I was wondering.

This is kind of a pointed question at the writer, but also a topic for speculation in a way. What kind of music is prevelant in the universe you have created? Is it like our own, or some kind of new fusion genres? The only time it's really mentioned is when in reference to music from our time period, which was called 'oldies'. Later on, I think, during the whispers from mars arc, a 'synth' is mentioned, so I was wondering if possibly synthesizer technology is vastly improved in EFT like most other tech. I know it's kind of an odd question, but I'm interested in the details of culture and everyday life in the universe that's been created.

I'm sorry. I intended to reply to your post last night. I need to simplify my life; too many distraction.

This is kind of a pointed question at the writer, but also a topic for speculation in a way. What kind of music is prevelant in the universe you have created? Is it like our own, or some kind of new fusion genres?

I haven't given it any thought. My guess is that in the future the trend toward fusion will continue. Of course, new forms will arise, but my hubris does not extend to music. Last night I was speaking to an old friend with an extensive musical back ground. We were talking about musical theory. Maybe when EFT moves in that direction, I will get the real straight dope from him.

The only time it's really mentioned is when in reference to music from our time period, which was called 'oldies'. Later on, I think, during the whispers from mars arc, a 'synth' is mentioned, so I was wondering if possibly synthesizer technology is vastly improved in EFT like most other tech. I know it's kind of an odd question, but I'm interested in the details of culture and everyday life in the universe that's been created.

Well I hear music from previous eras all the time. Not just popular music from the '60s to present, but a lot of stuff from the '20s, '30s and '40s, plus stuff 500 or more years old. I don't think that should be any different in the next century.

I don't know about that.  It's been quite a while since I heard "Lady Greensleeves" on my top 40 radio station.    If recent history is any example the kind of music that was popular back when I was a kid is still popular, but largely because of the baby boomers (of which I am one).  I kind of doubt that when someone who is 15 now is my age that he's going to have fond memories of gangster punk rap.  My guess is that 200 years from now Perry Como's "It's Impossible" will still be played once in a while but what passes for music today (and I use the term very loosely) will be played only by individuals who want to induce vomitting.

I feel as though future music may be comletely and wildy different then ours. Recent trends (past 50 years or so) in music are most easily traced to the newest technology in the music sector. From the first affordable electric guitars to the drum-machines and samplers that are leading the current trends in hip-hop and electro. Combine new technology with a totally changed culture, and I thinkyou almost garuntee radically different music. Punk-jazz fusion at speed metal tempo may just be all the rage in thirty years.

will be played only by individuals who want to induce vomitting.

That could be, but presumably even in the future, teenagers will continue to listen to something that only passes for music, and which is calculated to induce vomiting on the part of their parents. And for their part, their parents will have a soft spot for whatever they listened to when they were teenagers.
Good music will survive independently of the rapid changes in fashion affecting that which merely passes for music, true, but it will not, I fear, drive out the bad.

Quad:  One important influence that your not taking into account is money.  If the economy is drastically reduced from what it is now in say thirty years then people will have a much smaller amount to spend on entertainment including music.  It stands to reason if the music market is smaller then fewer people will be involved in it and the people who buy the music will be a lot more discrimatory about how they spend their money.  Only the best will be successful and be able to make a reasonable living making music.  Rappers flying around in their multi million dollar Gulfstream jets will be a thing of the past.  Given all of this I think it far more likely that good music even if somewhat dated will consistantly turn a (small) profit for the record companies while the newest rap music will have trouble even getting produced.   

I believe the opposite would occur.  With limited buying power, especially when that is caused by political control, the selection of music would actually be narrower.
The internet has done a fair bit for "indie" music.  Imagine if the label owners got their way.  It'd be like Japan.  A new star every year, and all copies of a reliable model.

You don't get better products because you have limited choices, but you to get more choices if you have more resources to devote to them.

Much of what we have today is overhyped, well produced garbage, while some of the good music is the result of somebody with an instrument made from found materials just enjoying himself.  The most expensive paints and the finest quality canvases do not make you an artist.  Getting by with crayons and typing paper doesn't prevent you from being one.  Someone standing over your shoulder and informing you what subjects are acceptable, and what subjects are not, might.  Needing to feed your family at your 10 hour a day, 6 day a week job, probably will.

Again, amateurs having fun can produce a lot of good stuff, even if you do have to wade through the chaff, and all the garage band covers, to find it.

Speaking of the effects of technology and music, don't forget the Tanglenet, which is like our present-day Internet on steroids. The gummint may limit its availability on Terra and as a result artistic innovation may be stifled there, but on Mars especially I'd expect to see an explosion of new forms. And different forms may be more popular on different worlds. And also more of the fragmenting that we've experienced in the last couple of decades -- the days of mega-stars on the order of The Beatles may be gone forever.

