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YMUSIC SEARCH ENGINE
Music is more than a casual leisure, an art or the new way to increase the benefits of a company. It is all of that and even more. The music industry is a rich ecosystem in which everyone and everything has a specific place. From the composer to the listener, from psychology to spirituality, from art to science, get insights on each field of music, learning about craft or history, about human behavior or consciousness. A place is also given to ethical questions.
MUSICAL CULTURE IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS
Do you want to discover new music with a search engine presenting features based on musical criteria, in order to know better your own individual music tastes? Try the YMusic search engine for free and explore thousands of titles: use YMusic in order to more easily get more music you could potentially like without being forced to spend too much time searching.
Music consumption has different channels and shapes: for decades, television or concerts are(have been) important in the process. And now there are new ways, like internet and especially music streaming services, which allows a new emotional model called hedonic consumption model to appear. The difference with that model is that the traditional sales model was more centered on physical goods (consumer durables like records), while the new model is more centered on ephemeral cultural events (like music festivals or fashion shows).
Music consumption was always linked to the senses, especially hearing. However, fantasies and emotions about music contents have increased a lot over the last decade. And events expose music listeners to experiences that motivate them to purchase the music that they heard. In fact, music is a benefit, whether it is symbolic (music is a way to manifest prosocial behavior), aesthetic (music is associated with beauty, whatever your personal criteria are) or psychological (music helps to regulate emotion).
In terms of aesthetics, music plays a role in judgment and decision making. The listener reacts to stimuli that he sees as appropriate, in relationship to external standards that may be defined by experts or a relevant social group. The listener's aesthetic taste drives hedonic value. In fact, aesthetic taste is a main driver of hedonic value, while knowledge is a driver of utilitarian value.
Another hedonic aspect of music consumption is prediction. When the listener makes a correct prediction, there is a feeling of achievement.
Besides the emotional model, there is a cognitive model called the black-box model, which studies the environment around the listener and the stimuli that he receives before purchasing, as well as elements like his personal level of knowledge and his relationship with technology.
Whatever the model is, means of consumption vary. Consuming may be an experience (linked to emotions), a game (in the framework of social communication), a way of integration (constitutive of the self) or classification (depending on the way in which the objects for consumption make sense, in a collection for example). So, to sell music, the artist must think of branding in terms of experience and self-discovery, as benefits for the fandom.
Indie musicians do not always feel that their voice or music sounds like what they hear on the radio and they have to fall in love with what makes them different instead of trying to sound like what other people are doing. It may happen that professionals within the music industry invite artists to abandon part of their musical originality in exchange for a contract. So all emerging artists must decide personally what is the best solution in their personal framework.
Some decide to become independent artists, others to follow the artistic line of a label. Independent artists try to create the music that they want to hear, and it sounds better to their ears. It is about crafting and shaping their sounds in a very personal way while listening carefully to the musicians they love and who are their models.
Also, at least at the beginning of their career, it is important for them to choose a specific music genre and thus a niche, so that the listeners are not confused and may follow them, knowing that they will discover new music in music styles that they appreciate. Later, music content creators may try to experiment other aspects of their musical personality.
Finally, musicians may define a musical project, asking themselves what is their main target, for example in the framework of a first album, which is actually a starting line. What do they want? Is it about empowering people, expressing personal feelings, offering them a specific thematic itinerary? Each musician will answer depending on their personal aspirations, and it will help them to join a specific music niche, create an inner circle of fans, reaching new people person by person and sharing their music again and again so that people want to listen.
New music consumption models and the artist-fan relationship
Do you want to discover the main effects of sounds and music with a music search engine presenting features based on musical criteria, in order to know better your own individual music tastes? Try the YMusic search engine for free and explore thousands of titles: use YMusic in order to more easily find more music you could potentially like without being forced to spend too much time searching.
