The Impact of Technology on the Record and Music Business - Literature review Example

Name : xxxxxxxxxxx Institution : xxxxxxxxxxx Course : xxxxxxxxxxx Title : The Impact of Technology on the Record & Music Business Tutor : xxxxxxxxxxx @2010 Introduction Music is an auditory communication done in an artistic way and which uses continuous as well as structured vocal tones or/and instruments, this sound is not only universal, but also relative as well as subjective and which is pleasant to hear and also harmonious. Several theories have been suggested regarding the time and place the origin of music took place with majority claiming it was already in existence long before human beings existed. Several theories have been suggested regarding the time and place the origin of music took place with majority claiming it was already in existence long before human beings existed. Six music periods have been suggested by historiographers ; they are the medieval era(800 - 1400 C.E.) ,renaissance period (1400 - 1600 C.E.),baroque era(1600-1750 C.E.) ,classical era(1750-1820 C.E.),romantic era(1850 - 1920 C.E.) and 20th century era (1900 - Present).they are distinct from each other hence massively transformed music to the current state (Lipman, 1994). The changes in technology have massively affected the development of music throughout the previous century’s right from classical orchestra to invention of both recording techniques and electricity. The industrial revolution, which happened between eighteenth and nineteenth century in Britain, is one of the greatest developments that affected the development of music to the current stages time. Due to the great need to store music for further entertainment use and also to ensure the performer does not repeat the same song over and over to the audience, there arose need to device ways of storing the same music to be played in times of demand automatically hence the birth of records. Records are fields in ordered sets which are stored in a contiguous manner. The records always entail field values in entities. Fields might have fixed width or bits or even have the delimiter separate the characters. The machines invented as well as the techniques pioneered affected to a larger extent the writing and recording of music. Among the most profound people in the development of music recording was Immanuel Breitkopf who was a Leipzig printer and who had developed a new way of typesetting for publication of music and simple songs in a better way (Teun, K., 2001). Types of recorders Mechanical recorders These were the first devices used for recording as well as reproducing sound, whose use started around the 9th century with hydro powered organ being used to automatically play cylinders that were interchangeable. This had a shortcoming of incapability to record sounds that were arbitrary; later on the invention of automatic flute took place. Musical automation that was programmable, bell-ringer operated by a cylinder that was rotating, music box, and a player piano followed later (Fowler, 1967). Acoustical Recorders This was used to record the arbitrary sounds since the mechanical recorders couldn’t .The acoustic recording was done through performance being recorded lively and direct to the medium which was used for recording. For it to be efficient and effective it required the loud performers to be away from the drum .This included phonautograph, phonographs and gramophones. The phonautograph was invented by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville in 1857.His device was the first recorder of arbitrary sounds using a membrane vibrating in accordance to sound, and using an attached pen to draw a line which is corresponding to the wave form. This couldn’t do an immediate playback of the sound recorded. The photographic methodology had been limited by photography technology which was still not underdeveloped hence requiring more improvements for it to be commercially viable (Milner, 2009). Phonograph and microphone Phonograph was developed through the expansion of the phonautograph principles, which received its perfection in 1878 by Frank Lambert. The earlier phonographs had the setback of difficulty in massive reproduction of phonograph cylinders. However; it was easier as well as cheaper to produce discs massively. The pantograph mechanism was used to produce these copies however it had the limitation of producing only 25 copies with poorer qualities compared to the originals, as well as distortion of the original in the process of production. Worst still a performance produced less than a thousand salable copies .this made the performers to repeat their performance continuously. Electrical recorders Its advent in 1925 saw the downfall of cylinder recording in 1929 since there was a substantial improvement in the quality of the record process in disc records hence the disc records were quickly absorbed in the market. After five years the