Evolution of Skill

 

The shift from music being defined by classical or traditional approaches began to change in the 1950s (and perhaps a bit earlier), which introduced the possibilities of sound synthesis through electronics, which now has evolved into computers, the internet and AI. How we value music ultimately determines its evolution and what we view as a venerable “skill”.

8/11/2016

[8/11/2024: All new technologies create new skills that are “in-demand” but eventually hollows out the foundations. I can’t imagine anyone would want to learn how to read and write music notation in 2024. That will always be able to be generated–something that first became possible with MIDI in the early 1980s. If you look at the music magazines from that period and put them on a word frequency diagram you’d see it start in 1982 and see it hockey-stick up, then gradually drop off in 2000, when sampling and remixing were new. You didn’t necessarily need MIDI. and you certainly didn’t need music notation. In 2024 the “in-demand” skill is getting likes on music generated from myriad AI music apps. Skills usually have a window of about a generation–up until they are in their 20s when they need to feel they are in-demand, which is now measured by social media scores. This all has nothing to do with what was happening in 1982 because it’s far outside that window. The same evolutionary slope happens in media in general, where the headlines or titles of articles are drastically different from 1980 or 2000. 2010-2020 saw a rise in headlines or article titles relating to fear and anxiety, something we never saw in previous decades–save for major events where the newspaper headline covered the front page or on the evening news on the major TV networks. Now everything seems to have that same kind of urgency in almost every thumbnail image on YouTube. The “skill” involved with that is the poking of people to get a reaction. This is why we keep returning to the idea of “slow”, where we can actually take the necessary time to develop skill through practice. One way is through vocal practice for people who don’t play instruments, such as singing in a group or choir. As much as we might want to see it as therapeutic, it would only be in-demand to the extent that it is a part of social media, such as YouTube channels with reaction videos about certain vocalists, such as Beth Roars (which I like). So the in-demand skill has shifted to video production. Followers of her channel are probably only watching it for the entertainment value, not actually using it as inspiration for vocal practice. That would require too much time. Singing obviously can be therapeutic, and can be used in psychotherapy, as psychotherapy in general is the hot skill in the 2020s. It was a topic only in medical journals in the 1980s. You may have watched a documentary about it, or read books or Psychology Today. The difference now is that the in-demand skill of social media and content creation demotes the actual skills that it seems to promote.]