After watching this video for Flypt, an iPhone app that let’s users remix music using some basic effects, I got to thinking again about the new ways these and other programs are bringing musical creativity into people’s lives. No, it’s not necessarily the equivalent of learning to play the cello, but it’s flexing muscles in people that I assume most music professionals appreciate seeing toned. Doesn’t the future of music seem brighter when playing music isn’t simply turning on the radio but actually thinking about the process of making sound? In some ways, it seems like a return the engagement experienced when lots of people played an instrument “a little” to meet family/community demands, but with the added bonus that professional music is also all around us.
It also brought to mind once again Lessig’s book (and our conversation on MTG) covering the role of remixing in contemporary culture. From simple linking to complete overhauls of message, the way we are digesting information and trading ideas is exploding off the screen. I admit I worry it’s all flying at me so fast that I’m missing a great deal of the actual content and only catching 25% of any particular thought. Is my mind truly benefiting or is it slowly crawling deeper and deeper into a hole due to idea shell shock? Maybe perpetual stimulation is not to be feared, but adjusting to this kind of high-speed collective processing is exhausting (good thing I didn’t go to Oberlin, then, I guess). In the end, I know I’m jumping the gun, because we’re still playing with these new tools/toys–twisting and pulling on them to see not just what new technologies can do, but what we can do and become alongside them. Maybe that process will never end, but how profoundly will it end up altering the way we think about, well, everything?
UPDATE: Information Overload: Americans Consume 34 GB of Data Daily
I wonder does all this tech info provide us with more high notes of talent or a vanilla goodnuff world? Having spent my life working as a Photographic Artist I see a tsunami of artifi$cal intelligence in the world of “imaging” where the only thing that matters is cheap. Put the piece of plastic on auto and machine gun your field of view than into the latest software to find the idea you never had. There is no creative journey just fast cheap and buy the next upgrade. We all will be pro’s like the Kansas City A’s in baseball good enough but not excellent. enjoy pjc
excuse me KC you were the first losing team that came to mind, parity.
I like your idea that we can get closer to the music and the process of its development because we are engaged in it directly. Could not agree more.
As for your point about information overload, I love the democratizing value of new media, but am too overwhelmed by information. The main problem is that there is too much noise in the way of quality content. I wonder if, perhaps, those of us who feel this way need to make a conscious choice to pay for what we value, a la public radio, and this will help focus our consumption. In other words, thinking about this in terms of civic duty. Considering few of us could afford to pay for all that we usually consume, we would focus on what we value, since we always want to get our money’s worth! It does not matter to me if others would get a free ride, as at least I feel like I could still think straight at the end of the day. OK, I am off to pay for the NY Times online… oh wait, it’s free!
I have a hard time knowing whether a technology’s effects are good or bad, because there’s so little agreement about what effects are desirable. I don’t even agree with myself. I like democracy, but I know that it often spreads half-baked or harmful ideas. I like information becoming more accessible, but I agree with Neal Postman that our biggest problems are not problems of lack of information. I like that people can participate creatively by remixing and remaking anything and everything, but what’s to be done about all the clutter and racket?
Maybe it’s worth asking some corny, old-fashioned questions about technologies and their products: Does this increase the stock of compassion in the world? Does it reduce suffering somewhere? Does it make somebody laugh? Does it bring forth some beauty? Does it help someone to be more present, to be happier, to think more clearly? Does it help us to live gracefully on our planet? I know that much of what I spend my time on, with or without my computerized gizmos, does none of these things, and the trouble is not with the technologies.
No technology is, itself, a boon or a bane. (Even a weapon can cause injury or forestall it, depending on how you use it.) As always, what matters is the intent. Computer technologies have such huge capacity to amplify and broadcast human intent that our greatest need now might be not for better technologies but for clearer intentions.
In the March 83 issue of Camera Arts there was an article publishing some correspondence of Alfred Stieglitz. I kept a few quotes from these and two of them seem appropriate to bring back to life here.
“I know as a fact that the photographers of this country are not very eager to see. And that is why their photographic work is not developing. They may be improving technically as far as processes are concerned, but they are adding nothing to photography; they are adding nothing to their own vision. They have no vision.” [A.S. to W. Orison Underwood, 30Apr1914]
and…
“It is the intensity of feeling _expressed_ which lives. It is not the technique. Technique is a dead thing, no matter how masterly it may be in itself. At first it may attract, but eventually it repels. Repels because it is not vital. It is like a vaudeville stunt. All right as far as it goes, and very wonderful. But it is not sufficient.” [A.S. to John G. Bullock, 26Mar1917]
It’s important to remember that Stieglitz was no Luddite — he was way out on the edge with new photographic techniques and technologies of his day. What he seems to be saying in these letters reminds me of a conversation I’ve had dozens of times over the last few years with friends in my own small music world:
Let’s say there are (conservatively) a gazillion copies of GarageBand software out there (or Sibelius or whatever). A lot of kids (of all ages) are having a lot of fun with it making their own music. It’s easy to learn and use. But only one out of the gazillion users is Mozart.
Stickie to paste on your laptop:
“IT’S NOT THE TECHNOLOGY, STUPID.”