THE MARKET OF DIGITAL MUSIC, BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY AND ADVERTISING
Do you want to discover music that is new for you and new artists with a search engine presenting features based on musical criteria, in order to know better your own individual music tastes? Try the YMusic search engine for free and explore thousands of titles: use YMusic in order to more easily get more music you could potentially like without being forced to spend too much time searching.
Scientists explain that the brain is not, in the field of market research, the real brain of the customer: it is the brain of a company taking care of the customer and it tries to learn how to best deal with the customer and how to provide a great experience to the customer. It is about knowing customers, then reaching them and finally delighting them.
That brain never forgets any event and has a high-resolution photographic memory related to the customer’s movements, trying to make the next best action. And it is not only about collecting data and analyzing them. The brain's decisions are relevant both for inbound marketing (where it is the customer which moves toward the company via a call center or a mobile app) and outbound marketing (where the company assumes movements via email, sms, telephony or postal mail). These two styles of marketing are customer centric, trying to know customers individually (as customers want to be known individually, and to offer the right message, the right offer and the right level of service in each communication).
The customer brain helps to foster a brand identity. A brand is not a logo, a product; it is the emotional connection between a company and its customers, especially when it comes to millenials because they are the first generation not directly connected to their parents’ brands. That is why brands who want to approach millenials must express their beliefs.
A lot of music composers, who are their own brand, say : 'Music is not what I do, it is who I am'. And the average popular music listener claims: 'Music is my life'. How can it be and what are the consequences of these perceptions ? We can say that, both for music composers and their audiences, for music stars and their fandoms, music is part of their identity.
First, we must explain why music has an identity. Music is a metaphor for identity. It has an identity because people who make and use it shape it, so music has a life of its own. Music identity is mobile in the sense that it is a process and not a thing, a becoming and not a being. Like identity, music is both a performance and a story which describes the social and the individual. Music is a key to identity because it provides a sense of both self and others; it creates links between people.
Different types of musical activities produce different sorts of musical identities (for example, ambient house music combines rave culture and minimalism; and Christian music is linked to specific worship and the traditional baroque and romantic music culture), but how musical works form identities is the same. It is about combining an intense cognitive experience and a high-quality emotional pleasure, judgment being an important part of the process.
The first type of people to express judgments related to music are musicians themselves. They judge the music itself as well as the contexts where it is accessible online. When they build their musical identity, they make a career move. They want to create unique branding identifiers and capitalize on them. Some are trendsetters in specific music genres, exposing what their music represents to the audience.
Also, let us define what exactly a fan is. The word appeared in American English, in 1899 and its meaning was 'devotee'. It was then related to baseball. 'Fan' is probably a shortening of 'fanatic'. The simplest etymology links 'fanatic' to 'fanum', the latin word for 'temple'. In the first century BCE, the priests who served Bellona, a Roman war goddess, would make blood sacrifices during her annual festival. The priests were seen as being crazed by the goddess: the priests were literally fanatic. That is why, when the word 'fan' appeared in English during the 16th century, it meant 'person possessed with divine fury'.
'Fanatic' could also be linked to 'fancy', coming from 'fantasy', and 'fantasy' had various meanings : 'inclination, liking (middle of the 15th century), 'productive imagination' (end of the 16th century), 'fanciful image or conception' (middle of the 17th century). Finally, 'Fandom' is attested by 1903, designing a group of avid enthusiasts, and 'fanclub' appears in 1930.
A fan is a person with great enthusiasm, generally uncritical, for a person or a cause. That zeal may be excessive and irrational. Now, how do fans select the music that will become a part of their identity? As the experience of music is an experience linked to personal identity, their choices depend on their emotional reactions, the state of their bodies and the context where they find the music. Indeed, identity is something that people try on, taking it in culture.
Let us notice that listeners create their identity as music fans via symbolic interactions. In that context, music sharing, as well as listening, is a representation of a musical identity: music listeners want to show their 'true self'. For example when they create and share playlists, which become forms of self-expression reflecting a genre, a mood or a relationship. In that sense, music listeners or more specifically fandoms aare distancing themselves from ancient forms where fandoms were communities worshipping an idol. Now fans, or more simply music listeners, may express their personalities via social media accounts, make new friends through fandom and even get rewards from a star or a star's management staff.
