As the end of another year has rolled around again, I find myself contemplating the passing of time, the changing of the seasons, and thinking about the future. It’s fascinating to observe the patterns and cycles in both nature and society, and the transformations they bring.
Sometimes, when a new cycle is upon us, we hold on very tightly to the past, to “the good old days” of the way things were, and we can be reluctant to let go. It can feel difficult to embrace the unknown and accept a season is over when, in fact, the world has moved on, and it would be better for us to willingly go with the flow and find another way. When a metaphorical door closes to us, we can keep throwing our bodies up against it and trying to pick the lock, or we can map out a new path for ourselves where we innovate with what we now have. Historically, humans are innately good at finding ways to adapt, create, and start anew, particularly when it comes to the arts.
The ending of the old and the beginning of the new
Musical eras have always intrigued me, from the evolution of Western classical music from the Medieval era to the modern day to the many genres and movements created within 20th-century popular music. It’s truly a wonder to behold how humanity’s hive mind works.
While the trends, sounds, and techniques of any period will be influenced by the instruments/equipment available and their capabilities or limitations, the push for mastery and development has always been relentless. Whenever new instruments and technologies have appeared, new eras have followed.
The invention of the piano was key to moving us from the Baroque into the Classical era, and it’s hard to imagine a world where it does not feature heavily and beautifully across jazz, pop, rock, and numerous other genres. With the birth of a new instrument, a wave of new compositions and virtuoso performers came, and continues to come, hundreds of years later.
The never-ending cheating debate
The expansion of having more instruments to play with can seem like a logical step to having more creative possibilities, but what about when inventions mean there is the possibility of less work to do for humans? I would argue that when technological developments make life “easier”, there is the potential for that creative energy to be used elsewhere if we can figure out where to focus it and view these tools in a productive, helpful manner.
The rise of programmed synthesizer and drum machine patterns that exploded in the 1970s and 80s sparked fears that these methods would curb creativity and detract from the essence of musicianship. While the pushing of a few buttons is unquestionably less “artistic” than playing every note of a piece live with the carefully considered velocity, dynamics, and expression required, it’s not always “better” in real life – I’m not sure that I could find a real-life musician who would prefer to play an extended version of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love on acoustic instruments for the sake of so-called “authenticity”, and equally, we would be moving backwards. The now-classic anthem, created entirely on a Moog, was controversial at the time, yet is often attributed to being the inception of a new electronic disco sound that heavily influenced the transition into the 1980s.
Taking detours and embracing change
But how do we innovate when it feels like life is being made more difficult for us, when obstacles are put in our way, and our intended path for creativity is at odds with the intentions of others? We must embrace the detours, and think outside the box in order to make something even better than what we had previously planned. When movie scores for Westerns were a large-scale affair featuring entire orchestras and more, it would have seemed impossible to take on a composer role for a film in the genre that came with a comparatively minute budget. Ennio Morricone created a workaround solution by using an electric guitar as the driving melodic force, and working with a smaller, eclectic collection of instruments. By making these adaptations, he created Spaghetti Western music, and invented an entirely new and uber-cool sub-genre from the financial limitations he had.
Change can be scary and unpredictable, and moving into the unknown and pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone is inherently uncomfortable in its nature, whether we choose it, or whether it is thrust upon us. We know what safety lies on the “before” side of change, however, it is only on the other side that infinite possibilities exist. We can approach change with an attitude of fear, or we can welcome it.
Our ever-changing world
When I was younger, mobile phones used to charge by the letter and restrict the length of SMS text messages that it was possible to send. I used to fear that the character limitations would lead to a new wave of widespread illiteracy and a lack of expression. Looking around today at the end of 2024, the technological developments available at our fingertips have equipped us with more virtual assistants, spell checks, and messaging mediums than you can shake a stick at. I can write a digital letter, send audio and video, URLs, pictures, gifs, emojis, and any number of files and artificially created content in seconds, and send it in an SMS. My younger fears are alleviated, and there are fewer opportunities for errors and more opportunities for expression than ever before, thanks to the progress we have made in recent years utilising these tools.
The modern-day era of music is a tricky one to define in the same way as previous ones. We are more connected than ever before, with instantaneous access to the aforementioned links, audio, video, and URLs to almost all recorded music. Musical genres are more fluid in the digital age as a result, however, we still have movements in the popular sphere in the form of trends, sounds, and techniques, as we always have. While I’m an optimist, I’m also a realist, and admittedly hang onto some of my youthful fear when it comes to the present state of our arts “literacy” – music education in the UK has been nothing short of obliterated over the last 15 years, and the live music industry was struggling well before the 2020 pandemic. These changes have been rather difficult to observe, and remain largely unsolved.
There’s additionally a little bit of fear in the current climate when it comes to the implications of AI in music creation, whether it will put working musicians out of jobs, and whether it will take the place of performers and composers in recorded music. The Musicians’ Union has continued to tirelessly campaign for the consent and compensation of musicians whose work has been used to train AI models. The cynic in me worries we are closing the stable door after the horse has bolted once again, as though we have learned nothing from the streaming industry refusing to properly compensate musicians over 20 years after the inception of digital sales. I fear that if the robots can’t come up with a solution for us, we’ll be in exactly the same financial and ethical dilemma with the newest digital developments in another 20 years.
That being said, if we can find a way to hold on through the uncertain “w8 4 it 2 get beta” period, history has shown time and again that it is possible to utilise budget cuts and massive technological developments as tools and springboards for innovation. As long as the human spirit remains unbroken, people will create, and perhaps the next era will have even more potential for creativity as in times gone by.
What the next era may hold
Without change, there is no growth or development. As a collective, we have moved from unamplified to amplified, acoustic to electric, and analog into digital, tirelessly pushing the boundaries of what is possible. We can keep singing the same old song if we like, but if we never learn a new one, we are forever stuck in a place that no longer exists. I sometimes wonder what life would sound like if my favourite artists had quit after their first album, or had merely echoed their early style without evolving. What a waste it would have been, to be stuck in a state of inertia and deny the world of so much joy. There’s a famous quote by Robin Sharma I always find motivating that states, “Don’t live the same year 75 times and call it a life.” There’s so much opportunity to transmute and alchemise our experiences into something else, over and over, like the changing seasons. Perhaps running at these new eras with open arms is key to making sure our potential contributions don’t go to waste.