reproduction of home sounds was done through combination of records that were electronically recorded using the Victor Orthophonic phonograph. There was also the introduction of phonographs that were electrically powered. The electrical recording allowed for the use of microphones in capturing performance sounds which later led record labels to completely switch to electric microphone .the electric recording really boosted the sound quality and also increased flexibility. Although the recording would be messed up in case there was slight mistake since recording medium determined the performance. The electrical record allowed for over-dubbing with the first commercial release of this kind of records being done by Victor talking Machine Company. There was a limited use of over-dubbing until analogue audio tape come in to use (Tschmuck, 2006). Magnetic recording Its demonstration was on 1898 by Valdemar Poulsen in the telegraphone.the magnetic wire recording and magnetic tape recording include magnetizable medium in their use. The telegraphone later was transformed in to wire recorders by the development of the electronic amplification by Curt Stille (1920s).they were used for dictation as well as voice recording during the periods 1940s and 1950s.the quality of reproduction was lower using wire recorders than phonographs, this was in addition to the fact that the wires in the wire recorders would be entangled hence these results became more unsatisfactory. The British Broadcasting Corporation broadcasted using steel tape recorder for the first time in 1932 with the tape required being too long for instance for programmes to run for 30 minutes it required 3kms of steel tape with the full real being 25 kg. Magnetic tape The first magnetic recorders that was practical was produced by an AEG engineer .it was during the second world war that the technique of AC biasing was discovered by another engineer at Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft which made a great improvement to the sound quality of recordings from magnetic tape.1943 saw the development of magnetic tape recorders . although the development of these recorders between 1940 and 1950 is attributed to Brush Development Company and Ampex (its licensee), the development of the media of magnetic tape itself was pioneered by Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing corporation (currently referred to as 3M). John T. Mullin (an audio engineer from America) and Bing Crosby (an entertainer) were very instrumental in developing magnetic tape commercially. Multitrack recording Multitrack recording became a major magnetic tape development. The tracks always remain perfectly synchronized.In this recording there is division of the tape to form many tracks that are parallel to each other. This was further developed by Ampex so that there was more track recordings, hence became more commercialized. However this proved a bit noisy when the process of bouncing down was taking place and hence needed more modifications. Film recording In 1900 there were attempts to have sounds recorded on a medium that was optical. Synchronized film soundtack are always in two types which are optical soundtracks and magnetic sound tracks .the the sound wave’s visual rendition are the optical sound tracks and they use not only light beams but also optical sensors in the projector to provide sounds while magnetic sound tracks are just the same to analog tape recording. Lee de Forest later in 1923 did apply for a patent for the recording to film and also did have short films for experiments. Sound-on-film newsreels were released on 1926 by William Fox. Although one of the major productions that made sound film be more popular was ‘The Jazz Singer’ which was released on 1927 and made a hit that was very tremendous hence making the public as well as the film industry believe that sound film was actually more practical. The optical sound tracks have a setback of susceptibility to degradation like the picture’s and which include the scratches and coping. Later on in 1950s cinema industry introduced the processes of wide-screen such as Cinerama, Todd-AO and also Cinema Scope as well as technically improving sounds by using the magnetic sound of the multitrack. Digital Recording Reel-to-reel decks were the pioneers of digital audio recorders and were started by companies like the Denom (1972), Mitsubishi and sound stream (1979) using PCM recording as the digital technology. After few years many studios adopted the use of devices encoding the data from digital audio into a video signal that was standard. This was later recorded video tape recorder or U-matic, same technology (Digital Audio Tape) was also used for the format of consumers, although it failed because it was very expensive, too finicky, as well as destroyed by the regulations of the anti- copying, even though it had all these setbacks it was popular in home studios as well as radio