P2P-Zone - View Single Post - Is there a fundamental difference between song and music?

08-09-01, 12:14 AM

I think we're all agreed that the "Record Industry" is the enemy here. It seems that they took over about the time vinyl phonographs became popular. Before audio recordings you had to buy sheet music and perform the music yourself or go see a live band or orchestra. Copyright now applies to original recordings as opposed to sheet music and lyrics alone. I think if things continue the way they have then bands will have to ask their record companies for permission to play their own songs at concerts. It's obvious that greed has corrupted a business that has gone far beyond the scope of media distribution.

The point I want to focus on is how musicians have created art in this environment despite their limitations. Ah-pook is absolutely right about classical composers, I had exactly the same thought in the back of my mind as I wrote the words above. Before records the only kinds of widely available and widely popular music was classical music and folk music. Other genres existed like early jazz, but not everyone had access to them. Without the convience of original recordings musicians had to create art that other people could perform and enjoy with their own instruments and voices. Not everyone had a piano or guitar, not everyone could make it to the opera house. So like today, the music that was the most popular was the music that was the most accesible, and people only bothered to play the best music.

Records made music more accessible because people didn't have to go out of their way to experience it, they no longer had to go to the music because it came to them. Convience always comes at a price and in some way quality is always affected. Phonographs were noisy, low fidelity, and easy to break (they still are), and all in all could not compete with a live performance. But over the past century phonographs overtook live performance in populrity for two main reasons. First the quality or the records improved. Horns were replaced with vacuum tube driven loud speakers, and vacuum tubes were replaced with transistors, stereo was introduced, and turn tables became automatic, and then there were 8-tracks and cassette tapes and CD's; records matched live performances in audio quality. Secondly the quality of the music itself declined. As I wrote before only the most efficient songs were ever recorded and distributed, and people would rather not travel some place else to listen to mediocre music.

Even so I think that real music has been created and mass prodced. I think the Moody Blues were the first band to make a record that had a story line, before that records were just collections of songs. A few songs from their first album stood alone as singles but they fit in their place on the record too. They continued making music records when everyone else was making song records, eventually people saw what a good idea it was and tried it themselves. Appearently it didn't work because most records today are song records, any themes or story lines are vague because they are not developed until after the individual songs have been written and recorded. Music records do exist but they're hard to find.

I think that Napster is a natural outcome in this kind of situation. It and its progeny are song swaping services rather than music swaping services. Most people don't download entire albums, they download top 40 singles. It's more convient to get this kind of music because the industry has saturated the market with it, and the short songs are easy and fast to download.

I compare music to chess. There are the long, thought out games that are deeply layered and intellectual, and the 10 minute games that are fast and rely on instinct and intuition. Some top 40 songs are really good by themselves, they're fast and powerful and anyone can appreciate them. Other songs take their time and each note leads the music in exactly the right direction. Both kinds of music have their artistic merit but unfortunatly only one kind is commercially viable. I can pull out the chess board and play any kind of game I want, I'd like to have that same kind of discression when I choose what music to listen to.

08-09-01, 12:14 AM	#4
Mazer Posts: n/a	I think we're all agreed that the "Record Industry" is the enemy here. It seems that they took over about the time vinyl phonographs became popular. Before audio recordings you had to buy sheet music and perform the music yourself or go see a live band or orchestra. Copyright now applies to original recordings as opposed to sheet music and lyrics alone. I think if things continue the way they have then bands will have to ask their record companies for permission to play their own songs at concerts. It's obvious that greed has corrupted a business that has gone far beyond the scope of media distribution. The point I want to focus on is how musicians have created art in this environment despite their limitations. Ah-pook is absolutely right about classical composers, I had exactly the same thought in the back of my mind as I wrote the words above. Before records the only kinds of widely available and widely popular music was classical music and folk music. Other genres existed like early jazz, but not everyone had access to them. Without the convience of original recordings musicians had to create art that other people could perform and enjoy with their own instruments and voices. Not everyone had a piano or guitar, not everyone could make it to the opera house. So like today, the music that was the most popular was the music that was the most accesible, and people only bothered to play the best music. Records made music more accessible because people didn't have to go out of their way to experience it, they no longer had to go to the music because it came to them. Convience always comes at a price and in some way quality is always affected. Phonographs were noisy, low fidelity, and easy to break (they still are), and all in all could not compete with a live performance. But over the past century phonographs overtook live performance in populrity for two main reasons. First the quality or the records improved. Horns were replaced with vacuum tube driven loud speakers, and vacuum tubes were replaced with transistors, stereo was introduced, and turn tables became automatic, and then there were 8-tracks and cassette tapes and CD's; records matched live performances in audio quality. Secondly the quality of the music itself declined. As I wrote before only the most efficient songs were ever recorded and distributed, and people would rather not travel some place else to listen to mediocre music. Even so I think that real music has been created and mass prodced. I think the Moody Blues were the first band to make a record that had a story line, before that records were just collections of songs. A few songs from their first album stood alone as singles but they fit in their place on the record too. They continued making music records when everyone else was making song records, eventually people saw what a good idea it was and tried it themselves. Appearently it didn't work because most records today are song records, any themes or story lines are vague because they are not developed until after the individual songs have been written and recorded. Music records do exist but they're hard to find. I think that Napster is a natural outcome in this kind of situation. It and its progeny are song swaping services rather than music swaping services. Most people don't download entire albums, they download top 40 singles. It's more convient to get this kind of music because the industry has saturated the market with it, and the short songs are easy and fast to download. I compare music to chess. There are the long, thought out games that are deeply layered and intellectual, and the 10 minute games that are fast and rely on instinct and intuition. Some top 40 songs are really good by themselves, they're fast and powerful and anyone can appreciate them. Other songs take their time and each note leads the music in exactly the right direction. Both kinds of music have their artistic merit but unfortunatly only one kind is commercially viable. I can pull out the chess board and play any kind of game I want, I'd like to have that same kind of discression when I choose what music to listen to.