Ongoing History of New Music Ongoing History of New Music

If you are a professional musician—that is, you’re being paid to write and perform music and can actually make a living from it—you’re part of an infinitesimal quintile of people who are able to do that… you are living the dream…
This, in fact, may be the only career you’ve ever known…you’ve never had a “real” job…maybe you’ve had a chance to see the world because of music…and if you love what you’re doing and the money works, you want this to go on forever…but it won’t…at some point, the music stops…
It might not be your fault…the music industry moves fast…one day you’ve got it all figured out, working from immediate deadline to immediate deadline and from gig to gig…and then everything stops…
Maybe it happens quickly…maybe it happens slowly then all at once…music changes…the industry changes…trends change…technology changes…and what you offer—what you can do—is no longer in demand…
It’s like captain Jean-Luc Picard has said: “you can do everything right and still lose…that’s not weakness…that’s life”…
So what’s next?...if you exit the world of music—be it voluntarily or by force—what do you do next?...
Maybe it’s best to study what some other musicians have done to transition from rock star to civilian life…this is a look at examples of life after music…
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In the mid-15th century, France was ruled by Louis XI, otherwise known as “Louis the Prudent”...but he was always known as “Louis the Cunning” and “The Universal Spider” because he was always spinning plots and looking for conspiracies...when it came to dissent and wars, he was a brutal sort...
Being a despot is hard work and sometimes you need cheering up...that’s why he challenged Abbe De Baigne, a builder of things, to create a brand new musical instrument for his amusement...
The result was the piganino, a keyboard that required a number of pigs of varying sizes...each was laid out on a flat surface, smallest to largest...above the hind end of each pig was a spike connected to a piano-like keyboard...by pressing a key, the corresponding pig would be spiked, resulting in an oink of a certain note...it was thus possible to play a tune by poking the pig...
It didn’t sound very good, but it worked and Louis XI found it very funny...the pigs did not...
Music and technology have always had an interesting relationship...sometimes it’s harmonious and wonderfully...other times—like with the piganino—there’s a hideous clash... ...however, the piganino, invented 600 years ago, was the forerunner of future music-related technologies like sample, sequencing, and synthesis...the tech—or at least some of the concepts—would eventually win out...
If we step back and look at the history of science, math, and engineering and the practice of creating the art music, we’ll see that every time the two intersect, technology almost always comes out the winner...and that’s okay...
Something that seems radical, evil, transgressive, impure, and corrupting turns out to be a pretty good deal and music is the better for it...
Here are some stories about the clashes between tech and music...I’ll lay out the facts and you decide if these were good things or bad...
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It was Tuesday, May 24, 2016...you know how when you land the flight attendant says it’s now permissible to “use transmitting and receiving functions your portable devices” while you’re taxiing to the gate?...
I’d just landed on a 14-hour flight from Hong Kong...and as soon as I flicked my phone out of airplane mode, it blew up...emails and texts all about one thing: The Tragically Hip had just announced that their singer, Gord Downie, had brain cancer...
At first, this didn’t make sense...had the jet lag kicked in already?...was this some kind of hoax?...I mean, this was Gord...he was practically a Canadian superhero...nothing like this was supposed to happen to him...
But it was true...the emails and texts kept popping up...dozens, hundreds of them...and we all know how the next 18 months played out...
When Gord left us in October 2017, it was really rough...the best tweet I saw that day was “Canada closed: death in the family”...the country spent the next week trying to explain to the rest of the world how a singer of a rock band had brought an entire nation to tears—even the Prime Minister...where else in the world does something like that happen?...
The answer is you have to be a special kind of person: artist, writer, thinker, activist, and poet… this is the story of Gord Downie, Canada’s own rock poet…
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It’s 1986 and Michael Morrison is offered the opportunity of a lifetime. A chance to leave his life of poverty in Newark and start afresh. It’s a job offer he can’t afford to refuse. Michael has no idea what this new job has in store. But he soon realizes: he’s just joined ‘the biggest gang in America’. Join Seren Jones to hear Michael’s story and find out what it means to be both Black and Blue.
Want to hear more? You can follow along on your favourite podcast app here: https://link.chtbl.com/blackandblue-rssdrop
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When someone dies, our first reaction is disbelief...we’re stunned...that’s immediately followed by a need to know what happened...how?...where?...it’s only natural...we need information to help us process the news and the emotion that comes with it...
The next stage is might be “could anything have been done to prevent this?”... “Could someone have helped or intervened?”...In some cases, perhaps...in the case of health issues, maybe not...
And finally, there’s this:... “could what happened to that person happen to me?”...again, totally normal...
When it comes to the death of a famous musician, there’s an additional aspect to processing the news...chances are we never knew this person as, you know, a person...our only relationship with them has been as a fan...so why does their death affect us?...
Here’s a possible answer...although we never knew them, it was through their music that we learned more about ourselves...and in a way, when they die, a little of us dies, too...
This might only cause us to go deeper into what happened...we just need to know, to make sense if it, and to put everything to rest the best we can...yes, some people get very nosey and gossipy and intrusive, but there’s always a way to handle what’s known through the public record: family statements, doctors’ accounts, police reports, coroners’ testimony, toxicology examinations, and autopsy results....
And we often can’t look away because we just need to know...this is “the last moments of, part 2”....
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