When I think about the interface of music, technology and the body, the easiest go-to is the development of new methods of listening to music; in my lifetime, from cassette tapes to CDs to the iPod and other MP3 players. One of the common themes over times time also seems to be an individualization of the musical experience, something that I know Myles is discussing in his paper.
When I think of popular music in the 1980s, I get the image of someone walking down the street with the giant boombox, blasting music to the whole world. Music in the case was not really meant to be an individual experience, but something broadcasted to anyone within earshot. Later, music became walkmen, and finally iPods.
But this individualism is also present in the music we have access to. Gone are the days where (most people) go and buy whole albums – especially ones that they don’t know anything about, just on a whim. Music (can be) free, and even if it’s not – we all preview a song before we think it’s actually worth downloading.
I think the iPod ads that were so prevalent in the past few years speak to this idea. Music has become very much individual, and at the same time, its relation to the body has changed. Music used to be an external phenomenon – something that was listened to at a concert, or perhaps broadcasted to everyone near by. But over time, it has become more and more internal; earphones, and more recently, earbuds move the stimulus both literally into the body (moving further and further down the auditory canal), and emotionally within the body (you’re the only one really experiencing the music). At least, that’s how I’ve always interpreted the silhouettes in the iPod commercials. They may be individuals, but they are in essence becoming part of the music themselves – thus, we only really see responses to music, and minimal or stereotyped bodily features
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