Does the Digital Age ruin musical appreciation?
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I've been thinking about how the digital era has changed the musical listening experience and raise the question in my thread title as a discussion point. It seems music these days is most often listened to "on the go" with mp3 players, mobile phone music players, CD and mp3 players in our cars feeding us sound wherever we are. Shades of the old nursery rhyme: Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross To see a fine lady upon a white horse With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes She shall have music wherever she goes Our listening experience before this era was rooted to our record player/stereo/hi-fi system. If we wanted music we had to go out of our way into a record store to buy the vinyl disc, take it home and settle to listen for a fixed period of time in a fixed location - often making that "first play" a special occasion with suitable refreshment. And would have to repeat that each time we listened. Vinyl is a linear experience with an album playing the songs in the same order - only the reckless would skip tracks for to do so would usually scratch or damage the vinyl disc. Nowadays songs can be summoned from the the ether within moments wherever you are at the time and usually just tag onto an endless playlist held upon your device - they cost pence only and get just the same casual regard as a bar of chocolate. In one swift download I can have the complete works of the Beatles delivered to my devices - or any other band I choose - how am I to engage that material in a realistic manner? Far too much to take a "time out" to embrace it in the manner I would have upon first release. Gone are the loving detailed examination of the sleeve notes as the album played at home, gone are the concurrent reading of the song lyrics until they are engraved upon your psyche. Vinyl is remarkably undergoing a revival against the odds stacked against it by the convenience of digital recordings. I wonder if this revival is in part due to the practicalities of listening to vinyl forces the old pre-digital experience upon us once more? Thoughts? Martin
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I couldn't wait to get rid of my non-digital music collection and wouldn't want to go back to having loads of c.d's and vinyl. It's just so much more convenient to have it all on digital. I've never really noticed any difference in the effect music has on me whether it's on vinyl, c.d or digitial. Unless it's being played on a rubbish music player with rubbish speakers then it just all sounds the same so I can listen to my fav music and not fusss about what the format is and with digtial the great thing is when I move house I don't have loads of phsyical c.d's and records to lug around. Plus I can back it all up and keep it at my parents house so if I lose my Mac I don't lost all my music. I just feel incredibly lucky to live in an age where music is conveniently owned and played.
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Even though I don't have my own vinyl player i am still visiting record shops and building my collection. I keep them at my dad's place and get to listen to them there. I hope soon my collection will be as big as his. It makes the music sound different, I think the quality of the music is better when on vinyl. Also, the songs have more of an significance when they are not over-played.
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I miss the creative album cover art...and posters...etc. Analog sound is a truer form of sound...because...it is wave form Digital information...is delivered in square edged pixels
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I grew up in the vinyl's time, then I went through cassette's times, after comes cd's time and now it's digital's era , but, you know, I enjoy in the same way my fav music, because for me the music player isn't important, just the music I hear...and I guess if tomorrow there is a new form for listening my music I'll try to learn to use it!
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Do you get the opportunity these days to brew a mug of cocoa dim the lights and truly dedicate yourself to hearing albums through any more? In my house TV is king and I'd get a revolution if I tried to listen to an album through our decent hi-fi to the exclusion of TV - unless I get up very early
More often these days the only place I get to focus on a album is in the car on my daily commute - which luckily is about one albums worth - 45 - 50 minutes. Martin -
martinput:
In my house TV is king and I'd get a revolution if I tried to listen to an album through our decent hi-fi to the exclusion of TV - unless I get up very early
MartinHey, Martin, blast Revolution early one morning. Maybe the rest of family will see the error of their ways
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When I buy a new CD I usually sit down and listen to it all the way through. I don't usually buy digital unless it's for the bonus tracks. But I love the fact that I can carry my all my Beatles songs and thier solo catalogue in my pocket and listen to them at will. Very cool. Currently listening to Pink's new CD. I loaded that one onto my Ipod and all listened to it multiple times, but never in one shot. Good record by the way. So, yes I still go through the same ritual, most of the time, when I buy something new. I clear an hour or so and listen to it. Read the booklet. Then I load it on my Ipod and listen when the mood strikes me. But what's really nice about an Ipod or MP3 player is the shuffle feature. It's nice when it shuffles to something that I haven't heard in a long time. So, I won't say its ruined my appreciation for music. Its been enhanced.
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I love a good album with good sleeve notes. Sleeve notes which don't tell me anything at all and contain no lyrics and nothing but arty photos annoy me. Having something tangible helps. Just downloading an album you don't really feel like you own it so much I think. There's less incentive to actually listen somehow...
