I admit I’m getting a little longer in the tooth. The old joke of folks not being able to set their own VCR used to make me snicker, but, these days, even as I even mention VCR’s, I realize I’m speaking about a technology that is soon to go the way of the dodo bird. CD’s and DVD’s are having their day but with MP3 players, etc, they, too, shall see and end to popular usage. We as a public continue to support these changes. How many of us had our favourite music on vinyl, only to replace it with cassette, then CD versions. Don’t those record labels love us!! I will also admit that increasingly I’m becoming a techno-idiot. My family gave me an MP3 player for Christmas and I need to get my kids to download music onto it, even yet. My only satisfaction is I know I’m not alone.
Technology has become such a significant part of music today in so many ways. I keep running into examples of this. When the most recent U2 Tour came through, my friend Dave showed me the concert on DVD available before he’d even been to the show. In it, I was amazed how, what appeared to be glass bead curtains were actually parts of viewing screens that presented computer generated pictures, film clips and visual washes to add to the experience. To me, this was mind blowing. To the “yeut’s “ of today, it quickly becomes the expected or norm.
At a recent house concert I watched as the solo musician, with the touch of a foot switch, brought a harmony vocal in to join him through computer crafted technology. I spoke to him after and he showed me how he could order up a major or minor harmony, above or below his own voice. Was nice and interesting, even sounded nice but, the reality of it was this gizmo was, ideally, actually putting musicians out of work.. I remember seeing Gladys Knight in Atlantic City. She was “Pip-less”, backed by a band of @ nine players, if my memory serves me, with at least 4 of them playing various keyboards….. one filled in the strings, one the horns, one was a piano and one covered the B3 sound of an organ. When you realize how many musicians this puts out of work, you wonder where it will all end.
I know from my brother Drew, working on the large theatre shows in Toronto that there are ongoing battles between unions and management about how many musicians there must be in a production as so much can now be done electronically. We’ve all joked about how small a drummer must be when we hear drum machines backing singles or small groups. Hearing a real drummer like Phil Collins in some of his jazz work or monster drummer Billy Cobham, we realize the significantly superior quality, when compared to a beat machine. I realize that economy of scale comes into it where, if it weren’t for technology, many smaller operations would not be able to exist but we as the public have to know what we will and will not accept. The debate continues.
A last minute invite brought me to Code’s Mill for a fireside concert arranged by Annie Dalton. She’d heard while in Moose Factory for business, an elderly couple, James and Daisy Cheechoo. They have a son who lives in Ottawa and they came to visit. James is a versatile fiddler who plays the music from his generation and heritage, by ear. Daisy plays the spoons and usually other rhythm instruments but this time only had the spoons. Their son hosted, giving the history of some of the songs and accompanying them on guitar or tapping rhythm on the guitar’s body. In the broader scheme of things, Moose Factory has been a pretty remote settlement, with many aboriginal clans and a rich history all their own. They made their own music and entertainment and these were carried through the generations and villages by creating and sharing tunes with one another. The name of a tune wouldn’t mean much to James, until his son held an MP3 player up to his dad’s ear and played but a few bars of the next song, to which his father would quickly recognize, acknowledge and begin the song. It was truly remarkable just how few notes it took for him to realize what song was meant. They are currently working with James in a studio in Ottawa, I believe, as he’s making cd’s of all the old music in his 70 years young head before they are lost. They are doing this to continue a tradition. Now that’s technology at it’s best!!!
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