Download Uproar: Recording industry says illegal to transfer music

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

The other big problem I've noticed is that, because they are downloading, they aren't getting all of the info about the recording (personnel, dates etc.) and therefore aren't learning as much from their listening as they should. An important point of learning to listen is to be able to recognize specific players and their stylistic nuances. There certainly are resources to obtain this information, but I usually have to hound them to do it. The better students are pretty good about this, but many of the mid-level students really don't seem to "get it".

This is just a guess on my part, but I have a feeling that the percentage of real "listeners" is much lower among those who download and never buy than among those who actually shell out for the music. That's one of the reasons they don't consider paying for music to be a good use of their money: they don't see music as something rewarding, but as just a soundtrack for their other activities. Again, I have no evidence; this is just a guess.

When people bought 78s, they didn't get sleeve notes. Yet large numbers of people knew who Duke Ellington's sidemen were (and of course those of other bandleaders). It was the wide dissemination of that kind of knowledge that made it a viable career path for a sideman to start his own band, as large numbers did - because his name was well known.

So, how did this information get disseminated in those days? And why can't it work now?

MG

[David]

I think the decline in music purchases can also be traced to the fact that young people have more forms of entertainment competing for their money. I am a child of the 80's, and when I was growing up, we pretty much had cassettes, Nintendo, cheap movies ($5) and VHS tapes to purchase. Now, kids and young adults have multiple expensive game systems with ever more engrossing (and expensive) games, an explosion of DVDs and cable television (HBO/Showtime/ESPN), and the Internet. The world is much different now than it was even 10 years ago with an almost dizzying new array of products vying for our time and money. I think it is possible that part of the decline of music sales could simply be increased competition between other forms of entertainment. Perhaps the amount of money spent by consumer on entertainment has stayed relatively constant, but other new forms of it (video games and DVDs primarily) have succeeded in shifting money away from music purchases.

[Christiern]

When people bought 78s, they didn't get sleeve notes. Yet large numbers of people knew who Duke Ellington's sidemen were (and of course those of other bandleaders). It was the wide dissemination of that kind of knowledge that made it a viable career path for a sideman to start his own band, as large numbers did - because his name was well known.

So, how did this information get disseminated in those days? And why can't it work now?

MG

I think people who purchased jazz 78s tended to also subscribe to Down Beat and/or Metronome, two magazines that routinely listed sidemen/women.