handsbloodyhands wrote: Tue Dec 12, 2023 10:26 am

Dave N. wrote: Tue Dec 12, 2023 9:48 am

Jimbo wrote: Thu May 27, 2021 4:37 pm I would like it if technology makes it possible for us to communicate better with animals so that we could teach dolphins and octopuses and crows and shit how to play music, they got weird amazing brains and could probably make some wild sounding shit.

As for popular music- who gives a shit?

The raven gives a shit.

Bird is a GG Allin fan.

OONTSOONTSOONTSOONTSOONTSOONTSOONTSOONTSOONTSOONTSOONTSOONTSOONTSOONTSOONTSOONTSOONTSOONTSOONTSBFFFF. OONTSOONTSOONTSOONTSOONTSOONTS

There won't be a next century assholes!!!!!!!

It hasn’t really gone anywhere in the past 30 years so probably just the endless cycle of retro crap, punctuated by occasional mixing that creates sort of new thing which is really just the old thing.

A Strokes-esque revival is about due.

I don't think it's going to go anywhere.

Sure there are some folks that will further explore the possibilities of different UIs to create more aleatory experiences that can't be easily reproduced, and perhaps that experimentation will lead to attempts to directly interface emotions and thoughts to sound production in real time. Most of it will sound like stuff most people don't want to listen to while working or driving.

Most music will follow the ever narrowing formulae for repetitive beat-driven pop with a narrow melodic range and A-B-A-B format with lyrics that flirt between affirmation and narcissism. Hip-hop will be limited in its evolution - lest it evolve out of being hip-hop at all.

DIY'ers will still learn music outside of any formal disciplined setting believing it will lead them to originality, while producing derivative music that's pretty much whatever their favorite stuff was at the moment they decided to try it for themselves.

Some kids will be taken with the disciplined application of learning a traditional instrument that required great patience and dedication to master. They may be unbothered by playing music written by others, including dead people that may have had a great deal more skill and talent at writing music than they could ever hope to have.

Nothing will break the nostalgia cycle that seems intent on circling around the drain of the previous 30-40 years. As much fun as revivals of hot-jazz, marching band music, Austro-Hungarian folk music might be. Some will be drawn into their own or other cultural history enough to study and master the documented folk, ceremonial or classical music of that culture, but it will be niche, and they will be nothing more than docents in a living history museum.

I'm getting doomer overload. If you want a better future you have to be able to imagine it!

Agree with the preceding posts. The only thing I can possibly hope for is that the nostalgic revival will circle back and result in a little more melodic content, and perhaps even some dynamics, both of which are sorely missing in just about every popular genre today. Not holding my breath.

kokorodoko wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2023 12:43 pm I'm getting doomer overload. If you want a better future you have to be able to imagine it!

What better future? I have everything I could want right here at my fingertips: An in-tune and well regulated piano that sounds great; more music than I could ever hope to master in ten lifetimes, a subscription to IMSLP, and free streaming access to young musicians with so much discipline and talent at a young age they make Paderewski look like a dilettante.

At some point music, for me, lost its social context. It was no longer glue that bonded me to others. It was no longer a shared element of belonging to some in-group. It no longer bound elements of poetry, drama, theater, fashion, politics and visual art in any meaningful way. All those things became artifice. Cultural marketing. Social-sexual-status signifiers. Broad Gesamtkunstwerk statements meant to be consumed by others, to elicit premeditated responses and provide a projected statement of identity to others.

Now it really is just the notes and little more - the way pitched tones combine to create beat frequencies and overtones that when organized in certain ways produce profound abstract emotional responses, and the performers' ability to to connect to that written or unwritten form in a way that extolls the emotional impact in that moment of the otherwise static and abstract. It's for me to experience myself. It requires neither the participation nor assent from others.

Geiginni wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2023 1:09 pm

At some point music, for me, lost its social context. It was no longer glue that bonded me to others. It was no longer a shared element of belonging to some in-group. It no longer bound elements of poetry, drama, theater, fashion, politics and visual art in any meaningful way. All those things became artifice. Cultural marketing. Social-sexual-status signifiers. Broad Gesamtkunstwerk statements meant to be consumed by others, to elicit premeditated responses and provide a projected statement of identity to others.

Now it really is just the notes and little more - the way pitched tones combine to create beat frequencies and overtones that when organized in certain ways produce profound abstract emotional responses, and the performers' ability to to connect to that written or unwritten form in a way that extolls the emotional impact in that moment of the otherwise static and abstract. It's for me to experience myself. It requires neither the participation nor assent from others.

You mean you don't get excited at the thought of a four hour stadium show by Taylor Swift?

I do like to have words with my music, but it's not a necessity

kokorodoko wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2023 12:43 pm I'm getting doomer overload. If you want a better future you have to be able to imagine it!

Adding to the cynicism: I don't expect much to cut through when the dominant 'music' platforms are Spotify and Youtube, platforms that would prefer you be making podcasts.

I've kind of thrown my hands up at it, and focus on making music that challenges myself, sometimes with others, and occasionally in front of a small crowd: hoping to at least share a moment that won't be lost to the digital abyss.