#26 Online Music Creation and Re-Mixing

Online music mixing sites and freely downloadable recording softwares can be really fun to play with and, without doubt, totally awesome for those who want to make their own music or recordings but have no interest in shilling out hundreds of dollars for pricey software packages. For Teen Tech Week some of the teens and I played around with several online drum machines, Splice Music, and Tony-B - and I have to say, even though several of them were often frustrated with how complex the online music mixing sites turned out to be, I was excited to see them expanding their knowledge of online tools and using their creativity to enhance their web presence (such as uploading their tunes to their MySpace pages, rather than illegally using some horrible sounding version of the new, hit song). As I mentioned in my previous post, it seems our notion of collaborative art has been developing with exciting new possiblities for the future. Relationships and new networks based on collaborative creativity bring a new dimension to to the term "world music."

#25 Argh! Piracy!

Yes, I still use CDs and I often burn my own mix CDs for the car. I even (gasp!) burn an entire album onto a CD-R so that my original purchased copy can be retained snuggly at home in its appropriate case, not having to face the risk of scratching and my own clumsiness. I guess since I was in high school and beginning college I've been fairly comfortable with burning music (as well as other files) onto CD; I've never found it too much of a challenge, but keeping all of my music files organized and appropriately labeled has sometimes been annoying.

I personally think the "music business," and the Recording Industry Association of America in particular, needs to get with the times. As a librarian I believe in giving credit where credit is due and certainly want to protect the rights of intellectual property holders; but, I also believe that our understanding of ownership (especially diffuse ownership in the age of the web) and the processes of recording human creativity and ingenuity have totally changed over time. I find the RIAA's position to often protect the recording industry and record labels over the rights of artists and musicians; it isn't a surprise that several artists (notably Radiohead and Trent Reznor) are circumventing recording labels entirely and making money from their craft by mobilizing online distribution of music and music-associated paraphernalia (such as t-shirts, collectible sets, booklets, etc.). I'm certainly not a pirate - but I understand that until the recording industry can learn to better compete with, challenge, or make use of (often illegal) online music distribution, that the debate (and alleged problems) will not cease.

#24: The hills are alive

I've been a fan of online radio for a few years now (including, but not limited to, pandora...which I approve of theoretically more than in any sort of practical application), most especially news radio. My experience of downloading music has been rather limited. I've downloaded from iTunes (incredibly disappointing selection) and I've indirectly enjoyed the benefits of free and legal music downloads via my husband, but I'm just not very interested in downloading digital music. Most of the time (although certainly not always), the sound of compressed audio is annoying to me. I guess I'm a little bit of an audio snob.