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Jul
8
The Youtube generation is currently being turned into a vast network of internet-bound vegetables. I know of people who shut themselves away at 8 in the evening, and watch Youtube videos for five or six hours until they fall asleep, exhausted. The addiction to infinite media has taken hold, but where it is constrained by the availability of the internet, it can be vastly detrimental to the routine of daily life.
But once the internet is wirelessly integrated into all our lives, we will finally be free to move again…
The iPhone - a wonderbox that promises wifi, music, video, communications, the internet - is the first major mass-market harbinger of this new, unfettered world. But over here on English shores where we’re not yet lucky enough to have such technological marvels, Vodafone is advancing much more quickly to our wireless future with mobile broadband.
I’ve had access to one of these ‘wireless broadband’ modems since November of last year and it has without a doubt been a significant lifestyle-changer. I can play a concert, and have it uploaded to the internet within minutes of it finishing, regardless of whether I am near an internet point. On a long journey, I can call up any recording of any piece of music and play it instantly.
How will this change the way we consume music? What effects will this have on the kind of music that gets produced? I imagine there are significantly less people now than fifty years ago, particularly of my generation, who would be willing to sit down and listen to a symphony or large orchestral work… to commit a large amount of time to it … without knowing for sure that they were going to have an excellent and extraordinary experience. It’s a lot of time to commit when you have multiple electronic devices, media outlets, TV and Radio channels, the internet… essentially an unlimited amount of media waiting for your consumption, right now.
Perhaps this is a bad thing, but on the other hand, we now have more time than ever before (despite it seeming less) to consume, because of the new wireless possibilities. We have easier access than ever before. Therefore, we have more opportunity than ever before to try out an obscure composer’s sonatina for bassoon, or a music video of a niche baroque group playing an outdoor concert in Mongolia. Who knows whether, once we’ve heard one of those unlikely choices, we’d be more or less likely to go and listen to a live event of a longer, more demanding piece of music of the same ilk? I think we would be more likely to (assuming we’d liked it… otherwise we wouldn’t ‘waste our time’!). Is that a good thing? I think so. Does it matter that our route to that choice came from a fragmented, arbitrary listening experience? I think not. More importantly, does that mean that composers of the future need to take into account how their music will be listened to when considering which genre to use?
I believe the wireless internet is going to set people free in untold new ways, and have a massive, massive effect on how society will evolve. And culture - including musical culture - is a big part of that. Coping with these changes will need preparation, and the courage to accept that some of the things we are used to might die as a result. But perhaps that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.