Evolution of music. Lead to online music collaboration
A brief take on the music industry
From live music to published music to recorded music. Not satisfied with hearing the superb concerts in a theatre, the aristocracy sought to buy music sheets to have virtuosos play in their homes. Then many theatres with their orchestras could play works of composers from afar -all thanks to the music sheets- , and thus the published music industry was born. But when Thomas Edison went one step further from Leon Scottâs musical transcribing machine -a little invention that could transcribe to a piece of paper the music played-, he created, accidentally, the recorded music industry. All you had to do was to record a band who played to your taste -assuming you were one of those rich people with enough money to record- and hear the song over and over again. Technology kept getting better and vinyls appeared. Enter the record labels.
The birth of the first band to successfully achieve worldwide fame -and tons of money- came from four english boys. The Beatles wrote their own songs, promoted themselves by playing live and inspired the youth to follow their dreams of forming bands -garage bands arose-. Record labels seemed to be the only viable choice for getting yourself known in the musical world. There was a problem, though. If you didnât manage to make your label even more rich, you were most likely to end way down in an abyss of debt. So these companies ended up getting millions of dollars -they still do- while most of the artists get much less, and this infuriated not just the artists but the audience as well. As the digital era arrived -and the music industry insisted on charging an incredible amount of money for their CDs- people looked upon this as a chance of benefit. Now you could make your own studio easier.
Home recording, indie studios
Les Paul made history way back in 1948 by creating the first multi-track recorded song -called âLover (when youâre near me)â-; the music industry began to morph. This meant you could record yourself playing the piano, then add some drums, maybe some vocals, and Presto! You were now a one-man band. Much later smaller labels were able to start, all thanks to the digital era, which cheapened and accelerated the process. Major labels always took successful artists away from the smaller labels that gave them a chance. That was about to change. Musicians are always desperate to make something out of their creations, and the smaller labels gave them this chance. Indie rock became popular and more bands accomplished their dreams of fame. Something was wrong, though. The major labels were charging incredible amounts of money for a single CD -as if the price of a CD player wasnât high enough already-. This resulted in a new problem for the music industry: Piracy. Software like Napster allowed audiences to download shared .mp3 files, thus avoiding the high costs of the CDs. They managed to shut down Napster, but the idea of sharing music online remained. Streaming sites like Spotify, Pandora, Rdio are nowadays the best legal response to online music sharing.
A peculiar case occurred in 2001, when Ben Gibbard added vocals to a song on Dntelâs Life is full of possibilities. They wanted to keep collaborating, but since the distance between them was quite long -Ben lived in Seattle and Tamborello (Dntel) in Los Angeles- they opted to send their contributions to each otherâs works in DATs by mail, hence the name The Postal Service. Â This was an amazing product of music collaboration, which would become easier in the years to come. With the different services available, you are now able to receive in a couple of minutes someoneâs contribution even if theyâre all the way down in Asia, or Oceania. Cloud storage sites like Dropbox has similar stories as the ones of the postal service. There are many cases of bands getting themselves known -such as Grizzly Bear, starting with a great solo album by Edward Droste, or The Smiths from the 80âs-, and many of these think more or less like this: âIf I make minimum wage working at a coffee shop, Iâd much rather earn it by doing something I love, creating musicâ. This encourages indie bands to try and make a living out of their favorite hobby. We personally think music collaboration is the best way to achieve the âmusical dreamâ. In the present there are sites and services that are, undoubtedly, helping music collaboration. An example would be GitHub, which is essentially a site for sharing coding projects. Musicians saw it also as a site for musical composition for it is compatible with editors -GitHub does not have a built-in editor for music-.
Youtube has also been a great site for music enthusiasts to get to know each other. Thereâs been some collaboration projects -like Darren Solomonâs âin B Flatâ-. In 2011, Youtube hosted an event in Carnegie Hall for users who were previously judged with a musical video of their own. The winners got to play in Youtubeâs streaming event.
If youâve heard music collaboration before, then you know how fun it is. Day by day it is easier to communicate with people from all over the world, and so is contributing to a song. Imagine forming a band with guys from the UK, Japan, South Africa, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Canada, or simply put, anyone with internet access. Maybe you have a great composition that would go along great with some vocals from a Scandinavian girl. Who knows? As technology progresses, so does the need of forming bonds with all different kinds of persons, and what better way could there be than to communicate using the universal language of music?
jacobvanloon
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