"The Internet As A Platform For Musicians"

During my last semesters at university I started to work on the relationship between music and technology (you can take a look at my blog about Media & Technologies: http://mediaandtechnologies.blogspot.com/).

My thesis “The Internet as a platform for musicians” (it can be found at: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_id=101233079) focused on how technological innovation have shaped (and still shaping) the music world.

For this work I gathered reading material such as books, magazines, online articles, etc and I had the chance to interview ( mainly by e-mail) musicians from the US, from UK and from Switzerland. There were independent musicians, soundtrack composers & producers, radio show host and other people involved in the music business.

The project is divided in 4 sections:

1) The Invisible Good analyzes the social uses of music and how it has become “untouchable and immaterial”

2) The Ab-use Of Music focuses topics like illegal downloading, online piracy, peer-to-peer application, i-Tunes, etc. and it also discusses how music has come (and still coming) into our homes, our pc and mobile devices (this part contains a short “history of portable devices”, from the walkman to the iPhone

3) Social Networks And The Internet As A Virtual Stage discusses how these technologies has changed the music business. This section talks about websites, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Newsletters, Forums and Blogs.

4) Conclusions: Best Practices is the final part of the project that talks about how to use these new communication and promotion channels in an effective way.

The complete interviews can be found at the end of the thesis as attachments.

This is the list of the interviewees (last names in alphabetical order):

• Marcel “Jimi” Aeby (More Experience vocalist & guitarist)
• Roy Bennett (singer & bassist)
• Judy Carmichael (singer, pianist, radio host and producer)
• Daniele Dreier (guitarist of Denis Angelucci and Lucilla Sky)
• Nick Fyffe (former Jamiroquai bassist and currently playing in Thenewno2)
• Luis Landrini (singer-songwriter and guitarist)
• Jan Laurenz (guitarist, “stick” player and active independent musician)
• Xavier Longchamp (drummer of reggae band ZonaSun and funk group Brainless)
• Janis Moisejs (Latvian jazz singer and songwriter)
• Xra Nov (independent musician and multi instrumentalist)
• Nicki Parrott (jazz bassist and singer-songwriter)
• Christian “Zodiac” Schwarz (performer and producer under pseudonyms such as Zodiac Project and Tracelements, as well as soundtrack scores)
• Matthew Shilling (jazz and brass band saxophonist)
• Sam Totty (drummer of indie rock band Mata León, previously known as Overview)
• David Werlen (multi instrumentalist)

NOTE: the permission to add the names into the thesis has been given directly by the artists.

Do not hesitate to upload the thesis on your website/blogs! I have been thinking about doing a research that goes deeper into this topic. If you would like to write for you or work (and do some researches) for you, you can contact me.

Keep music alive!