::::Manifesto::::
Music is an inherent and distinct part of our society that usually is defined by individuals or groups expressing emotions or concepts sonically.
As sound makers, humans have voices and limbs to do their bidding. From there humans have honed the ability to develop tools with their minds, hands, and more recently with man-made machines to augment and assist their ability to make sound. starting with acoustic instruments like animal hides stretched over resonance chambers to make drums and eventually evolving to more complicated mechanism driven acoustic instruments like pianos & clarinets. By this time, the evolution of musical tools had evolved from very simple tools to highly advanced ones which required the craftsmanship of highly skilled builders and technicians. The level of skill required to develop one of these lofty manmade instruments often created a rift between those who manufactured the tools and those who actually used them. Also, the social conventions of music evolved along side with the development of the tools and for a long time limited the use of such tools to society's elite and musically accomplished. As tools continued to evolve in addition to the continuing abundance of existing instruments, all of that started to change. There was a time (in the average modern middle class American houshold) where there was a piano in every living room, and was used as the families primary form of entertainment.
The following advent and implementation of electric instruments started a new revolution. Eventually tools were inexpensive enough that anyone could afford them, and simple enough that anyone with proper motivation could learn how to use them. From there it was only a matter of time before it didn't matter that anyone knew how to play, it was a matter of getting noticed by the companies that had formed to "represent" musicians by recording their work and releasing duplications to the general public over the radio airwaves and with phonographs.
Comparatively it was a short amount of time before recording and duplication techniques became so accessible that anyone could make their own record and distribute it over the internet. The massive commodification of tools for music technology that has seen the privileged parts of our society through the last couple of decades has made drastic changes to what has been called the "Record Industry" for most of the 20th century and beyond. The DIY sensibility of bands like FUGAZI have bled into every genre.
It brings our digitally infused culture to a crossroads where our tools are so diverse and so simple to make that we have the opportunity to de-centrilize the industry and return it to that immediate relationship between the expression and the tools that defined the tribal advent of music itself. As musicians and designers exist within the timeline of a culture obsessed with "planned obsolescence" technology, we are surrounded by electrical objects. With a menial understanding of electronics, things that we find in our "throw-away culture" can easily be repurposed to make new and interesting tools.
Music is an inherent and distinct part of our society that usually is defined by individuals or groups expressing emotions or concepts sonically.
As sound makers, humans have voices and limbs to do their bidding. From there humans have honed the ability to develop tools with their minds, hands, and more recently with man-made machines to augment and assist their ability to make sound. starting with acoustic instruments like animal hides stretched over resonance chambers to make drums and eventually evolving to more complicated mechanism driven acoustic instruments like pianos & clarinets. By this time, the evolution of musical tools had evolved from very simple tools to highly advanced ones which required the craftsmanship of highly skilled builders and technicians. The level of skill required to develop one of these lofty manmade instruments often created a rift between those who manufactured the tools and those who actually used them. Also, the social conventions of music evolved along side with the development of the tools and for a long time limited the use of such tools to society's elite and musically accomplished. As tools continued to evolve in addition to the continuing abundance of existing instruments, all of that started to change. There was a time (in the average modern middle class American houshold) where there was a piano in every living room, and was used as the families primary form of entertainment.
The following advent and implementation of electric instruments started a new revolution. Eventually tools were inexpensive enough that anyone could afford them, and simple enough that anyone with proper motivation could learn how to use them. From there it was only a matter of time before it didn't matter that anyone knew how to play, it was a matter of getting noticed by the companies that had formed to "represent" musicians by recording their work and releasing duplications to the general public over the radio airwaves and with phonographs.
Comparatively it was a short amount of time before recording and duplication techniques became so accessible that anyone could make their own record and distribute it over the internet. The massive commodification of tools for music technology that has seen the privileged parts of our society through the last couple of decades has made drastic changes to what has been called the "Record Industry" for most of the 20th century and beyond. The DIY sensibility of bands like FUGAZI have bled into every genre.
It brings our digitally infused culture to a crossroads where our tools are so diverse and so simple to make that we have the opportunity to de-centrilize the industry and return it to that immediate relationship between the expression and the tools that defined the tribal advent of music itself. As musicians and designers exist within the timeline of a culture obsessed with "planned obsolescence" technology, we are surrounded by electrical objects. With a menial understanding of electronics, things that we find in our "throw-away culture" can easily be repurposed to make new and interesting tools.
Labels: NIME Manifesto
posted by eric b at 7:03 PM
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