Final Notes

Wow, I can't believe it's the end of the semester! I have had a fabulous time creating and keeping this blog on technology and it’s ever-changing relationship with the music industry. My content over the course of the semester I think remained on topic and consistent; each post was pretty educational and informative mixed with my own thoughts, opinions and experiences… and of course sarcasm and humor on the days I was feeling extra cynical or witty.

However I can definitely see a transition in my actual posts over the semester. The beginning several posts I narrowed in on establishing the basis of my blog with copyright laws and facts and statistics. I think these were highly informative I just wish I had kept them shorter or more to the point. I don’t think my readers were drawn in enough to read the whole long thing and probably just skimmed anyway. I think I dislike my very first post the most, because I was summarizing the blog I hadn’t written yet! Yes, I outlined what I had planned on making my blog look like over the upcoming weeks, but I would have much rather not had that box drawn for me from the start. I ended up not even looking at that entry again until just now, and my blog was just an accumulation of going with the flow and new discoveries I couldn’t have possibly predicted.

As for a favorite post, I really have no idea! I love them all so much. “Musicians Begin to Harness the Internet… Finally” is a great entry all about this professional musician who made a huge profit using twitter and being in direct contact with her fans. That entry was fun to write, because it was so unique. I also really enjoy my “Final Thoughts” at the end of each entry because they were like a quick little treasure to leave my readers with, and I had a LOT of fun finding them! I love the quotes about our generation and the timeless power of music despite aging technology. I also enjoyed once we got into posting multimedia regularly because photography is another great passion of mine. My inner art-nerd was really excited to write about music and express myself visually as well =)

All I really hope that my readers and/or followers got from my internet presence was a casual and fun experience. I didn’t want it to be heavy but I did want to establish my own opinions about the sounds and technology surrounding all of us everyday. I hope it was a light-hearted but informative read; entertaining and eye-opening at the same time. As long as one person feels more informed or got a chuckle out of my posts, I am happy. It’s not meant to change the world, just offer some perspective and insight to musicians, music lovers and fans in this critical time for the music industry.

In exchange, I learned a lot about copyright laws I never knew; for such intense penalties, the rules are extremely vague! I also learned how to enhance my writing with the use of music/photos/videos. You have to alter your writing style when you are including multimedia, and I quickly got used to that. I don’t know exactly how to explain it… maybe you have to be more direct and to the point, and in many cases you have to let the visual/audio explain itself. For music, this was very useful and perfect. When I couldn’t find the right words to describe something that was important, I would just SHOW my readers and let them see it and understand for themselves; better than my description could do.

The future for the music industry is up in the air- our generation is the turning point for many things that define music as we know it. Record labels- gone. Musicians now have more than enough technology to produce diverse music on their own and eventually the idea of being owned and signing with a label for production and status will be phased out. CD’s will become the new vinyls (as they have already started to), and eventually all our music will be digital files. Ipods will continue to advance, becoming smaller and having more space. 

Musicians will continue to collaborate with fans, probably even more than we are seeing now. I would not be surprised if fans become more involved in the musical process and have an increased influence on bands’ decisions. Who knows- maybe apple products like the iPad and iPhone will replace some instruments? Who knows what kind of electronic sounds will be produced, possibly a genre we have never heard before will emerge. I am excited to live through these changes as this new technology allows us to experiment more creatively, and put our energy into innovative and revolutionary musical options.  

FINAL THOUGHT !

A great song by a brilliantly visionary artist, poet, and musician.

On Every Corner - Ani DiFranco:

"How will they define our generation

in the coming decades

who will tell the story

and what will they say?

Will they say the victims 

were thought of as criminals

while the guilty sat on high

deciding their fate

ticking off statistics in their spare time,

tell me,

which is the crime?

... 

There are too few who open both eyes

we sit back in our easy chairs

and we try to sympathize

whether from the point of a needle

or the edge of our beds

we too, like too many others,

could be dead.

Our actions will define us

before a single definition can be said

Yeah, so what if god is testing us,

what if that's true

what are you going to do

what is the answer 

to you?"