Week 4 – on Steve Gordon’s The Future of the Music Business, chapters 7 & 8 – 2/04/2011
Reading Gordon’s assertion that the sale of ringtones is a billion-dollar industry was surprising, although it was interesting to note that more time was not spent on adding this to revenues from other forms of digital downloads and existing music sales to find a combined revenue, (since only this would comparable to the former sales figures for tangible recordings). Just as worthy of further examination is the tension existing within some companies—particularly Sony—that manufacture technologies that seem to enable the exact sort of piracy that another arm of the company is so stridently fighting against. Perhaps Sony’s willingness to participate at every link in the supply chain allows for the recuperation of profits lost at some formerly-valuable links by means of now more valuable links, (like in technology sales). Considering ringtones as well as music in video games as new, different ways to sell or market music, too, might lead to rethinking the consumption of music. The commodification of music is worthy of investigation, since it could be argued that the growth in interest in digitized music, and the revenue that correlates to these new forms of music (distribution/consumption), leads to reconsidering what the commodity is: perhaps the commodity has shifted from the tangible good to the actual recorded music.
Although the following chapter does not address this more philosophical approach to the shift in sales of music from music-as-object to music-as-performance, it was worthy to note the apparent (unintentional) solidarity between the author and all of those he interviewed in their approach to the RIAA’s pursuit of individuals illegally downloading music – despite their (varying) status as music industry insiders. Further, their similar approaches to ensuring some revenue stream to help record labels, such as a blanket license or tax applied to technologies that allow legal and illegal copying & distribution, mark a serious difference from the corporate approaches so far – and it will certainly be interesting to see different ideas like this tried over the coming years, (since it seems–with a number of examples of failures in trying to use ad revenue to pay for licensing–some other approach is necessary). One issue Gordon brought up may reemerge in a slightly shifted form if any of these new approaches are tried, though: just as the first forays of the music industry into the world of legal sales of digital music were clumsy and destined to fail, it seems likely (if the music industry’s resistance to change and inability to rethink sales from a unit-based model are so certain) that progress will be stalled.
Week 4 – on Russ Girsberger’s A Manual for the Performance Library, chapter 1
Just a couple of brief notes on the chapter: first and most generally, I have to admit to a woeful ignorance of the position/job of a ‘performance librarian’ and the collection one could call a ‘performance library’, as opposed to what I more generally knew of as a music library. Upon reading the first chapter of Girsberger’s book, though, it makes perfect sense – as does the assertion that an MLIS and/or traditional training as a librarian do not make up the ideal preconditions for working as a performance librarian. Instead, an emphasis on subject expertise is the largest priority, which leads me to think of a performance library as another form of special library.
On various music recording and editing software (ProTools, Garage Band, Cubase, etc.)
Of the five different products in this week’s list of recording software, Garage Band seems the most approachable – the most useful for a novice, especially considering its ‘learn to play music’ function. This makes a certain amount of sense, considering Apple’s history of very intuitive and usable products, as well as the expected range of software to do nearly anything, (create web pages, edit photos, etc.). Following on this idea of a spectrum of products designed for the novice to the expert, so we might see Protools, Audition, SONAR, and Cubase as geared toward more experienced musicians who have used recording software before. The Ableton and Acid products allow looping, as indicated in the week’s reading notes, but seem to also be useful for sound editing. Since I haven’t had any experience with any of these products, I couldn’t say if one is particularly more easy to use or nimble than another. There are many free and/or open-source recording and editing software options, too, so I would be curious to see an expert comparison of the full range of choices.