Music in Society
By Leo Collings
The Functions of Music in Society
Punk and Politics
Music may be lucrative for those involved and enjoyable for listeners, but it frequently can and does have a profound effect on society. For example, the Sex Pistols were instrumental in establishing the early punk movement in 1970’s UK. Their powerful, politically charged lyrics and frantic, in your face style, struck a chord with a young disillusioned Britain. Below is an excerpt from their song “God save the queen”.
“God save the Queen
The fascist regime,
They made you a moron
A potential H-bomb”
“God save the Queen
She ain't no human being
There is no future
And England's dreaming”
Anti-establishment and somewhat nihilistic in tone undoubtedly, but why did it so perfectly encapsulate what the punk movement was about? Well, the 1970’s and 1980’s were eras wrought with mass unemployment. The most badly effected groups being young adults. Strikes (a form of protest typically related to bad working conditions) were also extremely common during these eras. These two factors, combined with the common view that the governments of the time no longer represented the majority of the population, had the effect of creating an embittered and massively disillusioned generation of young adults. Essentially, the Sex Pistols, alongside various other punk bands, gave voice to a generation without the means to effectively express their issues with 1970’s and 1980’s Britain. Irish writer, Oscar Wilde summed it up in his 1889 essay “The Decay of Lying” perfectly…”The self-conscious aim of Life is to find expression, and that Art offers it certain beautiful forms through which it may realise that energy”. Of all the functions of art and therefore music in society, this is perhaps the most profound and explains perfectly why music is so often linked so closely to cultural movements such as Punk. Punk was (and still is) a form of protest and by extension a form of expression.
Religion
So what about other forms of expression? Well, music and religion are often closely linked and in Islamic cultures, music often serves as a call to prayer as seen here
Education
Music can also be employed in an educational context too. Humans, by and large, react strongly to music and it could be argued, as renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks has theorized many times, that music stirs something profoundly primordial in us as a species as shown here
Clearly humans react strongly to music, but how is it used specifically in an educational context? Well, regardless of the country you were born in, chances are you learnt the alphabet through song
Music Technology and its Effect on Society
Vinyl
Music is everywhere in societies across the world and as musical technology has advanced, musicians and consumers alike have been blessed with a wider range of musical genres to take inspiration from or indeed, simply to enjoy. Vinyl records alongside record players for example, were instrumental in bringing genres of music from across the world into people’s homes. Gaining prominence in the 1950’s, the players operated by reading grooves via a needle across the records surface. As the needle travelled along the grooves, vibrations are picked up along the tone arm. These vibrations are then converted into electrical energy, amplified and finally outputted through speakers back into acoustical energy (sound). Records, the players and their history date back much further than the 1950’s, but it was technological advancements in this era that ultimately made them far more common place across the world. The most notable advancements being higher quality audio and longer running times.
So what effect did this have on society? Well, from the 1950’s onwards, the world enjoyed a musical explosion, with people being exposed to many genres they may not have been privy to hear prior, thanks largely to vinyl, its affordability and its adoption by the music industry as a standard playback medium at the time. The most notable genre which gained prominence being rock and roll. Artists such as Elvis Presley, spearheaded this new genre and besides selling millions of records, introduced consumers and fellow musicians alike to entirely foreign musical ideas. Taking inspiration from African American and White American music alike, he challenged societal norms of the day and brought a sorely needed fresh perspective, musically and culturally, to the public’s attention. It’s little wonder why African American music such as Motown gained so much prominence in the music industry a decade later, nor is it surprising that the Civil Rights Movement, centred on ending racial inequality, coincided with both these eras.
Beyond influencing society though, he inspired and still continues to inspire budding musicians the world over. Jack White for example, formally of The White stripes, was clearly influenced by Elvis and his music as this article (alongside the obvious musical parallels) demonstrates https://www.spin.com/2015/03/jack-white-elvis-presley-first-recording-300000-reissue-record-store-day/. Would all of this been possible without Vinyl though? It’s possible, providing there was an alternative medium that was as affordable and similar in audio quality. However, it doesn’t change the fact that it was vinyl that ultimately made its way into people’s homes and it’s doubtful Elvis would have enjoyed such commercial success the world over or indeed that Jack White would’ve been influenced by him in the way that he was, had vinyl or a similar medium not existed and gained widespread adoption. How much of a factor vinyl and the way it exposed people to different perspectives and the degree to which it would affect the Civil Rights Movement is difficult to say, but as we learnt in the first half of this article (punks), music has a way of influencing and/or defining cultural values and beliefs. Vinyl, by extension, played a major role too in being the medium through which people were exposed to the challenging ideas and concepts put forth by artists such as Elvis and record labels such as Motown.
There are some issues with Vinyl though, most notably that the audio quality, whilst a revolution at the time, is lacking compared with modern advancements. The invention of the compact disc resolved this problem though. With far more storage space and the audio being of far greater quality and fidelity on these discs, compact discs, similar to vinyl were considered a marvel of human ingenuity at the time. They were also compact as the name suggests and far cheaper to manufacture. Vinyl has however made somewhat of a resurgence though amongst niche groups of music lovers. Whilst lower in overall quality and fidelity, there is a distinctness to the sound of vinyl. Many describe it as sounding “warmer”. Whether this is a good or bad thing is ultimately subjective to the individual though.
