"Today successful composers exploit electronic innovation by self-promoting their music through blogs and internet radio, hosting concert premieres through virtual worlds like Second Life, collaborating internationally through video chat, and composing new hybrid works with live performers and Max/MSP. Revolutionary composers not only utilize existing contemporary technology, but push the artistic envelope by inventing new digital marvels that further transform music. Cutting edge musicians turn to independent companies hosted by a single CPU in a music fan’s basement, and performers reach new audiences as advanced communications shrink the market. A digital tsunami has struck the world and only the technologically evolved will survive." From In Defense of Music Technology: Adapt or Die by S. Pena Young.
"While I do enjoy proselytizing the wonders of avant-garde music and contemporary composition, sometimes I wonder if I myself have put up an imaginary wall. The Information Age has morphed the very definition of composition. Maybe the problem is not that there are too few living composers but that there are millions and millions of living composers creating music on laptops, the internet, iPhones, electronic instruments, and desktop computers. Maybe by limiting the scope of composition to traditional classical music I have in fact self-imposed this exclusive view of music making, leaving me prey to all of its misconceptions and false assumptions. If I define myself as an “electronic musician,” I soon find kindred spirits that may never have taken Theory III or Orchestration, but create innovative music all the same. Perhaps I need to forget about writing “electroacoustic,” “experimental,” “classical,” “avant-garde,” or “intermedia” compositions, and just concentrate on writing, well, just plain old music. Then I might find myself no longer confined to patriarchal stereotypes and instead part of a larger collective of music lovers that includes every culture, generation, and gender.
So what do I really do?
I make music." From Decomposing Composers by S. Pena Young.
