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ABBA, 9 Evenings and the Cuckoo Clock

Episode Description

The oldest known written melody is the Hurrian Hymn Number 6, from around 1400 BC. Closer home, Indian classical music is one of the oldest unbroken musical traditions in the world. Its origin can be traced to recitations of Vedic scriptures i.e. 6000 years ago. Similarly, the history of art extends from prehistoric cave paintings thru Byzantine, Baroque, Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism all the way to modern Pop art and Minimalism. The Indus Valley probably marks the recorded start of Indian Art. That is quite a mouthful 😅. Enter Tech. Quite simply, tech allows AUM to all - access, understand and monetise opportunities. And this is the driving engine of the much talked about creator economy. Hence the need for the episode - the mystery of its name is in the episode. And so is an interesting contest with some fun giveaways for our loyal listeners 😎. Those interested, please follow the instructions and write in to us at 3TB@unblox.com.

Transcript

Hi, I am Samiran, Nilesh, Sheetal, you are listening to 3TB.

Hi, I am Nilesh welcome to 3TB it is a podcast where 3 Techies Banter, you can explore Tech in a non-tech way and it is about how Tech and economics behind techs impact us today and in future, it is full of information, fun facts, common sense, actually spoken in the language which everyone can understand. Today we are going to start new theme and this Theme is primarily about Technology and how it has affected Art, Music and various such Artitech faculties, today we are going to cover Music and Art part of it and next Episode we are going to have very interesting guest to continue our discussion on Tech and its effects. So let’s start with Music, Samiran any insights before we jump into it.

When we started thinking about these episodes and this Technology and Music seems so far apart what we are even going to say. But as I went into depth, I realised Music have some Mathematical undertone and whatever is Mathematical and systemise, we know from experience that can be converted into technological algorithm. So, what are the funniest thing I found is like in English music it has 12 octaves and till very recently about 2-3 century back there use to be some favourite cords because other was difficult, just from the technical purpose it could not be divide into 12 equal cords, so until the Maths of it could be found out which is actually to the 12 route could be calculated, basically Bark was the 1st guy who was able to use all 12 Octaves before that it could not be done, so I was completely baffle by that, Western music is very structure and it’s got pitch cord and it has to be written and understood. Indian Ancestor probably wants to guard against the use of Tech, so Indian Music have no structure, it has basically got frame work, so that’s why Indian Classical music you will find much more complex to technologies but Western music since it is on Logic, rhythm, and mathematics a lot of advance is been done in that space to convert music into technology and of course as Sheetal you were telling us there is lot of technology that is probably got it into distribution, storage of the Music itself.

The other interesting thing is one you can arrange music and make it better and tools, technology have change but remember when technology came in, it also had artist who had to struggle, for a while, because remember that Music could be copy and transferred and things like that and that kind of gave a hit to performers because now people were exchange, sharing without really buying or paying for the music, so for the long while it happen, till subscription based streaming audio became big and I don’t know if you know this Samiran but today subscription based audio streaming is actually the main source of income for the Music Industry. Think of it as audio streaming has 23% Market share, video streaming have about 22% market share, radio which we think have larger share has only 16% but what really amaze me is that actual purchase of Music which is download, DVDs, CDs is winding 9%, so think of the impact that technology have brought, all of us are now listening so much more of Music, it is so much available to us, Genres are available, you and I are creating own Spotify list and that’s what giving Industry so much money, so that for me is the fascinating shift that have happen for artist and for creators so that’s one. Think about it as also technology empowering artist because earlier you had to sell your music to the label and if label have bought it then only you have become successful, today you can create music and put it up on YouTube. Do you remember kolaveri di phenomena or the Gangnam style; person came from nowhere and became overnight success and fan following was crazy that happens only because there is technology which is empowered people.

Infact whatever technology really talk about there is a whole process of demonetisation that happens, which causes the tectonic shift in the industry, basically everyone starts loosing money in classical sense of revenue generation but I think in the long run the market expands, if you look at Netflix problem they have lost subscriber, more people are watching TV but Netflix is losing money and I am sure that is the case with Spotify also which is why they have productively started family sharing, it is like there is 2 sided market moment that technology enables, it provides access, make things freely available, kind of increases the base but people are not able to figure out how to make money out of this new people because the way they have got access is probably strange and innovative.

