Project Proposal

Music has been a part of our society for as long as we can remember, and is continuously changing with time. Music has always reflected the culture of its age and geographic location, with our era being no exception. In our lives we have experienced what some refer to as the digital revolution, which has affected almost all aspects of our lives, including the realm of music.

The purpose of this project is to explore the ways in which the digital revolution has affected the music industry; including the way it is recorded, produced, distributed, and performed. All of these areas have been greatly changed due to modern technology and the entire music listening society is feeling the effects, good or bad. This project will explore in detail the new technology that is changing the music world, why it is a positive or negative change, and attempt to predict what the future holds for music in the previously mentioned categories of recording, producing, distributing, and performing.

To explore the areas of recording and producing, in addition to standard research, we will attempt to interview Wiley Ross who is the recording studio coordinator here at the University of Arizona for the school of music.  We will also attempt to visit or contact Subspace Recording, which is a recording studio in Tucson, Arizona.  Questions we will pose will include the following questions:  “What is your experience in the field of music recording?”, “Since the start of your career how has recording/producing music changed?”, “How has the latest digital technology in music recording changed the way people are recording either professionally or on their own?”  We are hoping that through our research and interviews we can present a very insightful report on how the digital revolution is changing the area of music recording.

For the category of distribution, we want to investigate how people in general are obtaining their music.  Are they buying CDs? Purchasing off of iTunes? Or perhaps are they downloading illegally online.  To answer this question we plan to use a survey that will ask these questions.  Our plan is to distribute our survey in class, which should give us approximately a forty person sample size.  Since it is a college class with students of varying ages, this should give us a pretty good representation of how people are getting their music.

In the final area for our project, music performance, we will apply standard research methods to report on how modern technology is changing music performance.  Obviously the best way to research this subject would be to interview a performing band; however, this could be difficult to accomplish.