Technology and Music

I had a conversation the other day with a Grammy award winning producer and we discussed the progression of music and how technology has influenced it. We came to the conclusion that music as an abstract being has not progressed as much as its technological counter part. And technology is the reason for this. Here is what I have observed in myself and others. It used to be that a musician spent his/her whole day practicing and mastering their craft. Endless hours of study and performance, so that one day they go into an extremely expensive studio and nail a performance in one or a few takes, only because the technology was not savy enough to fix any mistakes. It would have sounded God-awful if it wasn't perfect. Then technology improved and now you can take a poor performance and magically turn it into a masterpiece. Along with that, we can now record in our own homes. The recording capabilites of computers is relatvely similiar to that of a video game. So essentially what happens it that the musician decides to spend half his time on his craft and the other half of his time playing the video game. So what happens is the musical piece starts to suffer. We dont even need to have other people their with us because the computer becomes every other instrument that we need. That also takes away from the vibe of connecting with other musicians in a live setting. So what I think is that music progression has a cap on it in its current state. Listen to popular music today and from many years ago, it literally sounds the same. Same song structure, same verse chorus verse chorus, the melodies are all the same. I mean the only real change is kick drum and the bass are a bit louder. Agian all songs are like 4 minutes or less and they always have the same hooky chorus. But I ask myself why???30 years or progression and incredible technology and we are just doing the same things over and over again.....However on a good note, I dont think its forever. I think as we move forward and learn how to balance the two, music is really gonna go places. Slam One Down is embracing technology and doing its best to keep the old school mindset involved. I am really excited to mesh the two together in the future. -J.R.