But Samiran I also think that technology is allowing legacy to happen, so yes all of us are listening to old music but if you are fan of Pankaj Malik, then you have to go back to old vinals and transformation from one format to another but my favourite is of course Metaverse, ABBA for example the last time group have perform together I think it is close to 40yrs ago, they came back again in 2022 and they created a performance where in 4 Avatars of ABBA singer on stage and they are playing. I am a big fan of ABBA and I would love to go and see, what I was not able to do in 1970s because I was barely 1yr old to go and see ABBA concert Live but now I can possibly see ABBA concert live with the Avatar performing and experience 1970 and music in its glory which I think is phenomenal because that’s sticky Metaverse so this is the real space and not like you are wearing AR-VR, I mean 4 ABBA performer is watching as it is happening.

Absolutely, there is a Holographic image, Jackson coming in.

That too for me is like the ultimate of experiences.

So going back to the economics of it you are right that they are different mediums that have come up, it kind of remind it me of our crisp technology with Harish Mehta it is like Era of collaboration but probably some individual contributors or platform is not making money but it has got democratic, but there has been bad side which is the turn of millennium, there is a whole bad side when napster come in, so if you look at Music traditional form it was making money through the whole licensing part of it or owing of Music and Labels were there and was different kind of organisation in this industry and napster completely blew everyone out because of the power as you can really share music and if I have record so you could share it or you could, till the copywrite business came into iTunes kind of formulise it and made a commercial model where people could monetise it but the fact is the music industry really lost junk and immediately afterwards when iTunes provided these monetisation models and all and there were other platforms that came up, where we have started consuming music in different way but I think that lost ground is kind of getting regained and people are coming terms with it, but you are right and as Samiran also mention the whole democratisation as really helped the small guy.

Not only the small guy it is also the consumer list we are struggling to share, Instagram reels and stuff, we constantly try that and you get the option of picking any music you want, like the baby elephant walk, Pink Panther and you don’t pay for anything because somewhere Facebook or somebody have paid for it and public platform it must be legally, now I have the ability to make my creation out there much more engaging because someone else is made it available for me, honestly when I started how I will and I use to write in big font and shining objects and then I realise we can use music, it is silly I would not say it is life changing but it is something that gives you multifactor improvement in your ability to engage.

So, Samiran you know interestingly while we were doing all of this, I was talking about music that need for meditation because I do my own stuff and I came across this platform called Amper it allows you to create music, it was quite funny because in 3-4 clicks I could create my own music, it was fun about it, I went and created meditation music for myself and it is so easy, imagine if you say I want to create new project, you gave the project the name and then it will tell you how much time you want to put it for and it will ask you what kind do you want it cinematic, classical, documentary, so click-click you land up and change the instrument little bit, you can change the Tempo, you can change this and that, and suddenly non-musical like me can create music which may not be necessary like AR Rahman types.

You have copywrite on this.

Yes I own the copywrite it is own music because you pay for it, so the moment you create the music, you say go ahead and it allows you to pay for the music and you own that music, now that for me is really exiting because individual like me who is doing experimentation and even for our own 3Techies Banter imagine you can create your own signature music and own it without having higher music composer, you are everything that you want to be, I thought that was great.

On the Note of copywrite it was right time to bring my favourite topic which is NAFTs so technology have help secure art in that sense, now that you own that copywrite you will have digital proof and whole kind of provenience which can be put on a block chain, Web 3.0 which we all love has helped and protect art and best part is I will not go at the protect angel, where the whole bunch of technology is available to restore pieces of music, how do you create old records and how to restore them and ditype and keep them in authentic form but at the same time protected from the creative prospective so probably Sheetal it is our time to get our NFTs launched.

Nilesh, it is so interesting while you are talking about NFT, AI is creating music, now there is a song if you have heard it is called Daddy’s Car, it is a song which is compose with totally artificial intelligence in the style of beetles and it is quite fascinating it is not exactly the Beatles but it has but have all kind of elements and I just got thinking to myself that, hey listen imagine if you could now get AI at some point of time and I am sure we will be able to do, this saying that I want style in AR Rahman, meets Amit Trivedi and Lyrics in Gulzar style and bang AI creates for you, I am sure it is possible if someone can create Beatles kind of music, you can create whatever you want, it is like Samiran before we go to next segment you know the platform which you send us where you put Keyword and they create Art for you, I am just thinking imagine if there is a platform for music, you could just put 5 keywords and it would create lyrics and music for you.

