No More Albums?

The article on the New York Times on Monday, March 26, 2007 caught my eyes with the title, "The Album, a Commodity in Disfavor."

New rap and R&B trio, Candy Hill, has just signed a recording contract with Universal/Republic Records, however, they are not releasing a CD. They are only recording two songs and no album. The reason is obvious, listeners are buying fewer and fewer CD albums but buying more single songs in digital format. The article says, "Last year, digital singles outsold plastic CD's for the first time....buyers of digital music are purchasing singles over albums by a margin of 19 to 1." This does not surprise me because I can't remember myself when I bought an album (non-classical music) last time, except the time of the huge sale due to the closing of Tower Records. The trio artists have to keep their day jobs as they wait and see whether their two songs will become hits, the article reports.

The author explains how much the music industry is suffering.
"All this comes as the industry's long sales slide has been accelerating. Sales of albums, in either disc or digital form, have dropped more than 16 percent so far this year, a slide that executives attribute to an unusually weak release schedule and shrinking retail floor space fro music. Even though sales of individual songs---sold principally through iTunes---are rising, it has not been nearly enough to compensate.

Yet the author says that music executives are hopeful for the album sales in genres such as jazz and classical music as listeners will continue to buy music in a form of album because such music tends to be already album-length. I think that I will still continue to buy classical music CDs and rely less on digital music, just because the quality is still much better than MP3. But how many people are there who listen to jazz and classical music compared to those who listen to popular genres?

It's needless to say that most people listen to pop music. And here is the sad news: "Executives maintain that they must establish more lasting connections with fans who may well lose interest if forced to wait two years or more before their favorite artist releases new music." People want to find their favorite songs fast. This is like a trend in fashion. If you don't quickly respond to what's in style now, you will miss it completely because the next season will be introducing something different.

Ron Shapiro, an artist manager and former president of Atlantic Records explains in the article, "you have to create an almost hysterical pace to find hits to sell as digital downloads and ring tones that everybody's going to want. It's scary." Yes, I think it's scary as well. People are downloading songs at an incredibly fast speed and creators of songs simply cannot keep up.

So no more albums in the near future? We're already taken away the entertainment of browsing in music stores after Tower Records going out of business. I guess we will have to spend even more time in front of our computers looking for songs to buy...

The article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/business/media/26music.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Instant Messenging

Back in college days, I was obsessed with ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger. Almost everyone who owned a computer was using one or the other to talk to others and I thought they were the coolest things ever. In fact, I often used ICQ to ask my roommate to go to a cafeteria with me although we were only a few feet apart from each other! I had fights with my boyfriends, had all-night long girls' talk with my friends, and chatted with old friends in Japan on ICQ and IM.

Then Skype was introduced. I have been using it to call my parents in Japan on their home phone without worrying about a high telephone bill. It's amazing that now we can ask librarians at our school questions online using IM and Yahoo! Messenger.

Wikipedia names the following as instant messenging programs: Net Messenger Service, AOL Instant Messenger, Escite/Pal, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, iChat, ICQ, Jabber, Qnext, QQ, Meetro, Skype, Trillian, Yahoo! Messenger and Rediff Bol Instant Messenger.

The major benefit of using instant messenging programs is their low cost. We simply need an internet connection and the rest is free (unless we're calling a regular phone, but it's still very inexpensive). Will we still have telephones a decade from now, or even half a decade? I still use a phone myself because it's handy and simple, but my telephone usage has decreased since I started using Skype. Well, I guess instant messenging cannot supersede cell phones in terms of convenience...for now.

Experience with Video Camera

In last Internet2 class I was in charge of filming the video conference between NYU and UCI. Main purpose of the conference was to exchange possible ideas for the Internet2 concert on April 28, 2007. While holding the camera and filming the entire class, I raised the following questions to myself.

1. How do I hold the camera (without a tripod) steadily?

I found holding the camera in my hand for a long period of time extremely difficult and not good for my pianist hands. I overcame this problem quickly by simply placing on a desk and adjusting the height slightly.

2. Who (or what) do I focus on?

I assumed that the camera should focus on the speaker for the most part. However, there were times when the speaker was pointing out something on the screen. Then I turned the camera to the screen so that we would know what he was explaining. Zooming in/out was difficult to control, since I never remembered which side to turn to to zoom in/out. I ended up switching back and forth, which would make the picture not smooth and thus should be avoided.

3. How do I want to frame the picture?

This was very challenging. While the connection was active with UCI, I filmed mainly the projected image. But when two students from our site improvised using voice and flute, collaborating with movements of the dancers from UCI, I did not know how to frame the scene. I wanted to capture both the movements from UCI and the music improvisation at NYU. I ended up filming parts of the improvisation and most of the dance movements.

4. When do I change tapes?

Another challenge was to know when to change tapes so that I would not miss any important scenes. For this I waited for moments of simple conversations between NYU and UCI rather than exchanges of raw materials and ideas and I quickly changed the tapes.

I realized that a camera played an extremely important role in creating multi media projects such as this Internet2 project of NYU and UCI. I would like to explore further the possibilities of a video camera and use it as an inspirational tool.

One Pianist Playing Two Pianos

This is an incredible project. It took a while for me to understand how it worked but this is really innovative. Lucas Porter receives his biweekly piano lessons at Acadia University in Nova Scotia from his teacher, Marc Durand who listens as Lucas plays his piano and gives him guidance from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. How does this work? Here is how. The teacher has two pianos, one is for himself, and the other one for his student 700 miles away. The piano has a built-in computer that catches every touch and every pedal action Lucas makes on his piano, and plays as if Lucas is actually there.

How close is this virtual piano playing that the teacher is listening to to the student's actual playing? I guess we would never find out, because we can't be at two places at the same time, but this innovative lesson certainly is contributing to long distance learning and use of technology.

http://musicpath.acadiau.ca/main.htm

Latency in a Real Orchestra?

Ann Doyle (program manager of the Internet2 arts and humanities) explains that latency in I2 sessions is similar to what musicians experience in delays of sounds from the front of the stage to the back in live performances, reported by Susan Briffith in her article, "Internet2 Links Dance, Music Performances".

This remark is very intriguing. Unfortunate for me as a pianist, I rarely get to play as a member of an orchestra thus I'm not certain whether this is true. However my limited experiences in an orchestra remind me of none. In addition, I've never experienced delays in sounds sitting in the audience at performances given by professional (and good) orchestras. Any orchestra players in our class? I'm quite suspicious of Ann Doyle's belief but it's worth finding out.

Article: http://www.case.edu/pubs/cnews/2002/10-10/internet2.html

Composition Contest Using I2

I found a very interesting project by Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. Winners (high school and undergraduate students) of the composition contest received comments and coaching from professional composers via Internet2 on March 25, 2005. This was to help the young composers revise their works before the debut concert on June 1, 2005 and professional recording sessions. The concert was webcast live from Hulsey Recital Hall at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

What an exciting contest!

The article reports, "In addition to receiving expert guidance, participants benefited from interacting with members of a community of practice, exposure to a variety of careers, and access a broad listening audience."

There are two important points here. One is "interacting." How great it is to be able to interact with fellow musicians and music admirers in remote sites! Interaction among musicians and audiences is a key to most I2 projects. One of the significances of I2 in performing arts is to connect different communities by sharing their creativity. Another important point is "broad audience." I cannot think of any musician/dancer/artist who does not seek more audience. I2 enables us artists to gain more exposure, which is crucial for career establishing.

The article can be found here: http://www.wheatoncollege.edu/IT_S/internet2/CI2