Overview
In this first cultural perspective, you are asked to think about music in your culture: twenty-first century America. As you will learn in the coming weeks, the manner in which people interact with music and the way that they have access to music are important aspects of a musical culture. In order to understand this, you only need to consider what musical life was like before the advent of the radio and the phonograph. Technology has allowed us to create a truly diverse musical culture.
Issues: In our lifetimes, music has become portable (starting with the transistor radio) and private (first with earplugs, then with headphones). With new technologies (MP3, P2P, etc.) we have complete freedom to custom-make our personal soundscape. But these technologies raise a number of important questions:
- How will we receive our music in the future?How will commercial ventures adjust to new technologies?
- Who owns the music once it is recorded?How will artists maintain the rights to their works?What are the moral obligations of the consumer?