ARTS2090 – Distribution Research Project

When publishing changes, so does society. Investigate and compare the impact of two publication technologies, one pre-1900 and one post-1962, on a specific aspect of society (e.g. education, politics, creative industries, science, entertainment, social relationships).

As we see today music has penetrated and soaked through many aspects of modern daily lives. Waking up to a series of songs on the radio, watching morning news on television with effect music and advertisements between programs with music, leaving the house with headphones in the portable music player… there are countless encounters of music wherever you go that it is hard to imagine what it was like to have limited or no music at all in your life. This is all possible because of the development of publishing that delivers us an ever-expanding variety of music to our ears. There are multitudes of purposes of music we hear today – for instance, it was one of the strategies for a restaurant I worked for to have relaxing and atmospheric music playing to accompany the meal, wine and the harbour view. I believe, however, that music in its nature is for the entertainment sake. This wide range of music of different genres have categorised our entertainment activities for us to choose where to go for a night out, what to wear, if it was for an adolescent it may even determine how to intoxicate yourself to have fun.

What I am interested in exploring is to what degree and how the two modes of publication of music – sheet music and MP3 – have effected our lives in entertaining ourselves. This achievement or perhaps a confusion in creating limitless genres and taste in music seems to be taken for granted in our modern lives, which would have been a complete alien concept for those who were utilising sheet music as the only source of music.

Sheet Music

The earliest recorded form of sheet music is manuscripts, which emerged at around mid 15^th century. These sheets of music were manually written and copied by hands of church relatives, usually priests and monks, to preserve its religious chants. Apart from those of the Catholic church, only a small proportion remains for they were extremely time and effort consuming, could be moved though fragile for the quality of ink and paper they were using. Consequently the entertainment value in music within this period seems quite low. Not to say that there would have been no joy in listening to this type of music, for there would have been nothing in comparison. However, by having a clear record of what is being played or sang, it could have possibly resulted in performing better than before as well as distributing the same sheets to unify what is played. Therefore the manuscripts were likely to have helped in better performance and unity hence an achievement of its intended purpose.

This mode of sheet music continued until the first legitimate printing facility was invented by Ottaviano Patrucci in Venice in 1501. This invention incorporated a technique called the ‘triple-impression’ method, in which the staff lines, words and notes were printed separately in three processes. The results were very clear and precise though still time-consuming and expensive. The music recorded on the first collection consisted mostly of French secular music, which was called Harmonice Musices Odhecaton. The tradition of manuscripts, by this time, had already ceased, taken over by the prints for its far more efficient and precise results. Here the entertainment value has risen for the music recorded has transformed into products of art from a commodity of tradition/religion. In 1520, the English developed a single-impression method, which, as the name tells, printed the content in one process instead of three. This made the process mush faster though left the product messier than the triple-impression method. It was a revolutionary change in the history of music, for as music became products of art, the consumers began to perceive it in a different light. At the same time, as it incurred cost to print and distribute it caused an extra emphasis on the class difference because it was financially only available to the upper and sometimes the middle-merchant class. They would enjoy studying the sheets, practising the material as well as going to occasions such as opera and theatre plays where their familiar pieces are performed. Then what were the lower-class supposed to listen to? Unfortunately, it is hard to imagine the lower-class having access to any of these publication or any entertainment activities that involves musical performances, which leaves their experience of music only to attending church services. Although majority of it consists of classical music, the history of sheet music extends to the present day for its specific purpose still remains strong in the act of preserving, distributing and studying the music.

MP3

Since this time, there has been numerous inventions of music publications such as vinyl records, cassette tapes and compact disks (CD), however, the advent of MP3 together with the internet opened up the opportunities as well as risks for the music industry and the consumer entertainment. MP3, MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, marks the start of digital music industry and expansion of consumerism. In 1994, the first song in the digital format of mp3 was released, though due to small capacity of the computers at the time, heavy compression was required to store these data. With the efficiency and accuracy of the product, it rapidly develops from this point to where we are now. This latest mode of publication has also caused problems that is crucial to the survival of the music industry. Online peer-to-peer file sharing is the most dangerous of all, in which second-hand owners (those who purchased the mp3 files from artists) would upload the files on the internet for the others to download it without any cost. This means that, ultimately, if one person purchased the product and uploads the files no one else would have to pay any cost for the access to the product.

The shift of consumerism for entertainment is largely in its focus on individualism, and this shift is not only conducted by the music industry but also by other industries that have foreseen the potential of music as money making business. The files will almost always be accurate, can be moved regardless of space and time through the internet to wherever they need to go at any given time according to the consumer’s needs and wants. Again, they can be replayed wherever and whenever the consumer wants with their portable music player which are developed by accompanying businesses of the music industry.

Another possibility opened by this form of music is its ability to revitalise the past. Music published through other means in the past, when mp3 did not exist, can also be transformed into this format and treated in the same way as other mp3. The consumers are not only receiving new material but also able to revisit the past by listening to old publication in the new format. Leading from here, and the fact that retaining the soft copy of the music (perhaps a sign of reliance on technology) could result in losing all of it once the technology crashes, the novelty of keeping the products in hardcopy is attracting the new age consumerism. Due to this emphasis on its tactile aspect and revitalising the past, artists are now pressing vinyls on top of their usual sales line of CDs and digital mp3. There is a sense of exclusion in mp3 that might be credible for this new aspect of consumerism – that it only contains music. The process of releasing a musical creation involves more than the artists, which can be detected if you purchase a hardcopy for it contains the artwork, producers, studios, record labels and others who contributed in making the product.

The entertainment of music used to be a mass culture because it was so scarce that wherever they had the music everyone gathered – people would come to church for a service and hear a liturgical piece performed. Looking at the rich and dense collection of music, it seems that one can only consume a tiny proportion of the whole with their choice of music according to their taste and the trend of the time. This is not to say that music nowadays is only consumed solely, but it is to say that this specificity has sorted us into different categories to an extent that alters our social behaviours. Moreover, the ease to publish music in the mp3 format has allowed many individuals to become artists themselves. With instruments becoming more affordable, consumers are creators at the same time, adding another dimension to the entertainment of music. It is interesting to note that this massive trend of individualism and consumerism towards music has its origin in the sheet music that made music as products of arts. It is true that music is now an enormous money making monster with CDs, vinyls, books, shows… all purely for entertainment of the consumers.

Advertisement