Music in Trains

I’m always fascinated by reports of current trends in music consumption. An article in The Atlantic, “Why Aren’t Kids These Days Downloading Music?” by Derek Thompson was cited by Frank J. Oteri in “You Can’t Take That Away From Me” remarking on the latest trend: moving away from downloading and keeping tracks toward visiting streaming sites such as Pandora and YouTube where you listen in a less committal way.

This new structure is changing the economy of music as noted by Alexandra Topping:

Even though users of streaming services are not necessarily buying more music, the industry benefits by learning more about fans’ tastes. Steve Purdham, CEO and founder of We7, a music streaming service and download store, said: “They may not buy an album, though they have that opportunity, but you can sell them tour tickets and a T-shirt of their favourite band.”

Whereas I have written before in defense of live performers (“Who Needs Performers?“), I found the recent attacks on performers who used pre-recorded music rather lacking in substance. In particular, the 2009 inauguration performance and the national anthem at the 2009 Super Bowl were written about by Eric Felten in the Wall Street Journal in an article titled “That Synching Feeling.”

Here are some of the reasons offered by performers as to why they would use pre-recorded music:

• This occasion’s got to be perfect. You can’t have any slip-ups.
• The slightest glitch would devastate the performance.
• There are too many variables to go live.
• The performers care too much about their art to risk presenting something substandard.

A true gem of a thought that I can not resist periodically shows up on Orchestralist, the international forum for orchestra professionals. One such post recently came up that contained such good points that I am still mentally working my way through my own thoughts regarding the questions posed.

The author paraphrased Jared Diamond’s book Guns, Germs and Steel with a list of factors that may be the most important factors in whether an orchestra will present a new work.

“The DJ is the custodian of aural history.”

—Paul D. Miller, a.k.a. DJ Spooky

DJ Spooky sparks some interesting thoughts with the DJ posed as a “custodian of aural history.” Is that a fair statement? I would say so, with some qualifications. Sampling tends to include music from all realms, including classical. In this sense, it is much more inclusive than much of the classical version of quotation music. Jayson Greene wrote an article in Stylus magazine in which he listed the “Top Ten Classical-Music Samples in Hip-Hop.” Angus Batey referenced this list as he argued that Hip-hop is not inferior to classical music.

On my drive home yesterday, I was listening to NPR, as I am usually apt to do. I was struck by some thoughts presented in a report by Andrea Shea, “Conceptualizing Sol LeWitt’s ‘Wall Drawings’.“

Although Sol LeWitt died last year at 78, one of his biggest installations, “Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective” will open to the public soon, at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts and be on view for 25 years. LeWitt hired a number of artists to execute his ideas over the past several years, including the time after his death.

LeWitt was one of the pioneers and masters of the “conceptual art” movement. For him:

In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.

Sol LeWitt, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” Artforum, June 1967.