In week eleven we discussed digital music theory, the influence of Latin music on American popular music, and Stephen Witt’s ‘How Music Got Free’. Monday’s class mentioned how twentieth century American music is originally based in the swing beat (featured in country, blues, jazz, gospel, pop, early rock, etc) which started to fade with the 1960’s era of music. From there the influence of Latin music (parallel with the increase of Cuban and Puerto Rican immigrants to NY) inspired less emphasis on the chords and shifted focus to the rhythm. The Mambo craze is evidence of this as well as the development of “funk”. Much like the influence of other cultures which the professor has highlighted in this class, the Hispanic influences on American popular music frequently goes without recognition of the style’s origin. “Displacement is a major engine of cultural innovation and creativity. Almost any music you hear has a thick history and is the result of some sorta of displacement,” (O’Malley, 2017).  This once again sparked the discussion of what is inspiration and what is appropriation. Can producers just use any track/beat they feel without considering the historical and cultural significance or must we begin an age of historically conscious music production? Will this lead to more folklorists such as Alan Lomax which somewhat fetishize the cultural traditions of other races and ethnicities?

The following lecture focused on Witt’s book and further discussed the influence of Latin music, particularly Cuban, Brazilian, and Mexican. While discussing the decompression process of an audio file I will be honest there were some things that simply went over my head but what I understood is that you can eliminate the things that you won’t hear/the brain won’t process in order to make the file smaller.  Witt’s book focused on the phenomenon of music piracy which essentially began Dell Glover smuggling CDs out of a local compact-disc manufacturing plant allowing the music to be released on the internet two weeks prior to its physical release date, which was made possible by Karlheinz Brandenburg and his team who were able to compress the CD’s information into a file approximately a twelfth of the size (Witt, 2015). “Music piracy became to the late ’90s what drug experimentation was to the late ’60s: a generation-wide flouting of both social norms and the existing body of law, with little thought of consequences,” (Witt, 2015). This continues today with illegal music, movies, tv shows, and even free music availability via applications such as Spotify. This sparked the question why won’t we pay for music? I do believe that artists deserve to receive compensation for their art, but I would rather give it directly to the artist through things such as purchasing merchandise (like the business model of Chance the Rapper whose music is free but he sells other items). Additionally, as a college student who works part-time I am a big supporter of free things, which is frequently used by various corporations and programs such as providing student discounts, free food at events, even scholarships to attend school. Even applications such as Apple have a correlation to the piracy industry even though it is an avenue through which many artists still sell their albums, “Apple’s rise to market dominance in the 2000s relied, at least initially, on acting almost like a money launderer for the spoils of Napster,” he says. “If music piracy was the ’90s equivalent of experimentation with illegal drugs, then Apple had invented the vaporizer,” (Witt, 2015).

This led to the discussion of music as a commodity and whether or no that has come to an end. Does music, like information, want to be free? Additionally, has there been an artificial scarcity surrounding musical talent, since it is widely available is the limiting factor marketing? I think this factor could be argued in Western primarily American cultures since we have developed a morbid fascination with musical talent. While there are many who a naturally musically gifted, many could simply take up music lessons for an instrument or their voice and hone their craft. It takes price and motivation but if we can put Justin Bieber, a relatively mediocre singer, on a pedestal for carrying a note then others can achieve this fame status too. In my family every gathering we have a musical exchange where for an hour or so everyone plays their assorted instruments and picks which songs they would like to perform. I sing, my sister plays trumpet and piano, my dad plays the piano and the banjo, and my step mom plays the cello, the violin, and the piano. This is something we all practice for our own enjoyment, not for monetary gain, and enjoy socially. That is not to say that I don’t think artists shouldn’t be compensated when that is their primary source of income, but I do believe there is an artificial scarcity of musical talent as well as a stigma against music as a profession.