Sonic Revelations, Sonic Revolutions

In class on Wednesday, I think one of the main ideas the discussion was heading towards was how composers are influenced by other music and how recordings have affected this.  Obviously composers have always been influenced by the music of other composers.  Brahms and Beethoven came up.  Where our discussion was heading, I think, was whether the degree of idea circulation allowed by recording has put a choke hold on musical creativity.  One fear from the article was that eventually we would reach a point where there was no ground yet uncharted, and all music would be regurgitation of the past.  Though I may be biased (I prefer Sgt. Peppers to Rubber Soul and Gould’s later recording of the Goldberg Variations to his earlier one) I don’t think that recording can really have such a negative influence on creativity.  The easy circulation of ideas has lead to an explosion of creativity. Just as Professor Alegant pointed out earlier in the semester, before the mid 20th century, there were clear strands and movements to follow in music, afterwords, it’s the Gordian knot.  As for putting a maximum on the total number of musical ideas possible, there will always be visonaries who can jump out of the system and create something new.  Merzbow is one.  I believe it was an earlier article of Ross’s which told of how Masami Akita simply decided to abandon all of his previous musical training to create an entirely new sound that broke all of the rules.  Were it not for Akita’s easy access to other music, how would he have known what to abandon?  Ultimately, I don’t think we will ever reach the end of musical (or artistic for that matter) creativity. Ever.  The more we explore, the more we will find that has yet to be explored.  Recording simply accelerates the process, just as modern technology has accelerated our learning in everything else.