agree. the marketing of what once was unique to it’s locality when it becomes part of this global market of sound , in my opinion, feels diluted into the sameness of evrything.
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Any school teaching music should consider it. Let them know.
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it depends on the definition of suppressed in this context first, then the locality, and then another like locality to make a proper comparison.
the Digitakt is god so it should be omnipresent, and in my experience at least everywhere I go there seems to always be one present.
Yes, but don’t click on it. I got a virus!
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At least we can agree that it’s a lot easier today to record music and even produce songs or albums that sound decent with just a cheap laptop. That probably means more people are at least giving it a shot. Some people that would have never ever had the chance to enter a studio when the only way you could do that was through gatekeepers can now make music, some of them will even become successful musicians that can make a living from it (at least partly). So I’d say there’s a bit more inclusivity and chance today, the kind of people who can break through should be a bit more varied.
I think there might be more hobbyists out there making full recorded albums as a result than decades ago. The quality level, diversity and originality of music made by people in their free time as a hobby will probably be a lot higher than decades ago. On the other hand, there’s rarely a chance to get heard or make money from it, so I don’t know if we’ll necessarily notice a big leap. And there’s not a huge amount of more talented people around these days that you will hear from.
Personally, I’m pretty sure I would have never been able to finish any of my solo stuff and also most likely no band stuff twenty years ago or before that. Not that many people care, but at least it makes a big difference for my life and well being. But it’s not like my talent is “surpressed” or my music will have any impact on the world.
P.S. Few people will finally unleash their talent because DT II now has 16 audio tracks and they’re finally not held back by OGs 8 audio tracks 
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Biggest barrier to recognition/rewarding of talent was always and always will be social class.
Availability of technology, though tied to social class to some extent, allows all of us to express ourselves, but social/economic hierarchies have a larger say in dictating how many people will get to hear/see you.
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This. Just some simple examples
- When you get home after 8 or often more hours of hard manual labour plus often a significant commute, there will be little energy left for developing skills in the fine arts.
- As a kid of a single mother, piano lessons, or the physical and social space required for practicing at home will be a lot less likely.
- People with better access to formal education will have it easier to marked themselves.
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The topic is the increased availability of technology which I take to mean that especially disenfranchised people who previously couldn’t afford a digibox now can buy one used. That would be very helpful for people that are called working class, even if they don’t get more time to use it.
How do we answer this question in the first place? Count the amount of applicants to music unis, real people making music on streaming platforms?
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I generally don’t get into these big adult conversations because I’m stupid but it all sounds like excuses to me!
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I agree, a couple of steps into generalization and the isms start flying. It’s good for buyers that gear is cheap, it especially helps the young and poor get into music and more talent see the light of day. It’s also bad for these very same people when they want to sell their gear but the new entrants are not the ones paying for it, the old school hoarders take the brunt of the hit.
I think the obious way would be to see whether there is proportionally more good music in the world now than before. A lot of people would probably agree that there is if this is taken to mean music available in any capacity, ie. streaming sites, Bandcamp, etc., which would be very hard to truly quantify due to the extreme volume of data and subjectivity of taste (what actually constitutes ‘good’ music?) If it is limited to music released on established labels then it makes it a bit easier (limited scope), but opens it to questions about socio-economic factors and privilege biasing the sample set.
At the end of the day I think it is an unanswerable question with far too much subjective bias involved. Some people will think there is more good music, some that there is less.
My personal opinion is that there is less new music I like, but more music of a higher standard than before in purely quantitative terms. So even I cannot say definitively what my answer is. I do know what I feel about the question in its scope of access and talent, but that has been expressed elsewhere so I will leave off repeating myself.
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It’s pretty simple.
In the UK, the further away you are born from a castle*, the harder you have to work to make a career in the creative industries.
Not making excuses, it’s just a fact.
Luckily, I think that musicians that have had to work harder to get where they are tend to make more interesting music. Nothing worth doing is ever that easy is it.
*I mean this somewhat metaphorically, before all you Welsh fuckers start piping up about all the castles in your back gardens.
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Right, it’s simple. These musicians bust their balls and worked harder than the trust fund kids rather than sit around and complain. It takes drive, regardless of tech!
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Well, sequencers help me a lot because my timing is whack. That also gave me the chance to spend time with sound design rather than getting my white-boy tuning under control 
Totally. Knowing that, it really is an impression fest, checking in with the gang and I’m here for it. Do you find more great talent? I can’t say I do but I also think the general enshittification of content can be separate from a kid going bananas with a drum machine in his bedroom.
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I think true talent, as a ratio in the general population, is dropping.
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Wasn’t the real point of this thread about barriers to entry in making music and their correlation to quality output at scale? Not sure why this title was picked…
On the one hand, low barrier to entry has allowed someone like Burial to exist and thrive…on the other hand there is the beatport 100 chart…
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