Generally, debating and analyzing the affects recorded music has had on society is left to avant-garde musicians and academics, but the release of several books detailing the history of recorded music has changed this. The consequences of Edison’s development of the phonograph has, as of late, gained a larger interest in the public eye. Unfortunately, the interest, although being informative and thought-provoking, is significantly flawed.

Two of the most widely read and extensive accounts of our ability to record music are articles that review these recently published books. The first is “The Record Effect: How Technology Has Transformed the Sound of Music,” by Alex Ross and appearing in The New Yorker. Ross critically reviews: Mark Katz’ Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music (University of California Press; $19.95), Colin Symes’ Setting the Record Straight: A Material History of Classical Recording (Wesleyan University Press; $39.95), and Robert Philip’s Performing Music in the Age of Recording (Yale University Press, $35). The second article is Charles Rosen’s “Playing Music: The Lost Freedom,” which appeared in The New York Review of Books, and reviews Philip’s book.

To be clear, I haven’t read these books, so my response is limited to and more of a reaction of Ross’ and Rosen’s digestion of those books. Responding to arguments initially presented in longer, more thorough, and detailed book form through review essays is problematic, however, I–like Ross and Rosen–take on the larger ideas.

Two of the largest ideas the authors seem to agree upon is that the advent of recorded music has mortally wounded live performances, both their quality and attendance, and constrained music in various ways. Ross captures these major themes when he writes:

Yet, for most of us, music is no longer something we do ourselves, or even watch other people doing in front of us. It has become a radically virtual medium, an art without a face….Zombified listeners will shuffle through the archives of the past, and new music will consist of rearrangements of the old.

The problem with this diagnosis, despite the authors’ claims, is that it is actually a diagnosis of the state of classical music. And even this is done in a non-critical way that is unwilling to examine the foundations of the dead, white, man music the authors prefer. This may read harsh, but just like past history texts have failed to examine the role and life of minorities and common people, these musical histories fail to examine the birth, evolution, and state of other forms of music. And as social histories have eclipsed traditional historical narratives, so to has social music eclipsed classical music.

The analogy with classical historical narratives is not a stretch. Consider Ross’ dismissal of both non-classical music and entire groups of the population:
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