It's always fascinating to force the future to show itself. You can imagine anything you want, think hard about it, and convince yourself that it's an accurate prediction. So: My turn.
Within 20 years only a handful of large recording studios will remain, catering to orchestras and other large ensembles. Midsize rooms will disappear with the proliferation of moderately priced, super-high fidelity, solid-state recorders that can be used in the home; the present dominance of hard disk will end, barely a decade after it destroyed magnetic tape. Session work will continue to be done, but remote Internet recording, already increasing, will dominate music production, and iTunes and illegal live recording will make it almost impossible for musicians to prosper from their work. Nightclubs catering to live music will largely cease to exist. Musicians will find themselves relegated to local and state sponsored "performance organizations" and university funded groups. An era of threadbare culture, already descending, will worsen. Case in point: the appallingly corrupt American Idol and Making the Band (where there is no "band" and the "singers" - few if any of whom can sing without the intervention of Autotune - are clearly unconcerned about music, only with thrusting asses and spastic dance steps) point to a future that will worsen before it improves.
None will escape this scenario - including us. Only the strongest, in any field of art, will prosper. Live music will never end, but the tradition of musicians, musicians everywhere - in small clubs, large clubs, halls, outdoor venues, summer jazz festivals, live tv - will not return to abundance until our popular culture begins to evolve again. Twenty years? Maybe, but I think it may be longer. Still, I sincerely believe good times for artists will return. Hypothetical advice to all of us players: Play well, to give our instrument its best chance to survive this era, where a "musician" is too often anyone who can press a PLAY button.
Within 20 years only a handful of large recording studios will remain, catering to orchestras and other large ensembles. Midsize rooms will disappear with the proliferation of moderately priced, super-high fidelity, solid-state recorders that can be used in the home; the present dominance of hard disk will end, barely a decade after it destroyed magnetic tape. Session work will continue to be done, but remote Internet recording, already increasing, will dominate music production, and iTunes and illegal live recording will make it almost impossible for musicians to prosper from their work. Nightclubs catering to live music will largely cease to exist. Musicians will find themselves relegated to local and state sponsored "performance organizations" and university funded groups. An era of threadbare culture, already descending, will worsen. Case in point: the appallingly corrupt American Idol and Making the Band (where there is no "band" and the "singers" - few if any of whom can sing without the intervention of Autotune - are clearly unconcerned about music, only with thrusting asses and spastic dance steps) point to a future that will worsen before it improves.
None will escape this scenario - including us. Only the strongest, in any field of art, will prosper. Live music will never end, but the tradition of musicians, musicians everywhere - in small clubs, large clubs, halls, outdoor venues, summer jazz festivals, live tv - will not return to abundance until our popular culture begins to evolve again. Twenty years? Maybe, but I think it may be longer. Still, I sincerely believe good times for artists will return. Hypothetical advice to all of us players: Play well, to give our instrument its best chance to survive this era, where a "musician" is too often anyone who can press a PLAY button.
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