Home music production technology democratized the music creation and the music industry. This has had both positive and negative implications for musicians and the music industry.

Thanks to home music production technology, anyone with a computer can create, record and distribute their own music from home. This has virtually eliminated the need for musicians to pursue a deal with a record company. Before this kind of technology was available, the cost of producing and marketing an album was very high. Musicians relied on record companies to cover the up-front costs of creating the music and getting it to the masses. This meant that the large record companies had control over what music was recorded and promoted.

However, with the advent of inexpensive home recording technology, musicians can bypass large record companies and do everything they need themselves (see Maney’s article). The power has shifted from a few large, wealthy companies to the masses, effectively democratizing the music industry.

This has a number of positive effects. As Price states, anyone can listen to whatever music they like, not what a record company tells them they should like. Anyone with a computer can become a creator of music, allowing people to engage with music in new ways. It is not necessarily true that more music is now being created, but music is more accessible than it has been at any other time in history.

However, there are some downsides. As Price points out, there is an argument that the music industry needs some kind of subjective ‘filter’ to determine what is good and what is bad. Maney touches on this in his article. Even though he admits that Byrds guitarist Roger McGuinn has more talent than he does, Maney is still able to produce a professional-quality recording with his laptop, the same way McGuinn does. With financial and logistical barriers removed, and no ‘gatekeepers’ such as record companies in the way, anyone can become a musician, regardless of talent. Combine this with the blurring of the roles of ‘consumer’ and ‘creator’ of music as explained here, and it becomes difficult to determine who’s an ‘artist’, what’s a ‘composition’, who’s the ‘audience’ and what’s ‘good’ and ‘bad’.

All of this makes this chapter in the history of music a very interesting one. It is reasonable to predict that as technology develops, the wall between ‘creator’ and ‘consumer’ will be further dismantled. This has the potential to further alter how people engage with music. Perhaps music will move from being a performance art or spectator sport to an interactive, audience-based activity, a  concept explored on this site.

No matter the changes in technology, music will always exist. It may just take a slightly different form.

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References

Goodwin, A. Rationalization and democratization in the new technologies of popular music. In S. Frith (2004). Popular music: The rock era. (pp. 147-165). London: Routledge.

Ross, A. (2007). The rest is noise. New York: Farrar Strauss and Giroux.

Taylor, T. (2001). Strange sounds: Music, technology and culture. New York: Routledge.

Theberge, P. (1997). Any sound you can imagine. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.