Module description
New digital technologies-particularly streaming platforms such as Spotify and YouTube-are having an unprecedented and little-understood effect on the way music is created, distributed and consumed today. The music industry, of which London is a global centre, finds itself in a crucial transitional moment in which these new music technologies are developing apace. While Spotify's algorithms are already reshaping how music is valued in monetary terms, advances in AI are raising wider questions about the role of human creativity itself. How these technologies are configured and deployed in the immediate term-by established companies such as Spotify, Apple and Google, as well as by innovative tech startups-will transform and shape the profession of musician over the next few decades. What motivates an algorithm? What programming decisions are being made, in places like London, Stockholm and San Francisco, that will shape the future of musical composition, performance, and consumption across the globe?How are these choices being informed? At the heart of these questions lie deeper philosophical concerns about how algorithms and AI--such as Facebook's News Feed, Google Search and Amazon's Alexa--are increasingly mediating our social and political lives, shaping our moral and ethical choices in the process. What role,for example, will AI play in shaping musical tastes of the future and how will composers respond? As the algorithms of Spotify and YouTube become ever more'global' in their reach, what happens to musical practices and creativity in large and increasingly important parts of the world, such as South Asia, South America and East Asia, that are frequently overlooked by a more Western-centred music industry?This module explores these questions in a range of 'upstream' and 'downstream'contexts--from boardrooms to rehearsal rooms, streaming media to social media--in order to develop an ethnomusicological perspective on how these technologies flow from corporations outwards, shaping musical value and creativity in local'downstream' contexts. By looking throughout this global value chain, especially at a point when it is increasingly interacting with musicianship and creativity in the Global South, the module will explore growing trends within the technology sector to better understand human behaviour and desire: an area in which ethnomusicology in particular has a great deal to offer. In doing so, the module will develop an ethnographic dimension to current debates about music algorithms and AI innovation that considers the future direction of these technologies in ways that are sensitive to context-dependent questions of power, knowledge and control.
Assessment details
Exam [40%]
2500 Word Essay [60%]