What does a fan actually bring to social media ? Discovery, intimacy and collective identity. They may talk about their favorite stars or about the fact that music festivals give them what they want (generally escape from reality and great entertainment). Sometimes, more serious subjects emerge (how music reshapes or preserves the cultural identity of a community, helps in resolvin) gender problems and so on. All their actions and realities (music as a ritual, fandom in media, musical training within fandom, music fan communities, music fandom and tourism, etc.) are studied, for example by the Journal of Fandom Studies, and music brands take these data into account in the framework of decision making.
Now, for fandom, what is music fandom about ? Socially speaking, it is about being different and being appreciated for that, because that state of mind and attitude is often forbidden in daily life contexts. Difference is expressed by symbolic interactions, as music is a symbolic system of meaning which allows the assumption of the self to emerge. What does this mean? Put more simply, it means that music allows communities of people who share the same symbols and values to appear. In these communities, individuals develop self-concepts through interactions with others. Especially during concerts, which may be the place where individuals express changes that happen in their lives in a ritual way (with accessories and even paintings). They also may adopt the ethics of specific artists, developing a complete musical imagery, through lyrics, videos and music itself, which is partly an involuntary musical imagery, or involuntary semantic memories, i.e. reliving musical memories without conscious attempts to do so. Let us finally notice that involuntary musical imagery developed by fans may have a role in music performance: it is a support for artists.
Music new markets and the 'always-on' music fan
What is soundscape creation and why do brands use it?
Audio branding has two aspects. One of them is mnemonic or audio logo. Audio logo may be mnemonic in that sense that it may evoke the visual logo of a company. But audio branding is more than a mnemonic technique. It helps to create associations and it is supported by associations. For example, in a Chinese restaurant, customers may hear Chinese music. It could be another music, however it is a possible association.
The work of audio logo designers is to create a new association for each new product and even new advertisements. Audio logos help to create images of objects even when they are not present at the moment. Surveys are made to determine how potential users of products perceive specific audio logos before they reach the retail environment.
The other aspect of audio branding is soundscape creation, which associates a sound logo to a specific context, which associates an audio logo to a specific context: a commercial strategy, the design of the product, etc. Composers who want to be involved in soundscape creation must know what are the emotional and rational attitudes of the brands for which they want to work. Specialists say that, working, the composer must create a kind of map which shows how the sound may evolve. Also, the composer must know how the competition is using the sound to promote products.
We could say that it is all about stimulating the imagination of the prospect, which may bring new sounds into a familiar environment and introduce some change in it via free associations. And then there is a new soundscape.
When it comes to return on investment, each brand has to decide what is the return on investment. Is it financial, related to awareness, sales, impact or clicks? What is the most important? There is no consistent definition, audio branding specialists say. Customers of the composer may look at the costs from different perspectives.
Soundscape creation is about creating a distinct audio identity for a specific brand. It is a set of auditory tools (tempo, instrumentation, melody, rhythms, harmony). As it is not as repetitive as a jingle, a soundscape is used so that the associated brand can be recognized by potential customers during sales presentations, events, on mobile, websites, radio, television, video news releases, web television, internal television, or a website.
It is now proven that the brain processes sound and that product-related sounds can help customers to locate a product faster in their head or in a shop. To create such effects amongst customers, all types and forms of music may be used. Background music creates ambiance during the event. Opening music is a short crescendo piece used to capture attention, and closing music is a one minute decrescendo. A piece of entering stage music may introduce the main part of an event. Transition music helps to introduce a new theme, person or presentation.
Do you want to discover the richness of the various aspects of sound, with the help of a search engine presenting features based on musical criteria, in order to know better your own individual music tastes? Try the YMusic search engine for free and explore thousands of titles: use YMusic in order to more easily find more music you could potentially like without being forced to spend too much time searching.
