deify ourselves, is through the creative act . . . everyone thinks they have a novel in them, everyone thinks they can make a movie or write a song . . .that’s why everyone is buying camcorders and putting their stuff up on YouTube . . . It’s a reality they don’t like, but most people don't have talent…so for a serious young filmmaker these are very depressing times"(Andrew Keen). What Keen is trying to express is that the fact that great art that once was known to be great art work today will get lost in all the democratization. Also that people in this era uniquely are obsessed with themselves rather than the great artists that would be lost in all the selfish acts. When producers produce the music to the maximum perfection it doesn't sound good because it loses its meaning and vulnerability to the song and meaning itself. "I personally find perfection of music and art to be off-putting. I like listening to Billy Holiday because there is vulnerability. I love listening to Nick Drake because there's vulnerability and imperfection. I get really almost intimidated and bored by perfect digital art"(Moby). When hearing music and the emotion the artist brings along with the song it gives the audience a special connection to the song. our cultural economy may be coming to an end with the diverse music and the more high tech the equipment becomes in future years."Music today is sorta streamed to us. I people don't really sit at home with the record and listen to track 1 to track 15. We might go on Facebook, get a track on MySpace, get a track in an email. Music is this sort of stream of noise. I remember when I was a kid i went out and bought a record and it was this moment of this pure concentration and joy of listening to every bit and looking through the vinyl and watching the vinyl turn around and the needle in the groove. It's a full concentration and now is a thing where I always do something when I listen to music"(Anne Hilde Neset). In the past if you liked a song in the album by a certain artist they would have to buy the whole album. But today if there's one track that wants to be bought that can happen. The environment is not the same when just buying a record and comparing it to being at a concert. The artists try and bring others in and approach the audience in a unique way. When comparing the music and art industry from then to now it's different and challenging. As years go on they have to come up with a new way to create a form or art or music to keep the audience surprised. Music is going to keep changing as generation keep coming along.  

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