New Directions, All Directions

It is up to us as educators and musicians to raise serious questions about digital technology and the internet and their impact on musicing. From the earliest of historical times, music has always been on the leading edge of technology. The piano and most instruments of the orchestra benefitted from the machine edge and the industrial revolution. Even the orchestra itself is modelled after machine technology with the replaceable parts brought together and run by an operator. The conductor wields the baton before the 19th century's marvelous music-making machine. The orchstra may have been the most sophisticated machine to come out of the 19th century.

Even the first super computers emerged as an effort to crunch the huge numbers needed for creating and making music. The Illiac at the University of Illinois represented the first efforts to move music through super computers. Actually most of personal computers have faster processors and more memory than those early super computers.

The creation of the first synthesizer was an attempt by RCA to replace musicians with synthesis, but it failed and was donated to Princeton/Columbia (probably as a tax write-off), and the academy put it good use in making new music. But the computer music studio became an isolated operation that was difficult for most people to access.

In the 1970s-80s, small personal synthesizers exploded on the music scene, completely transforming the music business and bringing synthesizers and music computers into the heart of the music academy with programs in music technology.

The Internet brought yet another stage of development in which music became the driving force for the rapid, almost cataclysmic expansion of the Internet because mp3 files made it possible to download and upload music for everyone, including those who previously had no background in working with music technology or computers.

Now we stand at a crossroad for musicing and technology. Can we develop a musical blogging in which our creative efforts result in the development of new skills, knowledge, and understanding? Then music teaching/learning is created by the student as process of interaction and self-inquiry. Knowledge is produced by the engagement of the student. What happens now to the teacher?