eno

(Eno talking about Daniel Lanois' film "Here Is What Is")

I tell you, one thing I would say about your film is that what would be really interesting for people to see is how beautiful things grow out of shit <laughs> Because nobody ever believes that. You know, everybody thinks that Beethoven had his string quartets completely in his head, they'd somehow appeared there and formed in his head ... and all he had to do was write them down and they would kind of be manifest to the world.

But I think what's so interesting and what would really be a lesson that everybody should learn is that things come out of nothing, things evolve out of nothing. You know, the tiniest seed in the right situation turns into the most beautiful forest, and then the most promising seed in the wrong situation turns into nothing. And I think this would be important for people to understand, because it gives people confidence in their own lives, to know that that's how things work .

If you walk around with the idea that there are some people who are so gifted, they have these wonderful things in their head, but you're not one of them, you're just sort of a "normal" person, you could never do anything like that, then you live a different kind of life. But you could have another kind of life, where you can say, "well, I know that things come from nothing very much, start from unpromising beginnings, and I'm an unpromising beginning, and I could start something."

Music Software Licencing: A Proposal...

I've recently been buying some music software (Reaktor 5, if you're interested !) and the whole question of piracy popped up. I've had some dodgy software on my laptop over time, but it's all either been replaced with kosher software (e.g. Apple's Logic Express, although I did upgrade to 8 !) or just been deleted because my kit isn't up to running it (step forward, various versions of Ableton Live !) All of which got me thinking, how would it be possible to get hold of this software, use it *sensibly* for a while (rather than the crippled versions some manufacturers distribute as try-and-buy options, although Live Intro 8 is an interesting step forward in this area) and decide whether to keep it or dump it ?

So here's my proposal.

Abandon licencing. It's an out of date idea, and it never really worked anyway.

Instead, pay for support. Support is what makes software genuinely usable at anything other than a "start it up and look at it" level. Support can take many forms; email or phone problem support, or product extensions, or bugfixes, or additional content, or all of the above in some combination. Set up the software so that it calls home on a monthly basis to make sure the support fee has been paid - if it hasn't, the software stops working (with safeguards in place for pro users who are using their software on the road).

Further, abandon the big upfront fee, and pay the support fee on a monthly basis. The fee can be calculated so that you pay the box price for the software over some period of time (2 years ? 3 years ?) *Most* people, if the product is good enough, won't call on the company for support, but know it's there if needed, so this fee effectively becomes a smaller, but steadier, income stream for the company. If the fee is small enough, it could even drop to the "impulse purchase" level.

Where physical product is involved - whether it's a manual, or a boxed CD, or whatever - charge a fee that covers the production of the physical media, plus shipping, plus some reasonable markup for a distributor - but discourage this as a "non-Green" distribution method.

Users get the "try before you buy" option; use the software, pay for a couple of months of support, if you don't like it, stop paying the fee and the software stops working - everybody's happy.

The support fee could be graded, between high fee/high priority for pro users who need answers and fixes *now*, and low fee/low priority for home users who need answers and fixes *whenever, but soonish*.

In many ways, you could argue that software is currently acutally too *cheap*; the price doesn't really represent the cost to the companies who write it, and it doesn't really represent the value of the software to pro users who make their living using it. The "one size fits all" fee structure also charges the pro and the hobbyist the same fee, but each derives wildly different value from it, helping to bolster the piracy inclined hobbyist's argument that "it's way too expensive for me".

I think this approach would be a win all around; for software companies, for pro users and for hobbyists.

So here's a challenge to the software companies: pick a piece of software that you're about to launch, and consider trying this approach to paying for it. Don't do it with some uninteresting, dull library or same-old same-old sample playback synth, but something a bit new and out of the ordinary. Give it a serious go and a reasonable chance and see how/if it works.

I'd be at the front of the queue !

Curator or Musician ?

Until comparatively recently, the concept of "musician" has been tied to "person who can play an instrument". Is this connection still valid ? Or has it ever been ?

Available in the UK in newsagents is an edition of Computer Music. It has a white cover, and in capital letters in a bold colour, it commands "Make Music Now !" It promises that the DVD with the magazine contains "everything you need to make music now". Available on most Macs for the last few years is GarageBand - another tool which allows everyone and anyone with the time and inclination to make their own music. Many PC owners will have access to similar software.

