Ted Gioia discusses the role of music in preserving human culture, the conflict between innovation and formulaic music, and the evolution of music throughout history. He also explores the impact of technology on the music industry, the underrated female innovators of music history, and the relationship between noise and societal trends. Additionally, they play a game of overrated versus underrated, discussing various topics including heavy metal music and horror fiction. The podcast delves into the challenges faced by contemporary classical music and the efforts to make it more accessible to a broader audience.
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Quick takeaways
Music as a form of cloud storage preserves cultural heritage and may lead to a disconnect between musical and social lives.
Music has the power to convey ideas and exert influence beyond entertainment, as seen in protest songs and controversial music.
Technological advancements in the music industry have led to changes in composition, compromised sound quality, and a decline in the overall listening experience.
Deep dives
The Shift from Music as Cultural Preservation to Cloud Storage
Throughout history, music served as a means for societies to preserve their culture and folklore. Traditional communities often regarded singers as historians. However, with the advent of cloud storage, societies now rely on this technology to preserve cultural heritage, moving away from relying on music. This shift may lead to a growing disconnect between musical lives and social lives within communities.
Music as Conveyors of Ideas and Power
Contrary to the belief that music is merely entertainment or brain stimulation, it has the power to convey ideas and exert influence. Music has been an effective tool in promoting social and political causes, with musicians facing consequences from politicians and authorities. Protest songs and controversial music have been used to convey power and challenge the status quo, demonstrating the profound impact that music has beyond entertainment.
Technological Impact on Music and Sound Quality
Technological advancements, such as streaming platforms, have transformed the music industry. However, these advancements have also resulted in changes to musical composition and compromised sound quality. The need to capture listeners' attention within the first 30 seconds of a song has influenced how music is composed. Furthermore, the rise of handheld devices for music consumption has led to a decline in the overall listening experience and sound quality, contrasting with advancements in other entertainment mediums.
The Intersection of Genres and Creative Music
In the podcast, the speaker discusses the importance of exploring the intersections of different genres in music. They highlight how creative music often emerges from the blending of various genres, as opposed to following a formula. Examples of musicians in Los Angeles and London who combine jazz with contemporary music, dance beats, hip hop, R&B, and even classical and folk elements are mentioned. The speaker emphasizes that this blending of genres leads to exciting and innovative sounds that are not cliched, breaking away from the formulaic approach favored by the music industry.
The Impact of Cultural Shifts on Music
The podcast explores the impact of cultural shifts on the evolution of music. The speaker highlights the changing attitudes towards musical experimentation, citing the influence of African music in challenging the Pythagorean mathematical paradigm of Western music. They discuss how the introduction of blues and jazz allowed for notes to be bent and sounds to be distorted, breaking away from the traditional notions of perfect tuning. However, the speaker laments that contemporary music is gradually returning to a focus on mathematical perfection, with the disappearance of bent blues notes and the rise of auto-tune and digitally perfected sounds. They express the need for a new infusion of diverse influences to shake up the music industry and move away from formulaic approaches.
To Ted Gioia, music is a form of cloud storage for preserving human culture. And the real cultural conflict, he insists, is not between “high brow” and “low brow” music, but between the innovative and the formulaic. Imitation and repetition deaden musical culture—and he should know, since he listens to 3 hours of new music per day and over 1,000 newly released recordings in a year. His latest book covers the evolution of music from its origins in hunter-gatherer societies, to ancient Greece, to jazz, to its role in modern-day political protests such as those in Hong Kong.
He joined Tyler to discuss the history and industry of music, including the reasons AI will never create the perfect songs, the strange relationship between outbreaks of disease and innovation, how the shift from record companies to Silicon Valley transformed incentive structures within the industry–and why that’s cause for concern, the vocal polyphony of Pygmy music, Bob Dylan’s Nobel prize, why input is underrated, his advice to aspiring music writers, the unsung female innovators of music history, how the Blues anticipated the sexual revolution, what Rene Girard’s mimetic theory can tell us about noisy restaurants, the reason he calls Sinatra the “Derrida of pop singing,” how to cultivate an excellent music taste, and why he loves Side B of Abbey Road.