Re: [microsound] off-icmc discourse

[Øivind Idsø <ezueled@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

david turgeon wrote:

> 2)  oeivind mentions the "one hundred thousand microsound releases
> coming out each week", & while i wonder where he sees so many (even
> counting invisible cd-r issues, i doubt there's more than 20)

:-)

Hyperbole is a useful thing, but I guess I exaggerated my exaggeration. I
do feel, though, that clicks are everywhere (including the track I am
working on right now), but I might be wrong. Anyways,...

> , a notable
> point is raised concerning, once again, conflicting agendae.  on the one
> hand you have artists wishing to release something which they deem
> worthwhile (& it will be up to the listener to decide whether they find
> something to touch them in their work) & on the other you have record
> labels who first decide what listeners they want to please to, & then
> construct a catalogue around that.

....I think there has been a gradual change in quality control as new media
and the CD-R business has emerged. Releasing a record previously took a lot
of effort if you were to do it all on your own, but these days it´s a
matter of patience: how many discs with a burning time of 15 minutes can
you sit through? And uploading to MP3.com is even easier. Which is why
thousands of people do it.

Whether this is good or bad: hard to tell. No progress without regress.
More people than ever are making music, and more people than ever are
releasing music. I certainly don´t want to get back to the idea of the
enlightened/gifted Genius, but there can only be so many great music. Now
we have the opportunity to wade through 1000 CDs/MPs to find gold, while
previously we only had maybe 50. So obviously we have more choices, but
finding gold is becoming increasingly difficult.

The balance between what the artist deems fit for release and what a label
deems fit for release has been skewed, and it goes in favour of the artist.
While I´m euphoric with regards to the potential this shift in power makes
available for me as a sound producing guy, I am also overwhelmed by the
endless number of projects that are already available today and the
endless++ projects that will be available tomorrow. How to get people to
listen to your music on MP3?

As such, with our limited time&resources, the danger is that one will fall
back even more on the known, on the one or two or three labels/artists you
already know, simply because you don´t have the energy to search the net
eight hours a day in pursuit of the next big (or small) thing. That´s the
paradox of free choice: you get tired of spending hours finding the
cheapest telecommunications operator, and so you give up and fall back on
the operator you´ve Always had. Or, as in Norway, where people are now so
stinking rich (well, lots of people, anyways) and are offered so many
choices that they seem to think it´s time we give more power to the
far-right party Frp, so that they can make the choices for them. Action -
reaction. As old as action itself.

Sidebar: this whole Napster thing and the massive availability of music in
general (if you´re corrupt and take advantage of the illegal route) has
made me stop and think about the value of music and where it comes from.
Suddenly all the musics of the world (hyperbole again) are at your
fingertips, and suddenly lots of it loses its value. To paraphrase Barthes,
the pleasure of the music sort of disappears. I´ve spent hours downloading
music (confession), but something sometimes happens to it. Is it because
it´s music I wouldn´t have bought if I had to pay for it, or is it simply
because I can download ten CDs a day for free (if I want -- not that I´ve
done it)?

It´s the same thing with cheap CDs (sometimes): there seems to be a
different intensity attached to the CD if you pay $2 or if you pay $20.
Your, or at least mine, attitude towards it changes. The more expensive the
CD the greater its reproduced aura? If you could go into any museum and
pick up 20 original Dali-paintings for free, what would this do to your
relationship with the paintings?

Rambling. Must stop now.

Other than that: I always enjoy your messages to the list, David.

/Øivind/
--
"Silence is so accurate."
            -Mark Rothko