stations. Digital Compact Cassette also failed as a system of digital tape recording. After the digital recording introduction, professional studios started using the multitrack recorders. They were later again to video tape recording for instance the ADAT by Alesis with its first release being in 1991. This machine could record digital audio’s 8 tracks on an S-VHS video. The ADAT is still used widely in professional as well as home studios all over the world (Marshall, 2004). Consumer market compact disc and minidisc which are for the consumer markets, and which are not only digital but also require the use of complex electronics in order to play back, replaced the tapes as well as gramophones in Consumer market .there was also the development of files of digital sound which is stored on the medium of storage in the computer.MP3 audio and its file format development, together with the legal issues included, speeded the musical distribution innovation .with the increase in CPU speeds as well as capacities of hard disks(1990s),there was the popularity of recording. Hard disk recording use two forms,i.e using standard laptop or desktop computers which also employs the use of the external devices liked USB or cables of firewire or the in-box interface cards ;and hard disk recordings that need dedicated recorders with digital converters of analogue –to-digital and digital-to-analogue (Middleton, 2002). Impact of technology on music business The music business (industry) does the selling of performance of music, compositions, as well as recordings. The major parties/participants in the industry include musicians who are responsible for composing and also performing music; companies as well as professionals creating and selling the recorded music for instance the music publishers, the ones responsible for presentation of music performance that is live e.g. the booking agents, professionals aiding musicians in their career for instance entertainment lawyers and business managers ,the ones who do music broadcasting and those that manufacture for instance satellite and broadcast radio, journalists ,educators, among others (Stith, 1980). Music sheet publishers dominated music industry in the late 19th to early 20th century hence in the mid century, the sheet music was regarded as the greatest player in the music industry. Later the people from the commercial world started referring to recording industry as music industry. From the year 2001 there has been a decline in the demand for the recorded music hence the sales have gradually dwindled as the live music performance increased its influence and importance, with the major dominant labels being EMI, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music Entertainment. All these have smaller companies as well as labels to serve different places and markets ,the Live Nation ,former clear channels communication subsidiary, has dominated the industry of the live music .this is also the greatest promoter as well as owner of music revenue. The other music industries that have been very Creative include the Creative Artists Agency as well as the Apple Inc. (selling iphones, ipods and ipads, it also operates the world’s largest iTunes and music stores) (Krasilovsky, M., 2007). Diagram showing the market shares in the world (IFPI, 2OO5) Commercial trends Up to the 18th century, there was formal composition and music printing process, which got a major support from aristocrats as well as churches. In the mid 1700, performers began to struggle for commercialization opportunities for their music and also performance. The publishers of sheet music became dominant in the music industry with a group of writers and publishers of music dominating the popular music. During the 20th century, sound recording started functioning like a disruptive technology in the market of music. With the invention of phonograph and the widespread communications of the radio, music hearing was transformed forever since radio permitted even the bands that were most obscure to produce and be popular throughout the nation, or even throughout the world, hence eventually the sheet music was gradually replaced by the record industry. In the 21st century there was less consumer expenditure on recorded music than during 1990s hence leading to a drop of 25% of revenues from the recorded music, a drop estimated at $38.6 billion (1999) to $27.5 billion (2008). The possibility of the drop increasing in the near future is also there, which has also led to lay-offs in the music industry, made music retailers close their businesses and also made the record companies to look for new models of business. The 200 3 iTunes store debut made the digital downloads to be legally available; they grew very fast and led to the popularity of internet music distribution but could not recover the CD revenue losses. This turmoil has transformed the balance between the consumers and all the parties involved