I wonder what is the sense among our community of what the immediate future will be for music recordings.

Norman Lebrecht's pronouncements aside, it seems that for commercial music in particular, announcements of the death of the CD have been exaggerated. 

One recent report in Australia claimed that "aside from people actually wanting to buy the latest releases of the likes of AC/DC or Pink or the master recycler Andre Rieu, the global financial meltdown meant instead of people lashing out and buying big ticket items, the $20 CD was seen as good value"... That is, the economic downturn is actually good for the recording business, particularly if you are still trying to sell physical product, as opposed to just downloads.

But the nigh ubiquitousness of iPods and similar mp3-playing devices among the younger generations in particular can only mean that the gradual ascendency of music downloads is not, ultimately, likely to be threatened.

Or will we always want our prized music to have a physical embodiment? 

This is a timely post on the same topic..

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2009/12/13/what_a_collector_loses_and_gains_in_the_age_of_music_downloading/?page=full

In this podcast , Paul Moseley, General Manager of Decca, is asked about the effect  that the move towards a largely digital market, or a more digital market, has had on the classical music market.

He replies that it's had a big effect, but that one shouldn't overestimate it in the classical market... 'at this point we are still selling more than 90% of our music on CDs. In America the downloading percentage is higher, in France and Germany it is much lower.'

He then goes on to speak of connecting with the younger generation - his son hardly knows what a CD is etc; and he speaks of subscription services.

'How to make money from recordings in an increasingly downloading world?'


Food for thought...

There's something appealing about the directness of download - from performance to recording medium to internet to user - cutting out CD's, paper copy with attendant publisher/printer, trip to music shop (bus fare?), and of course, the time spent on the aforementioned bus etc etc. Isn't that a good thing in a world where we shouldn't cut down more trees than we can possibly help, but use less paper, avoid causing unnecessary vehicle emissions, avoid polluting manufacture of round plastic objects, etc.
The downside is for people like me to find out how it's done - I'm sure the knowledge is there somewhere, I look forward to the future!

Here (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122299103207600279.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_mostpop) is some Christmas cheer from the remarkable conductor, scholar, and critic Leon Botstein, though admittedly from October 2008. Is he right? Let's hope so--certainly if we believe in the value of what we do, then the world has certainly no less need of it, indeed perhaps more so, in times of economic hardship.

Re the CD vs Download debate, and quality control re CD content, Jesica Duchen's blog is worth a read. Especially the final paragraph -

'But where do old CDs go to die? Where is the CD cemetary? Is the path from shelf to Oxfam Shop to bin to landfill as short as I suspect? CDs don't biodegrade. Nor do their plastic cases (which are usually broken anyway). How sad that our rubbish tips are full of the things - and so many of them are, well, rubbish. At least with digital downloads it only takes one click to delete the lot.'

The end of the decade is indeed nigh - here are classical music overviews from the Washington Post -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/24/AR2009122400115.html?wprss=rss_print/style  - what did happen.

..and The Times - sorry, the link is broken, but searching Timesonline The decade in classical music will find it. Richard Morrison writes about what didn't happen, about classical music's defining moment, and about what will happen...

'It was those Venezuelans — the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra — who provided the defining classical-music moment of the decade, when they gate-crashed Europe’s sedate halls with their gloriously exuberant performances and riotous samba routines. I think they made the entire profession — orchestras, soloists, conductors, impresarios, even composers — ask themselves: “Why can’t we enthuse audiences like that?” Expect a lot more informality in concert halls in the next decade, and a lot more classical music breaking out into unexpected venues. And expect to hear young composers and performers following the example of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road project and cheerfully genre-hopping between jazz, rock, world and contemporary classical styles. After all, the target audience is already doing exactly that.

Face of the decade: Gustavo Dudamel.

The brilliant young Venezuelan conductor has come from nowhere to transform notions of what symphonic concerts can be like. His ebullient Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra has dazzled audiences around the world, and reminded us that classical music needn’t be an artform reserved for wrinklies.'



 

Just going back to the CDs vs downloads debate: What a resilient format the 12cm diameter optical disc has proved to be. Its progress from straightforward CD to DVD and later SACD and Blu-ray suggests a long future for the medium purely as a result of its convenience. Jessica Duchen makes a good point about the issues of materials and disposal, but I don’t think classical music buyers are the worst offenders here. My optimistic visits to charity shops rarely turn up any CDs that are not chart singles, leading me to assume that those who buy classical CDs tend to hang on to them. I would say, though, that my loyalty to physical media goes too far when I purchase FLAC downloads then burn them onto CD-Rs. Time to start saving up for a decent computer soundcard I think.

Here are some light-hearted ways to recycle old CDs etc: 

 http://www.squidoo.com/oldcd?utm_campaign=direct-discovery&utm_medium=sidebar&utm_source=a_willow