I've been thinking about the physical relationship between music and those listening to it and playing it.
There is an addicting quality I think to playing music. Years ago there was a similar quality to listening to music. There was a physical relationship in both cases. Things have changed, however.
Not for me. I'm old school enough to have a rather extensive stereo setup in my living room. Tape deck, turntable, EQ, amplifier, and a set of speakers you need a forklift to move. Enough power that if I opened the window you could hear my rig in the next area code. Several hundred LPs and a similar number of tapes.
Consider the idea that with vinyl records and, to a somewhat lesser extent, with tapes, there was a physical action going on and there was an interaction between the listener and the material being listened to.
There’s a record going around. There’s a tape in that machine that you can see being played. You have to put something there; you actually have possession and control of something that makes that sound. The equipment requires at least basic upkeep and a basic understanding to make those sounds. The maintenance and operations of such beasts are as much an art form as it is a science. Some folks take on the air of wizardry making all this junk sound good. There is a personal interaction at that level between you and the music.
With some more recent formats, say CDs and certainly with MP3s and streaming, there’s nothing of the sort going on. There is no physical connection anymore between the music being played and the listener.
That’s got me thinking that maybe that’s part of the reason why music hasn’t been selling all that well lately. There’s no holding it in your hand, no watching it being played. There's technical expertise required to make all that happen on the listener end.
(Say what you will about the quality of MP3s, and I will likely agree, but that’s a discussion for another time.)
In the days of vinyl and whatnot, there was a lot of listener input about the hobby. That’s no longer true. I can’t help but wonder if that disconnection isn’t a major reason why sales of recorded music have been dropping off, why high-end stereo stores aren’t doing well except for those engaging in sales of retro material and equipment, and why there’s been a resurgence of tape and vinyl. Used record shops are doing quite well these days, too.
Granted, the music coming out these days isn’t what it used to be, either. For the most part it’s been absolute crap for the last 20 years, but I’m starting to think that that’s only half the issue. The resurgence of tape and of vinyl records for home use speaks loudly to me on that point.
But you know about that as well; so much of today’s live music is being played on equipment and instruments that are plug-and-play, just like the MP3 player.
Example:
I'm a fan of the Hammond organ with Leslie speakers. They're getting more rare these days. It’s certainly costly, less dependable, and certainly more fragile to carry a Hammond B3 /Leslie 147 combination around on the road with you everywhere you go. Bloody things are heavy, too. So, most people simply carry the synthesized equivalent. And it simply does not sound the same. Sorry, it just doesn’t.
Another example would be auto-tune. Does anybody record vocals without it anymore? In listening to the radio these days, one has to wonder. Cher’s “Believe" was cute, with its auto-tune hooks, but enough is enough.
For that matter, radio is another example of what I’m talking about here. I speak from long personal experience on this point. Years ago every music station that you listened to had very little, if any, automation, or, at the very least, it was quite primitive and required a lot of user input. (An exception might be Drake-Chenault, and their beautiful music systems.)
Back when Top 40 radio was king, you had one or two folks on at all times who knew very well how to run a manual live control board. Not only was there an art form to running the equipment, but there was also an art form to making the sound. Every mix on the air was done live; you used records and tapes. There was “no holds barred” talent involved; there was a direct connection between the people on the air and the listener. I suggest that’s one reason that Top 40 music of the period remains popular to this day; there was a connection between the music and the listener that was aided by the relationship between the radio talent and the listener.
Even there, we're missing an element. Mostly, listening to “oldies” stations, the missing element is the live mixdown, the jock choosing what songs get played, how bridges are mixed, and so on. These days, radio stations can run 24 hours a day without any human input at all. Every single element is pre-recorded and voice tracked; the mixdowns on-air between each element are sloppy at best. The connection between the broadcaster and the listener is completely gone. And radio as an industry is struggling and wondering where their listeners went. The why is simple enough: Radio has become bland, impersonal, and mechanized.
So again we come to the question: Have we succeeded in separating ourselves from our music by means of technology?