in the music industry. In 2010 big-box stores like Wal-Mart and also Best Buy sell much music as compared to music-only stores, which stopped functioning like players in music industry. The inexpensive hardware and also software has made the possibility of creating music if high quality in any location and distributing it over the internet. This has affected the record producers and engineers as well as others business people by failing them since consumers were accessing a variety of music ay a very low cost. Though the past decade has had consumers spend a lot on music softwares and hardwares hence providing continuous income for technology companies like the Apple Inc (Knopper, 2009).copyright became most important during this period so as to protect the music from piracy. The statistics below show the world music trends in the market. Value according to countries An illustration of contribution of music (according to proportions) by the major 30 countries A table showing World album sales and the market value between 1990s and 2000s # Country Album Sales Share Share of World Market Value 1 USA 37–40% 30–35% 2 Japan 9–12% 16–19% 3 UK 7–9% 6.4–9.1% 4 Germany 7–8% 6.4–5.3% 5 France 4.5–5.5% 5.4–6.3% 6 Canada 2.6–3.3% 1.9–2.8% 7 Australia 1.5–1.8% 1.5–2.0% 8 Brazil 2.0–3.8% 1.1–3.1% 9 Italy 1.7–2.0% 1.5–2.0% 10 Spain 1.7–2.3% 1.4–1.8% 11 Netherlands 1.2–1.8% 1.3–1.8% 12 Mexico 2.1–4.6% 0.8–1.8% 13 Belgium 0.7–0.8% 0.8–1.2% 14 Switzerland 0.75–0.9% 0.8–1.1% 15 Austria 0.5–0.7% 0.8–1.0% 17 Russia 2.0–2.9% 0.5–1.4% 18 Taiwan 0.9–1.6% 0.5–1.1% 19 Argentina 0.5–0.7% 0.5–1.0% 20 Denmark 0.45–0.65% 0.5–0.8% Singles sales World sale of Physical singles between 1990s–2000s and sale of digital single in 2005 # Country Physical Sales Share Digital Sales Share in 2005 EU 34–50% 13.2% 1 UK 26–32% 1.7% 2 Japan 4–25% 85% 3 USA 14.5–16% 6.3% 4 Germany 9–12% 5% 5 France 4–12.5% 1.9% 6 Australia 1.8–4.6% 0.48% 7 Netherlands 1.3–1.7% < 0.2% 8 Belgium 0.8-1.8% < 0.2% 9 Sweden 0.6-0.96% < 0.2% 10 Switzerland 0.5-0.92% < 0.2% 11 Austria 0.58-0.82% < 0.2% 12 Italy 0.3-1.0% < 0.2% 13 Spain 0.3-0.7% < 0.2% 14 Norway 0.3-0.47% < 0.2% 15 Ireland 0.2-0.5% < 0.2% 16 Canada 0.1-0.6% < 0.2% 17 Portugal 0.01-1.0% < 0.2% 18 Republic of Korea 0.02-0.45% < 0.1% 19 New Zealand 0.19-0.29% < 0.1% 20 Denmark 0.10-0.25% < 0.1% Recorded music retail sales Interim physical retail sales in 2005 in millions COUNTRY UNITS VALUE CHANGE Singles CD DVD Total Units $US Local Currency Units Value 1 USA 14.7 300.5 11.6 326.8 4783.2 4783.2 −5.70% −5.30% 2 Japan 28.5 93.7 8.5 113.5 2258.2 239759 −6.90% −9.20% 3 UK 24.3 66.8 2.9 74.8 1248.5 666.7 −1.70% −4.00% 4 Germany 8.5 58.7 4.4 71 887.7 689.7 −7.70% −5.80% 5 France 11.5 47.3 4.5 56.9 861.1 669.1 7.50% −2.70% 6 Italy 0.5 14.7 0.7 17 278 216 −8.40% −12.30% 7 Canada 0.1 20.8 1.5 22.3 262.9 325 0.70% −4.60% 8 Australia 3.6 14.5 1.5 17.2 259.6 335.9 −22.90% −11.80% 9 India – 10.9 – 55.3 239.6 11500 −19.20% −2.40% 10 Spain 1 17.5 1.1 19.1 231.6 180 −13.40% −15.70% 11 Netherlands 1.2 8.7 1.9 11.1 190.3 147.9 −31.30% −19.80% 12 Russia – 25.5 0.1 42.7 187.9 5234.7 −9.40% 21.20% 13 Mexico 0.1 33.4 0.8 34.6 187.9 2082.3 44.00% 21.50% 14 Brazil 0.01 17.6 2.4 24 151.7 390.3 −20.40% −16.50% 15 Austria 0.6 4.5 0.2 5 120.5 93.6 −1.50% −9.60% 16 Switzerland ** 0.8 7.1 0.2 7.8 115.8 139.2 n/a n/a 17 Belgium 1.4 6.7 0.5 7.7 115.4 89.7 −13.80% −8.90% 18 Norway 0.3 4.5 0.1 4.8 103.4 655.6 −19.70% −10.40% 19 Sweden 0.6 6.6 0.2 7.2 98.5 701.1 −29.00% −20.30% 20 Denmark 0.1 4 0.1 4.2 73.1 423.5 3.70% −4.20% Top 20 74.5 757.1 42.8 915.2 12378.7 −6.60% −6.30% Conclusion The changes in technology have really had a great impact on the music industry, even though there was preference for the recorded music, this has declined and the trend will grow stronger in the future because of fashion and the consumer preference for live music. References Fowler, C.B., 1967, ‘the Museum of Music: A History of Mechanical Instruments’, Music Educators Journal . Teun, K., 2001, ‘on the prehistory of programmable machines: musical automata, looms, calculators’, Mechanism, and Machine theory. Stith, B., 1980, On Becoming a Rock Musician, University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst. Middleton, R., 2002, Studying Popular Music, Open University Press, Philadelphia. Lipman, S., 1984, The House of Music: Art in an Era of Institutions, Black sparrow books, New York. Milner, G., 2009, Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music, Faber & Faber, New York. Tschmuck, P., 2006, Creativity and Innovation in the Music Industry, Springer. Knopper, S., 2009, Appetite for Self-Destruction: the Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age, Free Press, New York. Marshall, L., 2004, Music and copyright, Edinburgh law and society series (2 ed.), Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh. Krasilovsky, M., 2007, This Business of Music (10th ed.), Billboard Books, California. Read More

