Black Music Month 2010

Part II - Our Future Has A Fighting Chance

In this the second chapter of our current series for Black Music Month, we're going to tie some musical history with some technology and examine some valid reasons to combine both. For those of us who love the romantic pretense of a celebrated journey, which revisits the past, it's also important to take a look at the achievements and accomplishments of our music and music-makers.

While we join the celebration of our musical achievers, let's also acknowledge those who picked the same vocational path, but whose names may never grace marquees or be written about. These talented folks are a continuing and vital part of the music business in every age, yet for the most part, their praises go unsung. If they're fortunate, they go on working through good times and bad.

Let's first look at the positive progress that's been made in spite of the obstacles that had to be overcome. One such piece of progress that affects how music is made has to do with the rise in home studios. This rise however has meant a decline in session work. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, recording artists would be around for most of the recording and they'd hear the final mixes. For the most part, those days are gone. Also gone are the days of singing to a roomful of live musicians. Today singers just do their parts and leave. Everything's assembled in pieces. One artist remarked, "Sometimes when I hear the final take on the radio, I'm hearing the finished song for the very first time."

In some cases, this drop in studio work is partially offset by concert backup work, which makes its own demands. But the current economic and social structure of how music, musicians and technology have evolved has become an unfolding cataclysm. Hopefully, what we hope will happen going forward is an opportunity to become involved in music from a different perspective. We would like to see some of these young artists, producers and musicians, who live in the community, have access to technology so that they can eventually find a way to come back by using their talent and experience to shine the spotlight on young local talent through that technology.

Young Minds Run Free

The greater challenge is to encourage some of these young minds, let them run free and put them in a position to take advantage of technical opportunities. The push has to be to increase the size of the talent pool. That means capturing the spirit -- taking them beyond music and developing their interest in science and technology. Even during these tough economic times, some colleges are addressing the pipeline problem by offering scholarships and sponsoring summer and weekend outreach programs.

Everyone has to understand that this is a long-term endeavor and those of us still left with jobs in radio have an obligation to influence and encourage those minds who are listening for their favorite songs on our stations. We have to reach out to them even sooner.

One of the new challenges of electronic measurement is that now with Arbitron's PPM the listening habits of sub-teens, 6-12 years old, are being captured, measured and is therefore important. One of the realities of PPM is unintended listening. What that means is that if one of those young listeners has a radio on in the car and three other meter-wearing family members are present, and they're tuned to your encoded frequency, your score could go up.

Maybe, while these impressionable young talents are listening to their favorite station, we can stimulate their minds beyond the music. You know, there seems to be something magical about the elementary and junior high school years. There you find a lot of impressionable students who say, "I would love to be a musician." But by the time they get to high school, it seems to be the farthest thing from their mind.

It is often somewhere in the high school years that the "thug mentality" sets in. Whatever that thug mentality is, it's often a culture that is embraced during these impressionable, formidable years. We've got to try to change that. We can't allow ourselves to be defined by anyone – by the media or ourselves. And we must reject the notion that one beginning means only one possible ending.

And so, during Black Music Month, we in radio have an obligation to find a way to encourage those who listen to our radio stations to look beyond what they can see and hear to the phenomenal growth potential offered by high-tech industries and encourage them to get plugged in. Somebody who has a musical background needs to be involved technically.

If all this sounds excruciatingly familiar, kind of like a broken record, it's because it is. We have heard these refrains many times before and because we have not properly learned from history, we will hear them again and again. But this repetition is necessary so that our future will have a fighting chance.

Unfortunately, we are a society that steadfastly refuses to draw upon history until presented with a crisis that jolts our memory and brings us face-to-face with our past. Experience is a tough teacher. It gives the test before the lesson.

Word.