How technology killed (and then saved) music

by Cody Kitaura

Years from now, people may look back and say that technology both ruined music and saved it.

Over time, there have been many controversial developments in technology that have drastically changed music, and not everyone has been happy about them. Now, there have been major technological advancements that may forever change hip-hop, rock and classical music for the better.

Hip-hop
The house of hip-hop was built on a foundation of sampling, and it’s why some people have a fundamental problem with the genre. It’s debatable, but some might argue that rapping over a lick from a Motown hit takes less creativity than writing the initial song did.

Now, increasing costs mean more and more artists are abandoning sampling – or at least cutting back. Spin magazine reports that the average cost to clear a sample from its original owner is about $10,000.

"In the old days, samples were $2,500 or $1,500," the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA told Spin.

And artists hoping to sneak a sample from a lesser-known musician without paying now have the Internet to consider.

“You'd be surprised who's out there Googling themselves," Eothen Alapatt, general manager of Stones Throw Records, told Spin.

Because of these high costs, hip-hop of the future may sound very different than the sample-based albums of the past. According to Spin, Kayne West’s latest album, 808s and Heartbreaks, features no prominent samples – his last, Graduation, used samples on 10 of its 13 tracks.

So if this trend threatens to change the fundamental basis of hip-hop, how can it be good? Because hip-hop was never supposed to be about the hook. It was supposed to be about one thing: the lyrics. Somewhere along the line, record companies took over and hip-hop became about pumping out mindless club hits. If this trend takes hold, maybe it will draw attention to what really matters: the lyrics (even if it does mean enduring some meager electronic production).

Rock
Today, it’s hard to tell who’s really playing the music heard on the radio. Advancements in recording studio technology have made it easy to stretch an off-beat drum fill, clean up a sloppy guitar riff or straighten out an off-pitch singer.

Now, the Internet is helping musicians find more ways to focus on the most pure form of music: live music.

eJamming’s AUDiiO software is a peer-to-peer network that allows musicians to use Web connections to jam online with other musicians – no matter where they are. The company emphasizes the service is focused on allowing musicians to jam with each other no matter the distance between them, but its real strength may be the revival of the jam session.

In a live jam, there is (usually) no studio trickery available to hide missteps. In the CES demo of eJamming, Smash Mouth’s Steve Harwell sings a few wrong notes as he jams online with his band mates. But that matters a lot less in a live jam, where the energy and spirit are the focus.

If eJamming takes hold, perhaps musicians and listeners will stop focusing so much on artificial studio perfection and rediscover live music.

Classical
Classical music has been confined to conservatories and stuffy concert halls, and YouTube is hoping to change that with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. The project allows musicians to download sheet music for an original composition by Chinese composer Tan Dun, practice, and upload their video auditions.

Once musicians upload videos of their tries at the piece, judges will select semi-finalists, with the final musicians (who will perform the piece in Carnegie Hall in April 2009) to be chosen by YouTube viewers.

The LA Times’ Meghan Daum thinks letting the average YouTube viewer is too ignorant to be trusted with the final choice.

“How, after all, can an audience raised on Auto-Tune vocal enhancement and digital sampling be expected to tell one violinist's pizzicato technique from another's?” she wrote.

Daum is missing the point. If Dun wanted his piece to be performed only by the best of the best, he would have left it at the demo video recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra. In fact, he doesn’t seem too concerned about perfection. He encourages musicians to enter videos using “any instrument . . . or without any instrument,” like kitchen utensils, rocks or paper.

“Anything could be the way – could be your language to talk to the people,” he said in an interview posted to the site. “But all this sound is the language of your heart – nothing related to the technique. That’s the future of the expression of music.”

If enough people enter videos and become involved with the selection process, the YouTube Symphony Orchestra could be a revival of classical music – not in terms of technique or virtuosity, but in terms of the way people appreciate it.

[completely irrelevant photo courtesy flickr user Orange_Beard]