The phonautograph was invented by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville in 1857.His device was the first recorder of arbitrary sounds using a membrane vibrating in accordance to sound, and using an attached pen to draw a line which is corresponding to the wave form. This couldn’t do an immediate playback of the sound recorded. The photographic methodology had been limited by photography technology which was still not underdeveloped hence requiring more improvements for it to be commercially viable (Milner, 2009).

Phonograph and microphone Phonograph was developed through the expansion of the phonautograph principles, which received its perfection in 1878 by Frank Lambert. The earlier phonographs had the setback of difficulty in massive reproduction of phonograph cylinders. However; it was easier as well as cheaper to produce discs massively. The pantograph mechanism was used to produce these copies however it had the limitation of producing only 25 copies with poorer qualities compared to the originals, as well as distortion of the original in the process of production.

Worst still a performance produced less than a thousand salable copies .this made the performers to repeat their performance continuously. Electrical recorders Its advent in 1925 saw the downfall of cylinder recording in 1929 since there was a substantial improvement in the quality of the record process in disc records hence the disc records were quickly absorbed in the market. After five years the reproduction of home sounds was done through combination of records that were electronically recorded using the Victor Orthophonic phonograph.

There was also the introduction of phonographs that were electrically powered. The electrical recording allowed for the use of microphones in capturing performance sounds which later led record labels to completely switch to electric microphone .the electric recording really boosted the sound quality and also increased flexibility. Although the recording would be messed up in case there was slight mistake since recording medium determined the performance. The electrical record allowed for over-dubbing with the first commercial release of this kind of records being done by Victor talking Machine Company.

There was a limited use of over-dubbing until analogue audio tape come in to use (Tschmuck, 2006). Magnetic recording Its demonstration was on 1898 by Valdemar Poulsen in the telegraphone.the magnetic wire recording and magnetic tape recording include magnetizable medium in their use. The telegraphone later was transformed in to wire recorders by the development of the electronic amplification by Curt Stille (1920s).they were used for dictation as well as voice recording during the periods 1940s and 1950s.

the quality of reproduction was lower using wire recorders than phonographs, this was in addition to the fact that the wires in the wire recorders would be entangled hence these results became more unsatisfactory. The British Broadcasting Corporation broadcasted using steel tape recorder for the first time in 1932 with the tape required being too long for instance for programmes to run for 30 minutes it required 3kms of steel tape with the full real being 25 kg. Magnetic tape The first magnetic recorders that was practical was produced by an AEG engineer .

it was during the second world war that the technique of AC biasing was discovered by another engineer at Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft which made a great improvement to the sound quality of recordings from magnetic tape.1943 saw the development of magnetic tape recorders . although the development of these recorders between 1940 and 1950 is attributed to Brush Development Company and Ampex (its licensee), the development of the media of magnetic tape itself was pioneered by Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing corporation (currently referred to as 3M). John T. Mullin (an audio engineer from America) and Bing Crosby (an entertainer) were very instrumental in developing magnetic tape commercially.

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