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dcshark:
When I buy a new CD I usually sit down and listen to it all the way through. I don't usually buy digital unless it's for the bonus tracks. But I love the fact that I can carry my all my Beatles songs and thier solo catalogue in my pocket and listen to them at will. Very cool. Currently listening to Pink's new CD. I loaded that one onto my Ipod and all listened to it multiple times, but never in one shot. Good record by the way. So, yes I still go through the same ritual, most of the time, when I buy something new. I clear an hour or so and listen to it. Read the booklet. Then I load it on my Ipod and listen when the mood strikes me. But what's really nice about an Ipod or MP3 player is the shuffle feature. It's nice when it shuffles to something that I haven't heard in a long time. So, I won't say its ruined my appreciation for music. Its been enhanced.
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I don't know if it's better or worse but sure has changed a lot. I think we become more conservative listeners. As you listen "on the go" you rarely choose to listen something that's new for you. But you have there thousand of songs that you listen again and again. I know there's great stuff there I've never heard of, but, as having kind of unlimited access to the all the stuff that I know and I like... It can get boring, if you want to escape from that, you must go to the old ways and listening to new music the old way... hi-fi, sitting in a sofa... or well... at the pc, but "not on the go". I think that the most important thing of all is that the concept of ALBUM is gone. It doesn't make sense now. It was born as there was the chance for musicians to record more than just some minutes in a record. The Beatles perfected that making an album a journey through different styles... Now you can change the style in a second! From Beatles to Mozart or anything. So it's more like SONGS matter, not albums, kind of like listening to the radio. We all wait for Paul's next album, but he could release songs (a song each month or so) instead of albums, like most of the musicians do today. And I've got the feeling that the future will be more about short pieces of music not songs. As people use to skip after listening a song for some seconds. Or shorter songs.... now hits are hardly 5 minutes long... in the TV shows "pop idol" style, they just sing 1 minute or 2 of a song. So 60-120 second songs, kind of like the 50s.
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I've been through vinyl, 8 track, cassette, CDs and now mp3s. I really don't care for digital music. I was quite happy with my Walkman that played CDs. I just got rid of my car that had a cassette player in it, so I have my first CD player in my car over. It also has a USB port, where I can play hours of mp3s if I so desire. I do download and play songs on iTunes--but I mostly only get free ones or use gift cards.
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This thread reminds me of an episode in Everybody Loves Raymond. in season 8, called Jazz Records. when they were kid Ray accidentally destroyed his dads records. and now Ray gives him the same albums he destroyed, but on CD. His dad (Frank) says it sounds all wrong and Ray says it's digitally enhanced and better quality. He ended up liking records more because he felt that things were made better before the technology boom. which does have truth to it. I would have to be on Team Frank on this one though.
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Well, sound quality is a different topic... It could be better than the music from the 70s, for instance, but it uses to be worse, loudness war, autotune...
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Digital music is probably better for the youngsters and their digital lives. They need the highest quality sound at the fastest download speeds. For us older folks, we remember holding LPs, looking at the covers and lyrics while listening. The digital sound may be better, but it can never compare with our nostalgia.
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al Sabah:
Digital music is probably better for the youngsters and their digital lives. They need the highest quality sound at the fastest download speeds. For us older folks, we remember holding LPs, looking at the covers and lyrics while listening. The digital sound may be better, but it can never compare with our nostalgia.
It sure helps with the "quick" sale ... And maybe offers "artists" the chance to sell/dump "junk songs" on the market for a quicker buck ... "Name brand" musician(s) might not, in reality, be so skilled ...
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al Sabah:
Digital music is probably better for the youngsters and their digital lives. They need the highest quality sound at the fastest download speeds.
NEED is the wrong word to use there. WANT, perhaps. But that's a very different thing.
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Well, it's hardly said but the sound of vinyl or even the sound of cassette is not worse but better than the one of a CD (and of course of the one of an mp3). But that's the sound of a brand NEW vynil, the vynil and cassette can deteriorate a lot and digital never does, it plays or plays not but doesn't lose definition. I don't know much about preserving vynil but some say that if you "treat the records" well they don't lose sound quality, so in the end they're better than CDs in the long run too. Actually you've got to treat right CDs too.
PS My Abbey Road CD skips Golden Slumbers and now that's painful. -
Need is the correct word. Take away a teenager's electronics or have them download at 48kbps and see what happens.
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al Sabah:
Need is the correct word. Take away a teenager's electronics or have them download at 48kbps and see what happens.
Exactly!
