MixedContent

I’m doing some research for my upcoming talk at Northern Voice on the intersection of technology and music, and I came across this great article in the New Yorker. The standout quote for me was:

“In the early years of the century, Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, and Percy Grainger used phonographs to preserve the voices of elderly folksingers whose timeless ways were being stamped out by the advance of modern life. And what was helping to stamp them out? The phonograph, with its international hit tunes and standardized popular dances.”

Which brings me to another great quote from German music critic Hans Stuckenschmidt, regarding the advent of the phonograph:

“The machine is neither a god nor a devil.”

When I look at my email inbox though, I know the machine is a devil…