Forum - Semester 4 - Week 1

Audio / Music listening Culture (or why people are listening to what they are listening to and why they do it the way they do it!)
The evolution of music technology has had its significant impacts on the way music is perceived by public. The topic of this session was the pros and cons of this phenomenon.
According to Stephen, Walkman -as a symbol of this revolutionary change- has acted as a device to provide a "movie soundtrack" for "people's lives"; however, I personally often wonder (for example) "... how bizarre it is that walking in streets at 2 o'clock after midnight is accompanied by some psytrance music"! maybe my life doesn't have a conventional soundtrack.Other opinions which popped-up suggested ideas such as "headphones have provided an extent of isolation-from-outside-world", "technology has increased the quantity of listening to music and has decreased its quality", etc...
Like many forum sessions, discussions eventually went all over the place and a whole lot of various issues arose again; my problem is that noone seems to comment on anything respecting the fact of these issues being "subjective". Because something on Triple J has become famous doesn't mean that "Radio is the way..." or such judgements. I think things radically differ in different places; if we are to observe these issues, we need to have a more open mindset and avoid issuing transcriptions for the entire globe; especially when our personal experiences are limited to few communities.

Stephen Whittington. "Music Technology Forum - Week 11 - Audio Culture." Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 31/07/2008.