On June 8, when Apple announced it would launch its own streaming music service, it immediately shook up the big players of the music industry.
On June 30, Apple’s service will go live. And music lovers – especially the younger ones – are already agog with excitement.
Unlike streaming music from service providers like Pandora, Spotify, and Google Play Music - which is mostly available only within USA – Apple’s 24 x 7 streaming music will reach some 100 countries.
I am really not sure if Bahrain is one of them. But, if it is, people can register for a 3-month free-trial, and listen to the service on all Apple devices and personal computers. And pay $9.99 monthly after that.
Apple promises the same service to those with Android devices, by fall, this year.
Singer Taylor Swift created a storm this week by complaining that Apple – which had said it won’t pay artists during the trial-period – should pay. Apple relented, quickly.
In fact, a bit too quickly. Because, now, rumours are rife that Taylor Swift and Apple may have actually played a huge Public Relations gimmick.
That aside, personally, after having worked part-time on a radio station, playing western music for almost 8 years, during my twenties, I cannot resist giving my two-cents worth, on the changes I see.
When I passed the radio audition test, some 25 years ago, the radio station had put me, and the others with me, on a week-long training -- on how to correctly play the records from turn-tables, and how to cue those huge spools on the audio tape-decks.
On those – now, ancient – huge machines, we were also taught how to connect tape recorders, and other tape-decks, and how to dub dialogues and music, ensuring that music fades in and fades out without muffling the vocals - for our radio features and plays.
We had to manually use the knobs on sound-meters to ensure that decibel-levels are within normal hearing range. And those huge transmission consoles with faders had no ‘pre-sets’.
They all seem primitive when I look at today’s studios with cutting-edge gadgetry for digital mixing.
Most importantly, however, after playing music records on our live shows, we had to write down, all the song titles, album names, and record-labels of companies, in a register.
This helped in the payment of royalties, by the radio station, to record companies, every time a song was aired.
By the time I left my part-time job at the radio station, things had changed. CD players had come in. And radio stations paid huge amounts to music companies for ‘complete broadcasting rights’; which meant no more payment for each song, every time it was aired.
Then came the ‘mp3 file’. And those tiny portable music players which made Sony Walkman look like Tyrannosaurus Rex.
And with mp3 files came online peer-to-peer sharing of music; throwing intellectually property rights into a tizzy!
Napster, LimeWire, and Kazza are just a few names that were lambasted by music-makers for robbing their creativity.
If video killed the radio star, the new music and radio apps, now, killed the audio file-sharing websites.
CDs are almost gone. Downloading music is also passé. It is now the age of streaming music through apps now.
And whatever way we listen to music, I believe, the artists and music producers must get their due.
On June 30, Apple’s service will go live. And music lovers – especially the younger ones – are already agog with excitement.
Unlike streaming music from service providers like Pandora, Spotify, and Google Play Music - which is mostly available only within USA – Apple’s 24 x 7 streaming music will reach some 100 countries.
I am really not sure if Bahrain is one of them. But, if it is, people can register for a 3-month free-trial, and listen to the service on all Apple devices and personal computers. And pay $9.99 monthly after that.
Apple promises the same service to those with Android devices, by fall, this year.
Singer Taylor Swift created a storm this week by complaining that Apple – which had said it won’t pay artists during the trial-period – should pay. Apple relented, quickly.
In fact, a bit too quickly. Because, now, rumours are rife that Taylor Swift and Apple may have actually played a huge Public Relations gimmick.
That aside, personally, after having worked part-time on a radio station, playing western music for almost 8 years, during my twenties, I cannot resist giving my two-cents worth, on the changes I see.
When I passed the radio audition test, some 25 years ago, the radio station had put me, and the others with me, on a week-long training -- on how to correctly play the records from turn-tables, and how to cue those huge spools on the audio tape-decks.
On those – now, ancient – huge machines, we were also taught how to connect tape recorders, and other tape-decks, and how to dub dialogues and music, ensuring that music fades in and fades out without muffling the vocals - for our radio features and plays.
We had to manually use the knobs on sound-meters to ensure that decibel-levels are within normal hearing range. And those huge transmission consoles with faders had no ‘pre-sets’.
They all seem primitive when I look at today’s studios with cutting-edge gadgetry for digital mixing.
Most importantly, however, after playing music records on our live shows, we had to write down, all the song titles, album names, and record-labels of companies, in a register.
This helped in the payment of royalties, by the radio station, to record companies, every time a song was aired.
By the time I left my part-time job at the radio station, things had changed. CD players had come in. And radio stations paid huge amounts to music companies for ‘complete broadcasting rights’; which meant no more payment for each song, every time it was aired.
Then came the ‘mp3 file’. And those tiny portable music players which made Sony Walkman look like Tyrannosaurus Rex.
And with mp3 files came online peer-to-peer sharing of music; throwing intellectually property rights into a tizzy!
Napster, LimeWire, and Kazza are just a few names that were lambasted by music-makers for robbing their creativity.
If video killed the radio star, the new music and radio apps, now, killed the audio file-sharing websites.
CDs are almost gone. Downloading music is also passé. It is now the age of streaming music through apps now.
And whatever way we listen to music, I believe, the artists and music producers must get their due.
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