In the post war period, there has been a growing interest in "systems music" where, rather than compose a piece fully, the composer writes fragments for players to combine at will (for example 'In C'), or the composer will build a system, provide inputs then allow the system to run with minimal further input (e.g. 'Discreet Music' or generative music). In the more pop oriented world, take this quote from Ralf Hütter of Kraftwerk :

"We were trained on classical instruments, but we found them too limiting. In the old days a pianist would have to practise repetitive mechanical exercises eight hours a day just to keep the fingers supple; with our computers, all this is taken care of, and you can spend your time in structuring the music. Practising is no longer necessary -- I can play faster than Rubinstein with the computer, so it's no longer relevant. It's more about getting closer to what the music is about. It's thinking and hearing, it's no longer gymnastics." (emphasis mine)

(full article here)

But for centuries, the view has been that to be a musician, you must be able to play an instrument. That to compose, the putative composer must have learnt the structure of music, the rules of harmony and orchestration - even if the composer chose to go on and break those rules and structures, it was a choice to break them - not the result of either ignorance or naivety.

A popular musician's joke suggests that the best way to get a guitarist to stop playing is to put some sheet music in front of him. Yet at the same time, there are many apparently gifted and technically excellent classically trained musicians who would stop if you took the sheet music away from them and asked them to improvise. Is either the guitarist who can't read or the pianist who can't improvise really a musician ? And what about the person at home with GarageBand who can't play a note on any instrument, but can assemble loops ?

I think the answer is, all of them could be - but equally, none of them might be either.

We could define music as an arrangement of sounds carrying an intent. The music needn't be harmonious or pleasant, it might be discordant and harsh - if that was the intention of the composer. In this case, anyone who takes the time to sit down and arrange sounds with intent could describe themselves as a composer. But a musician ?

Or, we could describe music as a quality with what some might consider mystical properties; for example, this quote from Robert Fripp's diary of August 2003 :

"Music is a benevolent presence constantly and readily available to all, so wishing to be heard that it calls on some to give it voice and some to give it ears. May we trust the inexpressible benevolence of the creative impulse."

(full diary entry here)

In this case, perhaps our guitarist, pianist and loop-assembler might all be musicians, connected to the creative impulse; or, none of them might be, if they are simply going through the motions and acting by rote.

In Brian Eno's book, A Year With Swollen Appendices he suggests the notion of "curatorship"; that is we look to artists not necessarily as content creators but as content assemblers, bringing together a range of raw materials into their own unique collage. For some artists, these raw materials might be paints and canvases, and for others they might be loops and guitars. What is important to the audient (viewer or listener) is the taste with which the materials have been chosen and assembled.

Which takes us back to our Computer Music magazine and copy of GarageBand. Is the person who sits down and assembles prerecorded loops a musician or a curator ?

As a person who has indulged an on and off affair with the guitar over the last 28 years and 10 months, I would have to admit to bias. As I sit and try to decide whether I should try cranking the metronome up another few beats per minute for another run through some cross picking semiquavers exercise, I feel slightly jealous of the person who can sit at a computer and with a few clicks of a mouse achieve what it might take me months of effort to build up the motor skills to achieve. And then decide that it wasn't that good an idea anyway. After all, as Ralf Hütter said, "it's no longer gymnastics".

But still - the mouse clicker must miss some of the sense of achievement of acquiring some skill with an instrument; there must be something a little lacking in not feeling that contact between player and instrument, of being able to feel a note vibrate through the neck and body of the guitar or through the floor into your feet at the piano stool. Or maybe I'm simply fetishising the delights of the Fender Stratocaster.

Whichever, I have spent enough time typing. It's time to restart the metronome.

eno

(Eno talking about Daniel Lanois' film "Here Is What Is")

I tell you, one thing I would say about your film is that what would be really interesting for people to see is how beautiful things grow out of shit <laughs> Because nobody ever believes that. You know, everybody thinks that Beethoven had his string quartets completely in his head, they'd somehow appeared there and formed in his head ... and all he had to do was write them down and they would kind of be manifest to the world.

But I think what's so interesting and what would really be a lesson that everybody should learn is that things come out of nothing, things evolve out of nothing. You know, the tiniest seed in the right situation turns into the most beautiful forest, and then the most promising seed in the wrong situation turns into nothing. And I think this would be important for people to understand, because it gives people confidence in their own lives, to know that that's how things work .

If you walk around with the idea that there are some people who are so gifted, they have these wonderful things in their head, but you're not one of them , you're just sort of a normal person, you could never do anything like that, then you live a different kind of life. But you could have another kind of life, where you can say, "well, I know that things come from nothing very much, start from unpromising beginnings, and I'm an unpromising beginning, and I could start something ."