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Sevitzky · 17th March 2010

Unions can be horrible things. But they can be lifesaving counter-balances to satanic 'managers'. To be relevant, they will have to become more agile organizations, that don't stifle innovation (as they do currently) while still protecting their members. Whether it's AFM, IATSE, NABET, whatever. But I think the unions reflect their members. Orchestral musicians tend to become entreprenurially, and often, unfortunately, artistically paralyzed, the deeper into their tenure they go. I think there's a lot of dead weight in the vision of the union(s), but I don't think it's the major issue at hand. They would adapt if they HAD to.

In my mind, recording has been deeply entwined with the commodification of music. As a commodity, it becomes subject to the will of the market - and there's no crying in baseball. Corn farmers produce a commodity too, but the gov't says, we're going to subsidize this commodity, because we deem it essential. That probably won't happen with top-notch engineering.

So how to 'rise above' the commodification conundrum? Well, what we do is let people hear things they might not otherwise ever hear. That IS special. That IS worthy. That IS a part of the musical arts.

I think a large bulk of the people who thrive, will be the ones who say, I'm not going to just *record* music (or sound, dialogue, whatever) to some internal standard of frequency response, I'm going to BRING music/sound/etc to AUDIENCES to the best of my abilities. This is what the best musicians do.

Or, to put it this way, the best recordists of yesteryear were doing amazing work within the technical confines of their equipment and media. Filling the headroom of tape with as much sound as possible, achieving saturation, so to speak. Acoustics, physics, EE, were the support knowledge of a very multi-disciplinary field.

The best recordists of tomorrow will be the ones that fill the 'headroom' and 'saturate' the new medium: the internet. The field is still multi-disciplinary, but now you can ADD: video, html, RSS feeds, social networking, and all that other new media stuff to the mix.

Is that comparing apples to oranges? Yes. Is it fair? Nope. (but who's asking?) We were selling apples, people want oranges, now.

17th March 2010	#24
Sevitzky Gear Head Joined: May 2008 Posts: 51	Unions can be horrible things. But they can be lifesaving counter-balances to satanic 'managers'. To be relevant, they will have to become more agile organizations, that don't stifle innovation (as they do currently) while still protecting their members. Whether it's AFM, IATSE, NABET, whatever. But I think the unions reflect their members. Orchestral musicians tend to become entreprenurially, and often, unfortunately, artistically paralyzed, the deeper into their tenure they go. I think there's a lot of dead weight in the vision of the union(s), but I don't think it's the major issue at hand. They would adapt if they HAD to. In my mind, recording has been deeply entwined with the commodification of music. As a commodity, it becomes subject to the will of the market - and there's no crying in baseball. Corn farmers produce a commodity too, but the gov't says, we're going to subsidize this commodity, because we deem it essential. That probably won't happen with top-notch engineering. So how to 'rise above' the commodification conundrum? Well, what we do is let people hear things they might not otherwise ever hear. That IS special. That IS worthy. That IS a part of the musical arts. I think a large bulk of the people who thrive, will be the ones who say, I'm not going to just record music (or sound, dialogue, whatever) to some internal standard of frequency response, I'm going to BRING music/sound/etc to AUDIENCES to the best of my abilities. This is what the best musicians do. Or, to put it this way, the best recordists of yesteryear were doing amazing work within the technical confines of their equipment and media. Filling the headroom of tape with as much sound as possible, achieving saturation, so to speak. Acoustics, physics, EE, were the support knowledge of a very multi-disciplinary field. The best recordists of tomorrow will be the ones that fill the 'headroom' and 'saturate' the new medium: the internet. The field is still multi-disciplinary, but now you can ADD: video, html, RSS feeds, social networking, and all that other new media stuff to the mix. Is that comparing apples to oranges? Yes. Is it fair? Nope. (but who's asking?) We were selling apples, people want oranges, now.