Is digital destroying music as creation?

Question

Let’s face it; digital has reduced the frustration and complexity of recording music in the studio, listening to music at home and even rendered its live aspects.
Once, music was subject to innovative and environmental influence and it seems today sounds are easily replicated, seamlessly duplicated, and effortlessly produced with digital,
for better or worse. What do you think?

Answer 1

Digital music has its place; yet what we make ' of ' it is what is important; it, as a feature of technology. ' In ' itself there is nothing of digital that demonstrates an innate destructive purpose.

While technology facilitates ease of doing the things our hands touch, still is it a mere toy in comparison to creating sound dialogues first-hand, as that which happens between a musical instrument and the Muse, between one musician and another, and between a music ensemble and its listening audience.

Digital music enables to get on with the next phases of our creations without all the encumbrances and hitherto bureaucracy engaged with producing a first envisioned then imprinted expression of a chart, and rather it allows us to focus on pure creation and the more important thing: developing as human beings.

The chief divine charter of Music is that it enables us to rise in consciousness, to move us to higher states.

Moreover, human beings continue to prefer reading books over merely reading material via computer -- and any way, reading books is much easier on eye physiology one eventually finds; this simply due to computer EMR, which wreaks havoc on eyesight and tires out the body over time, not to mention that the locus of the weakest muscles in the body are at the eyes.

Likewise, nothing can supplant a musician's natural draw to pick up a horn or a pair of drum sticks or set-to on an acoustic piano or guitar -- this is innate, both primordial and rational -- for without access to and expression of this, a major part of inflow and outflow is obstructed. There is simply a natural need and appetite to express art, just as to socialize or to express love, or to have hunger or thirst. Such an ill fate as to constrain artistic expression like music and pit natural against digital music just would not happen unless of course societies become so despotic that to fulfill the natural need to express oneself subjects one to incarceration or death: and even that would self-destruct in time via coup d'etat. A mass consciousness of people can only take but so much crap, after which all would simply implode.

Otherwise, both digital and hands-on have their place; all is in the balance and feel.

Ultimately, digital would lose if we would pit one against the other, which prospect of occurring is a ludicrous possibility (though not an improbable prospect given human history).

Answer 2

Digital music is lifeless ,cold ,harsh and "squeaky" clean.Analogue is warm, sweet, and more involving than digital.Give me analogue any day

EDIT....Why does the same recording of a particular event sound vastly different on a CD and a Vinyl Record ? The CD has a greater dynamic range than the Record. The CD has quieter background noise than the Record. The CD has no "clicks" or "pops"that the Record has. The CD does not suffer wear but the Record does.
But why is the sound of musical instruments on a Record more faithfully reproduced than the same instruments on a CD ? .It should be the other way round.I am no expert but i think it has something to do with the "silence between the notes"on a CD.The Record seems to have more "air" between the instruments on the recording plus the frequency range is wider on the Record than the CD.The CD had 25 years to improve the sound but nothing happened except for a few special CDs.
It is the same story again.Digital does not always imply a better result.

I used to work in the Sydney Town Hall which has an auditorium for classical music and was the place where all concerts were performed before the Opera House was completed.I used to listen to the Sydney Symphony practicing during my lunch hour so i got a pretty good feel how live music should sound and that is when i got interested in listening to reproduced music at home playing LP Records on high fidelity equipment.to get as close as possible to the original sound. CD has not done this.Records come close.

Answer 3

You're absolutely correct. There's also a very active area of technology called 'Digital Signal Processing', or DSP for short, which allows for the 'touching up' of any digital recording in ways that the older, analog, techniques could never have accomplished.

DSP is a fairly deep and math-intensive subject, but the Navy has poured cubic megabucks into research in the area (and still is) with the obvious intent of developing better sonar systems. And the petroleum companies (who actually developed the first DSP techniques) also put a lot of money into it so that they can do a better job of interpreting seismology data (they set off a small explosion and analyze the 'echos' from various underground rock strata to find oil-bearing formations). There are also a lot of other areas (digital cellphones, secure digital communications, radar echo analysis, GPS navigation, etc.) that have benifited from DSP technology.

But you're quite correct about the 'ambiance' of a live performance. I've heard the same piece performed at different times by the same artist(s) and each time it's always a little bit different. But thats just the nature of live music. There isn't much of any way to record a performance and capture all of it. But digital recording techniques do a better job of it than anything else that we currently have.

Plus, by being able to generate 'synthetic' sounds all digitally, the musical community now has the ability to generate sounds that simply could never be produced by a physical instrument. Granted, a lot of the earlier works were pretty much experimental works where the object seemed to be to see how many 'weird' sounds one could generate from a synthesizer, but a few serious composers have done some very nice things with the technology.

Doug

Answer 4

Not at all; it is simply making it less exclusive.

Those who complain are generally those who did it the old, time-consuming and difficult way, and in some way subconsciously resentful that to do the same these days people don't need to go through all that hardship. It makes them feel in some respects like their life was a waste of time...

But because the difficulty has been reduced along with the time needed.... far more humans who couldn't have managed before can now play an active part in the process... This is great for them.... but it also means more competition for the old-school folks.... and nobody takes kindly to that level of competition.
Overall, it ends up cheapening the music.... but a few must suffer if a greater number are to benefit from it.

Answer 5

sure i think of so. i think of digital music and problems with the type are removing from people who particularly are proficient. i do no longer think of pop artists deserve as plenty recognition as they get, and that i think that sturdy old wind and stay overall performance string gadgets might desire to make a comeback. the only reason vast band swing isn't nicely-known is via the fact this technology hasn't heard of it. I applaud every physique who brings real music lower back into the international.

Answer 6

If you are a musician, you should start every day by falling on your knees and thanking God you were born in the age of digital.

Answer 7

yes slowly everything will be handled by computers. soon all human professions will become redundant becaus computers will take over. but donot be afraid it will give us lot of recreation time. so intelligent people wont have to contribute to society, just answer questions on yahoo!!

Answer 8

In a way worse becuz people are listening to it everywhere and it loses the novelty.