If technology is the future of music where are the aesthetics?

(December 2007) | aesthetics_essay.pdf

In this assignment for module MUST 5001: Aesthetics and Ideas of Sonic Art I chose to study new aesthetics in musical and cultural practices.

Sample Text (paragraph 1)

Before one can begin to discuss the above statement one must arrive at two understandings in regard to the key terms 'technology', 'music' and 'aesthetic'. Firstly in what contexts are these terms being referred and secondly how we can relate them within these contexts. A context can be established immediately by the concatenation of the terms 'music' and 'technology' to create the term 'music technology'. During the last century the term 'Music Technology' was often used when one whished to focus on those forms of technology involved or associated in any way with the musical arts. In more recent years however, the subject of 'Music Technology' has more commonly been identified with the use of electronic devices to facilitate playback, recording, composition, storage, and distribution of musical works. In the late twentieth century it was the increasing availability of such devices that gave rise to new forms of music creation and new types of artist. However, despite an ever increasing technological power, as we have moved into the 21st century, there have been no major changes in the genres of music we compose. Today with so much emphasis devoted to increasing our technological power should we now start to ask ourselves, where was the aesthetic in our actions and why have we come to expect so much from technology in music?

Sample Text (paragraph 13)

The power that the Internet can place in the hands of those involved with the musical arts today has revolutionised the way in which music is created, distributed and purchased. Mass adoption of the Internet in popular culture is also helping to change the aesthetics associated with popular music. No longer is popular music being influenced by social forces, it now has the power to transcend social forces similar to the way that serious music could in the middle of the twentieth century. In the last century our love for modernism and an increasing emphasis in the search for new technology aesthetics resulted in a smothering of progress. This shift in social practices though helped us to acknowledge our arrival in the era of mass collaboration. As modernism relied on the ideas of creating progress through the aid of science and technology, the era of mass collaboration proposes methods of progression through shared understanding and trust. Finally, the adoption of mass collaboration in popular culture will remove the hierachical order of authenticity as all collaborators will have equal opportunities.

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