In video game music creation, there is a design problem, especially when the game is non-linear, for example in world exploration games. In that last case, how is it possible to create a strong gaming narrative with music? By giving 'the big picture' of the music score at the very beginning and the very end of the game and by telling side stories everywhere else. Using music to foreshadow a scene which comes later in the game may be useful too. It may generate moods in the player's mind.
Let us notice that video game music evolved from low-quality generated sounds and simple melodies to three-dimensional sound effects included in complex music scores. There are even techniques which are specific to video game music: dynamic real-time mixing, real-time DSP control, procedural audio. Do publishers develop their own games? It may happen, but rarely entirely, they also work with outside developers. When it comes to music, who is buying? Generally, the developer is responsible for the content of the score and the publisher is licenses the music. It may happen that it is other way around, so knowing people is important as in every business-to-business transaction.
Knowing gaming platforms and their specific issues as well as game audio tools and implementation issues is generally necessary, as is working through specific tutorials as well as creating professional sounding stereo and surround mixes.
And composers have to play games and analyze their use of music: they determine what they see as weak, strong, and why; they see if the music is repetitive and so on. They must have in mind that in games, time is controlled by the player, that is why music must span action sequences of flexible and unknown temporal duration. Music for games is always a dynamic and interactive form of entertainment.
In video game music, composition is important, however it is only a key to the success of how this is going to be perceived. For example, sound effects that are wonderful but too loud will not please gamers. And loops are not enough anymore, they only still work in 'retro games' (8 bit games), because these games are described as gamey: the gamer just wants to play. When gamers want to explore an imaginary world, another type of music is necessary. And, as for some people, video gaming is really a part of their life, music is an important aspect of game creation.
In that context, audio middleware is useful. These are services that facilitate design, development and integration. They are some kind of 'software glue' that helps composers to make the game sound exactly how they want in terms of intensity, transition and repetition. They are also useful to isolate musical elements: for example, in a composition, it is possible to extract all the melodies. It allows the use of the same materials in different ways.
Return on investment of audio middleware is hard to measure; however, when one wants to measure programmer's pains and gains at the moment of the implementation, it is apparent that pains are reduced and gains increased, especially in terms of time. When the implementation is quick, developers can judge game music quickly. They may estimate if one sound or another is appropriate for each character and in each situation of the game, when a character jumps or walks, for example.
Music implementation in video games: procedural audio and audio middleware
Do you want to understand better musical elements like those evoked here, like tempo, in order to know better your own individual music tastes? Try the YMusic search engine (it contains features based on musical criteria) and more easily find more music you could potentially like without being forced to spend too much time searching.
Like every act of music creation, computer game music creation supposes that the composer controls the produced sound in terms of dynamics, textures, effects and equalization. And good orchestration is necessary. Is the music bold and beautiful? The game will be more successful and the author will get more jobs later (if so). Some tips are especially useful when it comes to game music creation. What do specialists recommend? A first piece of advice is related to tempo: for example, using a 100 velocity and volume during the whole piece of music makes it unmusical. So the tempo must vary as well as the texture and the instrumentation (quiet melodies inspire peace and love, loud sections create excitement.
Including sound bridges between important scenes in the game may be useful too. It can create some metaphysical atmosphere that players will certainly appreciate. It can help the player to think : 'What will I do during the next 5 seconds?' The bridge may also introduce a new place and action. The music must tell the game, i.e. a unique story. Using loops is fine, but not too much, and a good way to enter into loops creation is to study the rhythm of African music. Keeping all created material is important, it may be used later in the framework of a new project.
In any case, listening to a lot of video game music is an advantage in determining what works and what does not. Playing an instrument or joining a choir is beneficial too, as it helps to create new melodies. Talking with the developers during the whole project is important. Sometimes developers do not know what they want, sometimes they do, but dialog is always useful. At the technical level, the composer must send samples to their clients so that these may give them feedback before the work is entirely done.
