Comments on: Music to your ears

By: Larry Sixsmith (Telstra Employee)

Larry Sixsmith (Telstra Employee) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 10:25:44 +0000

You won’t believe it. Today I had a shop assistant ask me what I like to listen to? Mozart “Marriage Of Figaro” was playing. I wanted to tell the truth however I said, “oh just mixed stuff”. Why could I not say the truth?

By: Larry Sixsmith (Telstra Employee)

Larry Sixsmith (Telstra Employee) — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 00:26:07 +0000

David, I couldn’t agree more. It was the case in the 80′s, we would get together and listen to new and old music together. I had not really looked at it being anti-social however I must admit, I’m often plugged into my head phones and I realise I miss out on hearing the lovely things. Birds singing, children playing, the list could go on. I guess in a way I have written about the evolution of music and technology. Now on the subject of technology and evolution.

If mankind is controling the evolution of technology, what is running the evolution of mankind?

By: David

David — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 10:21:20 +0000

I think the biggest change is that music has stopped being a social thing! It has become ‘personal content’ instead of a powerful shared experience. I hear stories about how back in the days of vinyl, you’d invite friends over to listen to a new album together. What percentage of the time you spend listening to music nowadays is shared? Why will a group of people happily set aside two hours to watch and appreciate a movie, but never imagine treating an album the same way? Can you imagine a future where movies are almost solely watched alone? Sadly, I don’t find that too difficult.

By: mzj

mzj — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 12:40:53 +0000

there is also mini disc which although was sony proprietary was one of my fav because unlike cd you could jog with it and it wouldn’t skip. this was of course before mpg players and before the ipod.Still prefer a cd stacker in the car.

By: Katrina

Katrina — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 05:42:37 +0000

I think over time the way in which music has been created has allowed us to be able to enjoy music anywhere at anytime. It has been become easier to take music with us and add it to any given situation, on the train going to work, going for a run, taking your whole music collection to a friend’s house for a bbq etc… so I think it hasn’t become quieter but a little nosier.

Another thought, there is nothing sexy about a dj pushing buttons but spinning a vinyl record..now that can be pretty cool and sexy.

By: Larry Sixsmith (Telstra Employee)

Larry Sixsmith (Telstra Employee) — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 03:26:28 +0000

Gwynn, thank-you for your thoughts. I find it interesting how you interperated this blog. You see it as how music is stored and with this I would agree sheet music was the storage in the Mozart period. I guess in that way music is still stored in this form. I was more aiming at how music was and is created for us to hear. Sheet music is the form of storage however its the orchestra that creates the actual sound, as was the record, tape and so on.

By: gwmbox

gwmbox — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 01:22:54 +0000

Totally agree with Gwynn re the orchestra and the written music, there is no way the orchestra would be the storage device, if that was the case that would mean that every human that heard music play could also be the storage medium, which of course is not true.

Though while I have sympathy for Gwynn re the loss of her iTunes MP3′s there is a lesson that should have been learnt, and that is that backups are important. Even iTunes advocate and recommend regular backups.

While CD’s are nice to display there will come a time when the hardware to play them disappears and/or is difficult to find, I am sure that is a long way off but it will happen and then those CD’s will be no more than just good looking drink coasters.

MP3′s however will be able to be converted if needed, move to and from different forms of data storage and will last a significantly longer time (if backups exist).

On another note of interest in that with this article being posted on a Telstra site, is to request for Telstra/Bigpond to enable the access with no metering of online radio stations, there are so many online stations that provide a multitude of different music options that it would be great to listen to them without using your data allowance. IiNet and Internode already do this very well so it is in no means difficult to do.

By: Gwynn (Telstra employee)

Gwynn (Telstra employee) — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 00:37:57 +0000

It’s an interesting exercise looking at how music has been stored over the ages – though I disagree that in Mozart’s time that the Orchestra itself was the storage instrument (bad pun, I know).

Rather the written notation of musical notes on manuscript was the physical storage device for that era, and the Orchestra was the audio playback device which translated it for you. All the other formats you talk about were relatively portable, however you can’t easily take an Orchestra about – but a musical manuscript is a different story.

The quality of orchestra players is such (espcially in the time of the great composers) that taking a musical manuscript from city to city and putting in front of an orchestra was the equivilent of the other formats you’ve mentioned.

I do struggle with one part of the MP3 experience – and this is a gripe with iTunes in particular – and that is that once you’ve downloaded to one computer, you need to manage those files from there. Now unfortunately I had a PC blow up a year ago and lost a few albums that I had brought from iTunes – and alas I can’t get them back now. I realise that iTunes is trying to prevent breach of copyright, but all the same it keeps me determined to keep buying physical CDs.

Plus it’s very cool to have your CD collection on display at home, can’t do that with MP3s!