The Macon.com website just announced that the Georgia Music Hall of Fame is closing. I have always regretted that there was not a Blues category at the Hall of Fame, but I never imagined there being no Georgia Music Hall of Fame at all to recognize the likes of James Brown, Otis Redding, Ma Rainey, Blind Willie McTell, and so many others.
It worries me that music and musicians seem to be becoming less personal to us all. I am constanting trying through my Atlanta Blues column at examiner.com and Keep the Blues Alive page at Facebook, and the Blues News directory at http://bluesnews.boomja.com, to encourage people to get out and listen to live music and support their favorite musicians. But there is so little support that many clubs are turning to DJs instead of live music, and when that happens, a whole level of creativity, innovation and personal interaction dies.
It’s true that fans can and do interact with musicians on Facebook and Twitter, and artists like Lady GaGa have thousands of fans online, but where is the support for local music and for our musical heritage? The Hall of Fame is closing for lack of funding. The same thing is happeing to clubs.
Is music going to be reduced to impersonal noises on MP3s and technically enhanced mixes? It’s beginning to look that way, and that will be a sad, sad day.
Fear not. While places like ‘museums’ may close, the online community can get the same thing across cheaper, faster worldwide. Methinks the internet revolution will ultimately kill the ‘museum’ or ‘roadside tourist attraction’. Someone can see Blind Willie online in numerous docs and afficianados of blues or roots music have seen the internet help boost audience attendance ( live) . As a matter of fact, since 1996 ( when I felt the net really started to gain steam) the amount of ‘band in a box’ musicians and DJ’s have decreased. IMO of course.
I hope you’re right. Around Georgia, the support for live music seems to me to be suffering, probably more due to the economy than the Internet. I hate to see museums go; to me, as much as I love the Internet (and I do), there’s something about actually seeing and in some cases being able to touch memorabilia that is more personally significant than just viewing it online. So I am hoping there is room for both.
I have come to the conclusion that as technology has made the consumption of recorded music ubiquitous, it has lowered the value of music in most people’s minds. Back when you had to really search for good music, live or on record, it seems that you appreciated it more. Now music is everywhere, like air, and we have been conditioned to tune it out. On the performance side, technology has made it very easy to be a mediocre musician. To be a great musician is as hard as ever. It takes that proverbial 10,000 hours of practice. And once you become a great musician, you have to compete with a huge glut of mediocre music in an environment where most people have lost the ability to tell the difference. There still is great music out there; you just have to look for it.
I think you are right. On the other hand, there is a lot of great music out there that would not be available to many of us without technology. As in everything else, technology can be both blessing or curse.