A warning on the future of music

[john]

Hey

 

As ever, an interesting interview by Rick Beato with American music critic and historian Ted Gioia.

 

 

Interesting. Any thoughts?

 

cheers

 

John

 

[GregB]

As with most things, you'll agree or disagree.  He's the same vintage as Beato (and me), with the same influences, therefore, unsurprisingly, I agree, and he hit the nail on the head that modern culture seems to be a race to the bottom ... less nuance, quicker, cheaper, etc..

 

I put my own frustrations with the 3-min song format into my own song ... the joke being that it was 2:59   ...

 

 

PS. I've just listened to the whole Ted Gioia program. BRILLIANT. He's got unique and relevant experience and a rare ability to distill it clearly for the listener. And he's such a clear speaker I could listen at 1.75 speed!!
 

Edited May 22, 2022 by GregB
added text

[Tonedead]

So far I've figured out why my tracks tend to come in around 6 minutes even after I've edited out about 5 minutes because I just kept going then think it needs to be cut back 

and also feel like it's therapeutic 

[MikeRobinson]

Lots of times, I just think that "Music Row" perceives that it has a certain amount of commercial air-time that it has to fill up with something.  They select artists who can sing passably well, and conjure up things for them to sing which will "sound familiar."

 

Perhaps the most extreme example of this is a Brittney Spears® song:  her "sound" consists of a filter, and the musical arrangement is also almost exactly the same.  But let the record show that the McDonald brothers made a fortune from this, once Ray Kroc taught them how to sell identical hamburgers by the billions.  "Teach 'em what to want, then sell 'em what they want."

 

Meanwhile, music is infinitely broader and more-diverse than that.  There's always room for another fantastic piece of music.  It's just a harder sell ... because now you have to work at it.

Edited May 26, 2022 by MikeRobinson

[Danger Man]

The problem is that the vast majority of people don't have minds of their own. People listen to whatever is popular, and what's popular is whatever the money people decide to make popular. In the 60's you had payola. After laws were made to prohibit that somewhat, the hoods who use to just own record companies started buying radio stations too by the dozens and they were darn well gonna play their own artists. That's why when you drive across the country you'll find the exact same artists and songs on the radio.

 

Now with digital downloads, don't think that the same record companies aren't paying places like YT and Spoitify to "suggest" certain songs to people in their news feeds.

 

Only small genres like folk and bluegrass are truly independent today and that's only because they're small niche markets that don't sell enough units to interest the hoods.

 

The real heart of the matter in my opinion is that bad people outnumber good people in this world by a large margin.

[Gtar Pkr]

"You know you've wasted your time when you look at your watch and can't remember the day

When what you wanted so much just wasn't enough... well, what do you say..."

[Danger Man]

What's that from G man?

[Peggy]

5 hours ago, Gtar Pkr said:

"You know you've wasted your time when you look at your watch and can't remember the day

When what you wanted so much just wasn't enough... well, what do you say..."

Start of a new lyric idea?  I can hear it.. 

[Gtar Pkr]

"Nowhere Fast"

Another oldie I need to re-vamp LOL

 

Anybody wanna' jam?

[Peggy]

I knew it was lyrical.. haha

 

17 minutes ago, Gtar Pkr said:

Anybody wanna' jam?

Well that's started chatter around here .. it's Saurday night.. 🎶🎹😎🎸🎤

[Gtar Pkr]

7 minutes ago, Peggy said:

I knew it was lyrical.. haha

 

Well that's started chatter around here .. it's Saurday night.. 🎶🎹😎🎸🎤

I'll put it up in lyrics and see what happens...

Always ready to jam ya'll!

[Gtar Pkr]

2 minutes ago, VoiceEx said:

@Gtar Pkr Actually, now that I think about it, you may be on to something. A community jam would be an interesting idea for a community event, similar to the concept of NMF (New Music Friday). It could even be something simple with no complications, like tossing in some Free generic beat, and than having members pitch in improv recordings on it for fun, or try to make a song out of it. Kind of like a continues cycle of "community jams", which anyone can participate in.

 

Realistically speaking, I do have doubts about such an idea taking off. Though it could be cool in theory! this could also include song writers or poems, alot of things could be done with that idea. Perhaps is something that @Peggy or @john may wish to consider!

I'm game!

But there's already a collab forum....

[Gtar Pkr]

Perhaps a "Topic Challenge" in the collab forum?

[Danger Man]

A "jam" is just a bunch of people taking turns soloing, generally over a standard instrumental tune. It's easy live but to do it in an interweb recording means knowing exactly how many people will be soloing so you know exactly how many measures to use for the song's length. Somebody has to put a head and a tail on things and then just have bass and drums to solo over.

[Danger Man]

3 hours ago, VoiceEx said:

 

The interweb? man its been a long time since I hear somebody use that phrase! kudos! 😅

Well I am from Southern Illinois. 😄

Edited June 5, 2022 by Danger Man

[Danger Man]

You wouldn't need anything but wave files if everybody was just playing solos. Even that can be long work though if you have a lot of people participating. I was in a forum that did that about 20 years ago. The guys had a lot of fun it seemed.

 

Not something I'd be much good at but I'm sure I'll enjoy listening to the others.

[MikeRobinson]

You could also host literal jam-sessions on things such as Zoom ... just make sure someone's capturing the audio and video.  This would create an environment where different players can "feed off one another" like they do in real jams ... because it would be a "real jam."

[GregB]

On 6/5/2022 at 12:57 AM, Danger Man said:

bad people outnumber good people in this world by a large margin

 

INTENTIONALLY or NATURALLY bad?   I would like to think that this is NOT the case. 

We may have complex brains but these are still steered by hind-brain urges from our distant evolutionary past.  Why else would we allow chest-beating slogan-shouting alphas shape our societies, and why else do we gorge on resources simply because they are currently abundant?

I need to stop typing now while I have a banana and groom myself.  Ooh, ooh.  Ah, ah!   

[Danger Man]

Every evil deed starts with a selfish desire and we're all born selfish and wanting constant attention. "Mine," "give me," "I want," "don't," "stop it---these are the words dominant to us when we first learn to talk. There's nothing more selfish than a small child. So I believe we're all born evil and the whole purpose of life is to become selfless before we make our grand exit. Few of us seem likely to achieve that goal.

[GregB]

2 hours ago, Danger Man said:

the whole purpose of life is to become selfless before we make our grand exit

 

Perhaps the world is going down the toilet because, now that we're living longer, people feel comfortable that there's more time in which to remain selfish?