DAWs
Another significant advancement in music involves DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations). A DAW is essentially a software programme, ran from a computer that allows the user to compose music. First conceived in 1979 by a company named Soundstream and at that time referred to as the “Digital Editing System”, early DAWs such as this were cumbersome and difficult to use. That, coupled with the limited computing power available at the time, stymied their application in the industry. That is atleast, until the late 80’s and early 90’s, when Cubase was released for the Atari ST and Macintosh computers. Raising the bar significantly, Cubase was much easier to use and the increased computing power available compared to 10 years prior, allowed users much more freedom creatively speaking. Ultimately though, it was around the early 2000’s that DAWs truly gained prominence.
How did this effect the industry and consumers though? Well, DAWs are significant, in that they allow users, who may have no musical training to compose music for one. Second, as computers became cheaper, more and more people began composing music with them, fundamentally changing the face of music in the process by creating many new genres of music. To put these aspects into perspective consider this…Prior to the widespread adoption of DAWs, recording studios would use magnetic tape to record instrumentations performed by trained musicians. The limitations of this being that, one you’d need the equipment which could be very expensive. Two, you’d need musicians who could perform the piece and three, you’d need an engineer who could actually operate all the equipment. These aspects significantly reduced peoples capacity to compose their own music due to the costs and expertize required. DAWs were very much a revolution in this regard.
There are downsides to the rise of DAWs and their associated technologies though. For example, you could argue that music in society, has become oversaturated with the genres that they spurred, stymying musical innovation for a time with samey, annoyingly similar sounding music. Another downside is that music composed on DAWs, doesn’t always sound “real” for lack of a better word. There are still significant limitations in hardware/software synthesizer technology after all. However, whether it’s actually a downside is subjective, for genres intended to sound somewhat artificial, such as EDM (electronic dance music), it’s not a problem.
Certainly though, musicians have also benefited from DAWs. Software such as Pro Tools, allows much easier editing of recorded audio. In the past, if you wanted to splice one audio take with another, you’d need to physically cut out the unwanted audio from the magnetic tapes used to record with at precisely the right point and then attach them together. With computers of course, this isn’t necessary, which besides saving a lot of money on tape and the hardware for it, is exponentially quicker too and has allowed many an amateur musician to record and compose music from home.
The Internet
The internet, born out of a US funded project to design a digital information transfer system between computers in the 1960’s, first entered the public eye in the 1980’s. Where ISPs (internet service providers) provided users of computers the ability transfer information wirelessly via the use of a modem. Initially slow, cumbersome and somewhat pointless due to limitations in technology and unfamiliarity of the programming languages faced by website builders, the internet, by the early 2000s started to see widespread adoption by the general public. Now, for many people, it’s hard to imagine life without it.
How did this effect the music industry and consumers though? Well, much like vinyl, it has allowed people access to more and more obscure music. No longer do people have to hope that a music store has what they want in stock. Unfortunately, this has had the effect of making music stores somewhat irrelevant as people increasingly choose to either buy/digitally download music online or illegally download copies (piracy). This has affected other areas of the music industry too…Since profits from online sales are so small and people are more likely to pirate music now, revenue streams for artists has been vastly reduced, resulting in a shift in focus back to live performed music instead. Granted, in recent years, piracy has lowered significantly as a result of increasing legal and protective (copyright protection mechanisms) actions taken by music publishers, but it’s unlikely to stop pirates forever. Time and time again, programmers have found ever more ingenious ways to circumvent copyright protection. This coupled with their knack for finding legal loopholes, explains the continued, although certainly less musically detrimental, existence of file sharing websites such as the Pirate Bay. In all likelihood though, this back and forth counter solving of the problems faced by both parties, will continue for some time.
Finally, the internet has affected the way in which people listen to music as groups. Before the widespread adoption of the internet, people were far more likely to share common ground musically speaking. They experienced limitations in what music was available to them and ultimately because of this, groups of people tended to be listening to the same types of music as each other. Since the rise of the internet, the effect to which this can be observed has reduced significantly. With so much music available to consumers and musicians alike, the distance between people musically speaking has expanded. Perhaps more profoundly though, this has diminished the extent to which new, massive, musically inspired cultural phenomenas, such as the Punk and Grunge movements occur. A perfect example of this involves the Hipster “movement”. Hipsters (admittedly a slang term) being a post-internet driven phenomena, baring some similarities to the bohemians of the Beat Generation during the 1950s (it’s worth bearing in mind they actually pre-date this period too though). Like Bohemians, they reject contemporary cultural norms, fashions and values and instead generate or appropriate their own. In context to the internet though, they perfectly exemplify the fundamental shift in the way people relate to each other. With such a wealth of information and culture available to them, more often than not, the differences between people tend to be celebrated to a greater degree now. This partly explains why buzzwords such as “inclusivity” are used so often in the media. The gap between people and their interests/lifestyles is expanding and its likely people are aware of this, thus explaining their focus on inclusivity. Certainly though, cultural movements still exist and will likely continue to be born out of and inspired by musical trends, but few would deny the shift in focus towards increased individualism that the internet is largely responsible for. Whether this is a good or bad thing is entirely subjective to the observer though. For a musician, the opportunity to work with someone who has completely different musical tastes, may be welcomed and could result in something entirely unique musically speaking.
References
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-musical-self/201209/which-came-first-music-or-language
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17703483
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https://www.lagrange.edu/resources/pdf/citations/2012/11_Wallace_History.pdf
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