I am sure right after our Podcast there would be somebody out there working on it.

One thing about the session, Sheetal you did mention about the whole live concert and ABBA, so I remember in 15-16 I have done this Tech talk it was eternal life possible and I was like is that Tech talk or is it some trans meta, one of the interesting thing was while everybody discuss Avatar, one of the funniest point that came across is with infinite life comes finite enmity, imagine if you could use life in Avatar, somebody in ABBA hates you will continue hating you all his life, so eternal life have its own eternal problems.

I am sure some Tech guy would find a hack on that one also, to solve that problem.

With that we will come to the end of the Music text session, when we come back we will dive into Art, Tech and what it holds for all of us.

Welcome Back! In this section we will be talking about Art, Tech and nothing gets everybody excited more than a healthy controversy. So the controversy this time is that there is a Game designer call Jason Alan, he enter his piece of Art, theatres, Opera, in an art content and he won the 1st price which was about 300 dollars but the controversy is his work of Art was completely AI generated, this has just driven all the artist in the world crazy, there is the last bastion batch of creativity in the Art world is fallen to technology, so they are super pissed, Nilesh do you think they are justify.

Samiran, Honestly I don’t think it is justify, somehow we all believe the creative process must not submit itself completely to technology, I have not seen this piece of Art, I have also heard about this news, some of you feel how can you appreciate and image a completely piece of art completely made by AI, honestly speaking technology used by Art is for very long time it is not something new, my research let me do something project called 9 evenings theatre engineering and this was in 1966 where 30 engineers from Bell lab and 10 artist they kind of collaborated and they created multiple pieces of Art, that was whole 9 evenings thing. And what I read was this moment kind of continue beyond 1966 and there was some 5000 members and Andy Warhol was one of the people who join this group called technology in Art and many people kind of ascribe him the technology been used for being the 1st digital artist, many people consider Andy Warhol to be 1st digital artist and actually speaking he did use lot of technology in his work, so 1st thing was whole silk printing and if silk prints was not available he could have not created many of the Art work, so that is when one technology started using, then he used lot of video film and screen to create his pieces of Art work, he created the digital drawing on Amiga Computer and Andy Warhol actually advertise the company who created that computer Commodore International, so this was happening in 1985 then in 2000 and turn in millennia there was lot of digital artist who came. One thing was when I was doing this research there is someone called Chris Milk very interesting piece of Art he created, what he wanted to depict was the whole idea of Agni and HTC of creative process, so he created it seems 3 panels and 3 kind of screens and you came, there was lightning so your shadow suddenly start disintegrating and become birds, now you go to second screen now these birds will come back and start pricking up the shadow and in the third one these birds are sitting there if you waves the hand the birds will again fly off, so I found it quite interesting it was in 2012 and he wanted to show the Agni and creative process that was Chris Milk, there are multiple digital artist who have done lot of work in 2010s and 2020s.

For me Nilesh, the big joy of technology in Art space is really stuck and no longer use I am particular stuck, it is not that artist just stuck with single medium so you can use cross media pieces to create even more drama, you can take paintings and now digitalise and then create completely whole new experience out of it and it adds the whole piece in consumer experience in that Art and that is what beautiful. There is a place Valencia Museum and if you think about it their dolls are very well known and, in his museum, dolls are all white but there is projection happening on the dolls which is giving you the story, to my mind that kind of multimedia impact is so much better and that I don’t think happen if it was not for technology. The other piece I love about technology is the fact that it is democratise art, so now young people who are artist are in the position to create phenomenal good art and put it out there, so I came across this website called DBean Art they are found in early 2000s they claim that they have 61 million register members and they get 45 unique visitor per month and Art for them is not digital Art it could be music and all of that, now suddenly there is a platform which allows you to buy the Art in the form you want to buy, without costing you, what is more interesting and for you that they have created the protective Art from theft, so they create NFTs, digital Art prints and then using AI they actually safeguard your Art, there are people saying that they would have never figured that their was abuse if not protected by theft. So, at one level it is democratising and other level it is also protecting, and I think that is the beautiful place for Artist to feel empowered and liberated at the same time, that is nice.

