Technology has democratized music in ways that are surprising even to me, revolutionizing access to any music anytime with iPod and iTunes, opening interactive musicmaking to amateurs with Guitar Hero and Rock Band (which both grew out of a group I lead at the M.I.T. Media Lab), providing digital production and recording facilities on any laptop that surpass what the Beatles used at Abbey Road, and redefining the performance ensemble with initiatives like the Stanford iPhone Orchestra and YouTube Symphony.
– Tod Machover in today’s New York Times
Who wants to blog about analog?
Whats with the NY Times and new music?
I suppose this harks back to the old Newsweek and Time magazines coverage from the 1960’s and 1970’s when the “Once Group” and the MN Opera” were used to provide the what is the latest strange thing the arts are up to these days?
Any publicity is good publicity. Right?
On the other hand one was under the impression that the folks who read those reviews and puff pieces were not the folks who attended the performances. With over 10,000 composers in the NYC area perhaps that’s no longer true.
In every case the subject of these NYT profiles are folks who present their ideas through music.
Simply put; the NYT presents composers for whom the music does not come first. Text, or in this case technology, based work is easier to explain in text of course.
During hard times its nice to know that stage machinery and set dressing can now be run by software alone.
American ingenuity-I take off my hat.
Phil Fried
Thanks for the link. About “digital production and recording facilities on any laptop that surpass what the Beatles used at Abbey Road” – yes, digital facilities are available on any laptop, that surpass the digital technology of the Beatles’ time. But definitely no, you don’t have on any laptop the “recording facilities” surpassing what the Beatles used!!!