Portability of Music Cheapens Its Meaning
Posted on August 4, 2004
Filed Under Culture, Music, Technology |
Norman Lebrecht is not a fan of the Sony Walkman and its descendents.
25 years of Walkman usage has destroyed any sense of a piece of music having a place in the world, in time, in our personal lives. Music, made portable, is removed from any frame of reference. It becomes a utility, undeserving of more attention than drinking water from a tap.
The author also argues that sound quality is unaesthetic and dangerous. Being able to take music with you takes it from its context. While a viewer must visit a gallery or a museum to see works of visual art, the musical experience can now be carried with the listener, albeit in a greatly reduced form.
There is something missing from the article’s premise, however. Musical recording, whether portable or not, is what has lifted music performance from its context. Even works of art, now placed in a museum but once an integral part of a chapel in Renaissance-era Florence, have a much more meaningful existence than recorded music.
Recorded music—on phonograph, audiocassette, or CD—is only a cheap reproduction of the original performance. It can never exist within its intended context. It is comparable to a print of Mona Lisa one might buy in the Louvre’s gift shop, or even a low-resolution digitized graphic image. Here is a thin reproduction of an experience; take it with you.
The blame Lebrecht places on the Sony Walkman should extend back much further to Thomas Edison and his invention of the phonograph.
The benefits of recorded, and portable, music are great. A compact disc containing music will reach people who cannot experience the live performance. While the article argues that this takes away from music’s value to society, I believe it’s better for music to reach as many people in the world as possible. Perhaps one, while listening to a recording at home or on the go, will be inspired to seek out a live performance.
Comments
One Response to “Portability of Music Cheapens Its Meaning”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Yes, but there is another point that is being missed. The art of recording has also been incorporated into the artform, and without it, certain pieces of music cannot exist.
When you look at the production that goes into many pieces of music (whether you like those songs or not), you realize that without the technology, without the recording process, those pieces of music would not exist as you hear them. So, there’s a give and take that needs to be explored.