The part you mention about medium that technologies have provided media to people, the light part which you mention, I have actually seen once installation in Austria Museum whereby there was just LCD and based on the people in the room somehow there was a play of light whereby new Art form would be created, the Art have empower one have given new mediums and empower to do stuff which was not possible, so there is a guy called Hendrick Sandy who uses Stain glass work but he uses laser cut paper, the other thing which bloom our mind and was not aware Wallis cut is a kind of cut in diamond and his name is Wallis champ and he is from Taiwan and this artist have created kind of cut in diamond and he created the instrument also to cut it, the technology took him to the level where by he could cut the diamond in certain way which was not possible earlier and he has some amazing pieces, he can actually piers through a Turquoise kind of stone, Jade and then emerge stuff inside it and create some kind of Art, so technology have give those kind of opportunity.

Even if you go back, the art have lot of bases in Mathematics and Geometry, there is sacrament of last suffer, people was thinking about Mathematics when they were thinking about Proportion and all in Arts, so as I said if there is Mathematics and logic so it probably ends it as technology enable, I came across guy name Refik Anadol he does some crazy stuff, his page says Anadol boy of work address the challenges and possibility that ubiquitin is composing on humanity and what it means in the age of AI, he explores how the perception of time and all, he actually uses Machine learning Algorithm to create 3D images of near reality, reason why it is interesting he has own studio, exhibition and won awards, so he has kind of create machine learning algorithm into an Art forms, his description makes really interesting in reading, so there is lot to be said of creativity and giving it, so I came across Gram what the fellow said in Italy for 30yrs under the borgers, Terror, murder and blood, but they produce renaissance, in Switzerland they ad brotherly love and have 500yrs of democracy and what did they produce the Cuckoo Clock, so I leave that what inspire arts whether it is struggle or peace.

I am going to start the next session. So, if Samiran Cuckoo quote did not turn you Cuckoo in this Episode then we have really fun facts which may drive you there. Did you know Radio took 38yrs to reach an audience of 50million and guess how many years iPod took to reach the same number? Well, it took only 3yrs, this is the power of technology, the ability to take it to scale is what it allows for it, we talked about Daddy’s car and lot of other music which is created by AI, I was thinking do you also think Grammy will launch a category which is best Artificial song of the year.

That is the interesting one because if they could launch Copepod so they are open to category.

It is all about getting the right sponsor.

Grammy has enough money.

But first Punjabi will be up because they are trying hard to get bhangra category there.

Maybe they will put in AI song of the year, bhangra which is created by AI.

It is going to happen, have you seen Kala Chasma it is like a rage so I think in the back of Kala Chasma there will be Bhangra.

Now will you have digital art and categories, how will you sell the art in Sotheby’s?

Everything is left on imagination and pay imaginary money.

Sheetal, so first of all this would not be sold in Sotheby’s it will be some virtual form of Sotheby, it has to be like a block chain, web 3.0 mixer where in payment is happening hopefully using UPI, now that have gone to France and Europe digital media for digital art.

Not all facts about technology and music or Art is recent so if you hear the Song other one bites the dust in the speed and the other one pronounce vice versa so you will hear the word Meriwana coming out, so there was the trend to hide messages in rock song, and lot of them spend time listening to the song back ward and Second one I have on the Beatles this is kind of more technology that Strawberry feels forever song they sung, they first recorded with the flute at certain tempo and then it was recorded in fast version, and with great sound engineering they were actually able to merge the two, so they were using technology as it was available but in this case it was the artist who drove the creativity and not the technology, I think the glory of all Art and technology is the fact that MIT have the course on Art technology, there are people take and surprising all the students who take it are computer engineers who want to explore Art and MIT believe they will create the Art tool which artist would use.

So finally, somebody is figuring out that left and the right brain can work in some way.

So, this episode is about Music, Art, Tech and all the fun we thought we add extra bit of interest but running a very small contest. What you have to do is look at the Art work on the left you will see the picture related to our Topic ABBA, 9 Evenings and Cuckoo Clock, but there are 4 additional images on the Art work, we would like you to identify who or what those images are and write to us at 3TB@unblocks.com but before you do that you have to do few other things for us.

To qualify in order to win the amazing prices you need to do just 4 simple things: If you are on apple podcast make sure you rate and review us and if you are not apple user, make sure you rate us on Spotify, you follow us on both Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Having said that we hope you love today Banter and if you have interesting data Trivia on Technology and Art in all its form we are happy to hear from you. This brings us to the end of another Episode of 3 Techies Banter, if you like it doesn’t forget to follow, it is available on all major Podcast platforms. Thanks to you.