Re: viability of new art music (reaching folks)

["Stephen P. Goodman" <spgoodman@earthlight.net>]

"Richard Zvonar" <zvonar@zvonar.com> put forth:
> What's your
> experience, and why do you think this is happening? Is this
> collateral damage from the overall dumbing down of American culture,
> or is it a case of a finite listening audience being spread thinner
> by an increase in do-it-yourself electronic music and the
> availability of downloadable music.

I think it's a combination of ALL these factors, but most especially the
increase in affordable equipment for the production of music, which used to
be criminally-priced and prohibitive to guys like me to get ahold of.
Nowadays one can pick up a Mackie 1202etc. for as little as $300.  The
cascade effect from people who bought into units like the QuadraVerb years
ago, and now selling their stuff via The Recycler and other ad magazines, 
is
a big factor that's made it more possible for people to have studio-quality
effects at home.

Combine this with the relatively-unfettered model on the Internet and you
have an extremely broad range of music out there to select from.  And lots
of niche markets as a result.  In some respects I think this may have the
ultimate effect of changing music back from being a Business into more of 
an
Art Form again; this can only benefit experimentalists.

On another note though, a lot of what we on this list do is becoming less
and less "experimental", and more mainstream, isn't it?  There's a lot more
looping going on in modern music today than even 10 years ago, and I wonder
at times whether one gets the "wow" effect from live listeners less often
than one gets the "oh yeah" effect.  In both cases it's a positive
experience for the listener - the "wow" is a new experience, a 
mind-expander
(and perhaps more difficult as a breakthrough, I dunno), and the "oh yeah"
would be when someone recognizes what you're doing, and likes it.

Stephen Goodman
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