17 January 2006

Communities

From the afterward to the 1994 edition of The Recording Angel:

Unlike text or images, music doesn't lend itself to being scanned or searched or 'surfed' (except, perhaps, by musicians with particular questions in mind). Music happens in real time. Despite all the talk about real time in cyber circles, few cybernauts have the patience for real real time. So music will be reduced to hooks, riffs, melodic fragments (something rap is already doing). People may download whole songs or whole symphonies, but when will they find the time to listen? One's state of being online is not unlike one's browsing--interest and desire constantly tickled and frsutrated.
[ posted by sstrader on 17 January 2006 at 11:57:14 PM in Music ]