Music tastes are not merelyl about "what our generation listened to when we were teens" -- I have noticed some revival of older songs amongst teens. I even see very young teen hippies from time to time, and that trend was gone long before these kids were mere gleams in their daddies' eyes.

Therefore, I expect some of our "oldies" will still be heard generations from now. They may not be "top 40s", but they'll be heard.

It seems to me that, with user-pull content, versus producer-push, we'll have a much more diverse environment; there may not be a "top 40" in any meaningful sense; what does "top 40" mean when the difference in popularity between #30 and #300 is statistically irrelevant, when the curve is "all tail"?

I cann't imangine how music will develope and change.  There are a few things I'd lay long money on....

Even with the population spread in space, the big market will still be Terra.  Restrict Music?  Limit Imports?  Can you say "Black Market".  Remember American music in Soviet Russia during the cold war?  Rationing of cigarettes and alcohol in Germany?  We stopped maybe 1 percent of the American Cigarettes and Whiskey U.S. Government Workers and Soldiers sold to the locals. 

With music, ideas.  With ideas, change.  With change, freedom. It may be slow and the occasional two steps back for every step forward, but freedom will come.  Access to personal arms speeds the process.

We're already seeing the sideways spread of information with the internet.  The concealed carry movement is a primary example.  Information is no longer coming , solely from the top down.

Music distribution has changed and will continue to change.  I don't care how hard the corporations try to control access, they can not do it.  You really think the world government would be able to stop the music?  Maybe by the time the sun burns out.

I've read somewhere else that some polecat politician in europe is wanting to license the internet just like here in America where we license drivers of automobiles.  He want to make sure that every post has someone's identity behind it so someone can't post anonymously.  With you know who here in the White House I kind of wonder how long it's going to take some "TRANSPOG" politician here to come up with the same idea.      

I cann't imangine how music will develope and change.  There are a few things I'd lay long money on....

Even with the population spread in space, the big market will still be Terra.  Restrict Music?  Limit Imports?  Can you say "Black Market".  Remember American music in Soviet Russia during the cold war?  Rationing of cigarettes and alcohol in Germany?  We stopped maybe 1 percent of the American Cigarettes and Whiskey U.S. Government Workers and Soldiers sold to the locals. 

Wasn't involved in that [I hadn't been spawned yet].  But my late Father-inLaw was very much into smuggling into Germany after WWII, he was OSS and had contacts.

With music, ideas.  With ideas, change.  With change, freedom. It may be slow and the occasional two steps back for every step forward, but freedom will come.  Access to personal arms speeds the process.

In the USSR, the system was called Samizdat.  Had a lot more to do with the collapse of that government than Reagan.

We're already seeing the sideways spread of information with the internet.  The concealed carry movement is a primary example.  Information is no longer coming , solely from the top down.

My fellow in the LASFS Jerry Pournelle (I really can't call him friend, we disagree on too many things -- he's a statist, I'm an anarchist, and lets not get into our views on computers) credits the fax machine and the cassette recorder with the collapse of the Soviet Union.  I can't disagree with him there.

Music distribution has changed and will continue to change.  I don't care how hard the corporations try to control access, they can not do it.  You really think the world government would be able to stop the music?  Maybe by the time the sun burns out.

Can't stop the signal, Mal.

I've read somewhere else that some polecat politician in europe is wanting to license the internet just like here in America where we license drivers of automobiles.  He want to make sure that every post has someone's identity behind it so someone can't post anonymously.  With you know who here in the White House I kind of wonder how long it's going to take some "TRANSPOG" politician here to come up with the same idea.      

Crap like that has been proposed by a number of our elected "representatives" in the past decade and some.  Lately the assholes have gotten more blatant in order to "protect the children".

w d g 3 r d's right.  I think two dummies, one in the  House and one in the Senate have proposed companion bills for the last several years.  i can't remember who they are, and they definitely need to loose their jobs, since they either didn't understand their oaths or deliberately disregarded them.

I still think any portion of a law, found to be unconstitutional, should invalidate the entire law.  Additionally, I think anyone proposing such a law or who voted for such a law, should be stripped of their Sovereign  Immunity.  Make them subject to civil and possibly criminal trial and penalties.

Whoever brought up the underground music scene in russia has a very valid point about music when it's suppressed by the government. Usually, with outside influences partially or mainly cut off, new and interesting things appear. When stadium/rock genres where becoming mainstream hear, in soviet russia, 'illegal' musicians with mainly homemade or smuggled instruments pioneered new and intrusting styles. Having been cut off when Jazz was the hippest way for musicians to go and when funk was brand new, So called "Soviet Jazz-Funk" was totally different then anything in the world at the time, and it probably wouldn't have happened without the soviet oppression. Also, as brought up, while mars and cerra thrive on a huge diversity of music through tanglenet, it probably would be nothing like the innovative music styles of oppressive Terra. (If it really is all that oppressive. Haven't seen a whole lot of the homeworld to make a educated guess.)