The MP3

The long term effects of the MP3 audio file must be evolving. We, as a nation, or we, in the professional audio industry, or we, as artists, should ask the question. Is the MP3 going to take the place of the Compact Disc? It could be corporate America (those involved with the music industry) are waiting. It is an uncomfortable position. There is no doubt the advent of the MP3 has all ready changed the face of music in the United States. When Napster created their network, allowing thousands of previously copy-righted songs to be downloaded for free, it was a sensation. What lover music wouldn't reap the rewards of free recorded music? The audiophile may have objected because of the compression scheme necessary in MP3 production. An MP3 simply compresses an original AIFF or WAV file into a much smaller space allowing it to be downloaded over the internet in a relatively short amount of time. Likewise, RealPlayer and Windows Media Player allow for the use of "streaming audio," audio that will play smoothly (or almost smoothly) in real time over a broadband connection. It was and is novel. I got caught up in the bubble. After Napster was prosecuted, they and iTunes began to over a legal service that will probably change music forever. The iTunes music store is a great invention. With a few clicks of the mouse and Roadrunner, lots of recorded music is available for your enjoyment. It is easy to search for and easy to buy an download. After doing this for a while, I had to stop and ask myself, "Is this the future of recorded music." I did a little research on the web. I found the recordings I liked with the iTunes Music Store. Then I searched for those CD's on Amazon.com. Amazingly enough, the CD's were almost always available used for less money. If iTunes is selling songs for $.99 and albums for ten dollars, I though to myself. "Why not spend the $2.50 for shipping and get the CD. Then you have the jewel box, the printed literature, and high quality AIFF audio that can easily be imported into iTunes with the click of a mouse. You get more than simply downloading an MP3 file. I spent roughly fifty dollars on five CD's. I will admit it felt tough. You only get what you pay for, and throughout my life I have always felt the effects of buying. Shit here as always been expensive. Albums in the 70's began at seven dollars, and CD's upon their arrival on the market were sixteen bucks. Not many teenagers or college kids can afford that. As a result the MP3 is a worth competitor in the market for recorded music. The long term effects of this change are still happening. If the decision is made by the industry to abandon compact discs, many things will happen, some of which probably all ready are. I think it may be contributing to the demise of the music video on television. Evidently the push in the industry must be for the smaller objects of audio production, namely the iPod, the palm pilot, and whatever else is out there on the market. These, as I reflect, took the country by storm with millions sold. The iPod is the new music player. Well, using an iPod does not change the steps necessary in creating great music. It may lead you to think that way. This trend has all ready effected professional music production on television and in the movies. Why hire John Williams to score your movie, then pay the London Philharmonic to record the score, when Hans Zimmer can create a score in his home studio? I can't think of the guy that does the dark toned orchestra/MIDI music for Tim Burton's films, but he has been right in there. Unfortunately the craft of such notable orchestra composers such John Barry, James Horner, and others is becoming rare. Slowly but surely with the advent of Sony Digital Sound, the subtle nuances of an orchestral score that caress the scenes and actors in conventional music making have taken a back seat to the loud and infrasonic banging of tribal drums. It seems like many of the movies that are mass produced today use almost the same cue in the opening sequence. Booming, noisy, spurts of sound underscore every action scene leaving the listener desensitized. It is only when you watch a movie such as Somewhere in Time, we forget how powerful and intimate music can make a movie. Producers used to pay large cash for such a product. With the influx of video games the experience of movie watching in a theatre changed. I say, drop the ticket price to $.50. If movies are indeed going to continue to be treated as glorified video games, the price should be adjusted accordingly. I think the MP3 is a mistake for the recording industry. Art is not created in a little studio with one guy behind the controls. The PROCESS of music making is suffering massively during this transition. Radio has all but disappeared as the once catalyst for launching an artist's career. My friend in Nashville confirmed what I thought to be true, which was.... all the radio stations were bought up by one company, a corporate monopoly so-to-speak. This stifles creativity in the music industry, because the tried and true method of launching band is now different if it exists at all. The lack of music videos on television my be foreshadowing the death of popular music as we know it. If people in the US really want to watch that reality/gossip crap on TV, then they must not have interest in music with any artistic content. It's seems to be all about "me." I guess everybody want to be a star now as evidenced by American Idol. What happened to taking piano lessons, performing in musicals, majoring in music in college, and driving your shoes to New York or LA to promote your demo? That process is what it takes to produce great music. There is substance there because of the process. I have always known the purchase of a Macintosh was not going to somehow magically create the music that I have worked so hard at. Music lives in the compositional process. It lives as the composer conceives it. Without that process, the music is not alive at all, but a shot in the dark for what you think the masses would want. Art is in the composers hands. His feelings, his thoughts, and his experiences are the true voice. If someone thinks a mass hysteria about American Idol is somehow going to replace the creative process they are wrong. It is wrong to suggest that fame and money can be created with a facade. With a crack team of songwriters and instrumentalists, it is possible to produce an acts. An act must be seen for what it is, pop fodder. Jessica Simpson? I don't even know who she is. Apparently she has a sister that sings too. I myself am not interested in a corporate-created image that looks pretty on stage. I want to connect with someone through their lives and experiences. That is what joins a nation together, a common thread that all can sympathize with. That is what we are lacking now. Media moguls are in NO position to create a trend, a wave, a movement in humanity. That comes from real life experiences. All the glitter and glamour and microphones and buzz will not create art. If the powers at be truly are a "One World Order," and through PC are trying to mold America's youth into something they can manipulate, they must be succeeding. If reversing the history of American music, the rebelliousness, the political checks and balances, and the emotional cries for integrity, if that is the goal... It must be stopped. I for one am not going to spend the rest of my life carrying around a little cigarette box with digital music in it. We deserve more as the American people. We deserve more space. We deserve the playgrounds we once had and the woods and the trails. We deserve the funkiness that is Hollywood. We deserve brothels and bars and wig stores. We don't deserve, like the former residents of New Orleans, to be pushed out of our lives with eminent Domain. Over-priced condominiums springing up like the sky scrapers in Manhattan, alienating the common man from their deserved life. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights and Declaration of independence used to mean something. The tired and poor were offered a new start at life in the United States. Slowly that is disappearing until one day man will cease to exist at all. It will just be an office with a computer moving money from place to place.