In computer games, audio is described as 'procedural' when both audio and graphics are generated synthetically in real-time: when the object moves in a specific way, it is associated with a specific sound. For example, if the speed of the object is increasing, the sound reflects that difference. All audio generation depends on an object’s volume, its location and background (different instruments and musical motives) may be selected to distinguish these). And it is generated from sound synthesis via techniques like modal synthesis, physical modelling and subtractive synthesis.
For video game music composers, creating links with game development studios and publishers is essential, and it is the same for audio directors, producers, etc. Indeed, the target of the video game music composer is to make the experience of the video game's story, characters and situations more immersive. For that reason, the music is implemented in the game both by the composer and by the development team. Interactivity is an essential component of success. It is all about composing music that makes the game really expressive and corresponds to the developers' expectations. The video game composer will find help in the documentation of the game and in screen captures coming from the game. All of that is necessary because the reality of video games is changing very quickly. The composer has to feel instinctively what may be the relationship between a video game and its players. That is why composers must play the games themselves. Trying to guess is not enough. Searching for new sounds on a regular basis is also important.
A summit is reached when composers create music for a game where players literally create 'their' characters; it turns out that these players are more involved at the emotional level. The composer may help the player to care about these characters through their adventures. Music helps to introduce a sense of speed and physicality into the game. Actually, musical themes may become symbols and reinforce the identities of people, locations and even ideas in video games. Characters may have their own theme or leitmotiv, a melodic phrase accompanying the (re)appearance of a character or a situation. Each melody may have one or several variations (varied tempo, rhythm or key).
The art of video game music creation
Do you want to discover music that is new for you with a search engine presenting features based on musical criteria, in order to know better your own individual music tastes? Try the YMusic search engine for free and explore thousands of titles: use YMusic to more easily find more music you could potentially like without being forced to spend too much time searching.
Music market and law: copyrights and regulation
Intellectual property pillars are copyrights, trademarks and patents. In addition, there is some pseudo-intellectual property, like trade secrets or proprietary rights and also moral rights (authors may refuse the use of their work in contexts that they dislike). The legal definition of a copyright by U.S. law is: an original work of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression.
Today, in music, copyrights have two forms: sound recording and musical composition. Both may be copyrighted, because the author of the sound recording is not always the author of the musical composition.
When there is an infringement to exclusive copyrights, intent is not relevant : ignorance is never a defence. Sometimes, the situation is not clear. It may happen that two identical original works exist independently, each one being protected. This is very rare, though. Also, there is the concept of 'fair use', which permits everyone to use someone's work in a reasonable manner without the owner's consent. But this is not a right. So, except in the case of scholarly use, that practice is not encouraged. It is just a defense.
The music market is about regulation and decision making, so it is mixing macroeconomic factors and rules establishment. That is why music market analysts study large cultural groups, periods of time and ensembles of recordings. With the help of technology, they define criteria and make clear hypotheses based on quantitative data and statistics. They analyse the results and establish graphs or visual presentations that are used by big companies involved in the streaming music industry or in music publishing.
What are their conclusions? At the level of musical content, studies show for example that between 1960 and 2010, some chord progressions disappeared and other ones appeared. Timbral topics, harmonics and other parameters change too. More generally, music industry analysts try for example to measure the links between market structure or market concentration and the diversity of products. Sometimes, studies are strange, like one which, based on the use of a 'Darwinian music engine', concluded that good songs reproduce while bad songs do not! But this is just an anecdote.
Now it is important to notice that music technology has facilitated changes in the way music is produced and regulated. The publi) now interacts differently with music. Music is now a commodity and a resource that the user controls in order to achieve specific ends. These ends vary: it may be self-enhancement or self-esteem building through ego feeding, as well as empathy and prosocial behavior (especially in indie hip hop culture).
Music market and law: copyrights and regulation