Essay 3 - An open letter to music.

Dear Music,
it's a long time we are together, that you are along my side. We started with the audio cassettes and the walk man: how many hours did I record from radio or from other audio cassettes? And no companies has never said anything about downloading and royalties. Now I listen to you with mp3 readers or via the cellphone, but I carry on choosing music just talking with friends or reading music magazines or listening to the radio. Even now that I'm so far away I regularly listen to my favourite radio show. We have had many nice times: how many live shows, showcase, concerts did you give me the opportunity to be in?

Now around you things are changing. It's a long time things are changing, maybe they've never stopped changing. I watch a lot of video and listen to online music with youtube or deezer.

And now I'm wondering about the future. I can always listen to a nice album without doing some other stuff (working or reading...), but I see always less people doing that, just if music is something to fill the silence or to cover the noise. This means music is becoming less art and more entertainment? I hope no, but I'm not so sure: just take a newspapers and see that famous singers are just regarded as celebrities and not as artists.

Music will be sold on line more than what is actually done: you take just what you want from an album. Maybe this will take you back to the past, when a vinyl contained just few songs, but now with no artworks attached. Just the song. This is a bit sad, because I was used to long album and not to pass from a song to another.

There is another way too, the one that indie groups are taking ahead and that Radiohead have taken too. Give music for free. Just use the web to advertising and giving, or better sharing, their own creations. Anybody can decide to go to the showcase and buy there the album, without passing by any major or record label, if they have liked what they have downloaded.

Other famous bands, like Nine Inch Nails too, have taken this way, because they have simply thought that, since a lot of people simply download music without paying, is better to give it for free and if someone wants to pay, he can do it with a credit card. Of course they sell an old fashioned vynil for extra money: just for fan. A lot of gropus before Radiohead and NIN have been doing it from a long time: give their music for free using the web and then sell their records during the concerts. That's the first time that the big ones do this, and this is just because the web has changed our habits. Now this way (selling musing through internet) it's easier and doesn't take to pass through major. Are we fans loosing something? Maybe a great producer, or a good engineer sound, but has a band that starts from scratch these? I don't think so. If they deserve they will get them, or they'll simply manage to do without them. And the major? Oh of course they won't disappear; they exist even if they, according to the long tail principle, have under contract less bands than how much the independent groups are. Majors will simply sell music, they will have their stars that make people buy records. They will even sell concerts to youtube, so that anyone can see it on streaming, without moving from home. A bit sad too, for the music groups too.

For me, if I save money because I pay less than befor an album or a song, I think I will soon spend it to go outside to a concert or a live show. As I state before you are, like cinema, a social experience too, something to share with other people, and not only something useful to make money.

Sincerely yours,
Giuliano