the future -or- the now..........

this is a rough time for some parts of the music industry.  some would say for all of the music industry.  others might say only for the parts that don't want to "modernize".

well, maybe it's true for all of the above.  I have a good friend who has decided to take a break from playing his horn.  a long break.  he hasn't played since Easter and doesn't plan to try to play until late next spring.  why?  because he needs to figure out his place, with his performing, in the current world.  the recording industry served him well for a goodly number of years, and along the way he hustled and built a good life for himself, and has a good number of other ventures in music that are not performance oriented (at least for him).  he's spent a good amount of his own money over the years promoting himself, trying new things, forming new groups, attempting to "modernize", etc.  his income from performing for the recording industry was less than 5 grand last year.  he's taking some time off. 

what does this say about the future of real, live musicians playing their "axes" for recordings?  probably not a good thing, honestly. 

that said, this is the time for a couple of things:

1. we must, must, must not cease to actively musically educate our youth, nor cease to actively advocate regarding the importance of music. 

2. we have to not just "modernize" but spend significant amounts of time conceptualizing/dreaming/what-if-ing
about how the next level of what we do is to take place. 

point 1 has had many much more erudite writers and speakers than I make wonderful points about how these things should take place--MENC, MTNA, etc. have many a good article on these kinds of ideas.  Seek them out.

point 2 is much more problematic, I think.  as the past four centuries of "western art music" have developed, changed, modernized, etc. the pace of technological evolution has been slow enough that the musical world has been able to adjust at a safe rate and not been terribly left behind.  nowadays, this is far from truth. technology moves forward at such a rate that, while it begs the world to keep up with it, economically the reality is that it can't.  at least much of it can't.    where does that leave us in the musical world? 
if we keep our heads in the sand and only "do what we do" we will be more irrelevant than an alto flute being used in a marching band.  (not bashing on the alto flute, but it just doesn't have a place in a marching band!)

somehow, someway, we have to energize some folks to conceptualize new realities that include what we do, but maybe in different frameworks.  I'm a big fan of TED (not the educational theory courses, but the stuff found at ted.com)   a recent presentation revolved around UI--you know the blow-your-mind computer stuff that was used in the movie Minority Report (which you should see, or see again). 
here's the presentation:  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6YTQJVzwlI
it is 15 min long, but WELL worth your time.  there's some cool stuff there--and at the end, the statement is made that in 5 years this technology will be standard.  who knows if that is the case, but it certainly made me think, a lot, about having music delivery systems be more dimensional, and allow more of a sound fabric to be brought to us during the listening experience. 

are these thoughts heretical to what I was just pontificating about?  maybe.  I'm not smart enough to be able to dream through the process--I think that the interface of experience can be re-designed, albeit maybe not in this model, but it can, and likely must, be different--so that we (live musicians) can stay relevant to future generations (or even the next one).

before I get jumped all over on this and am told that "nothing can replace the feeling of playing" or "the
sensation of a live concert"  I agree with you--but if all we do is the same old, same old (which, honestly folks, has only been in something resembling out current "way" for less than 200 years) then we will be shelved, and perhaps rightly so.

sermon/rant over.