Thank you for the music

In any spare time I’ve had over the last two weeks, I’ve been systematically digitising my CDs. Yep, I’m living the rock and roll lifestyle. Since coming back from abroad it’s become very much apparent that my Victorian terrace isn’t big enough for the detritus that 33 years on this planet drags with it. I’ve not been too ruthless. Any music of any sentiment has been spared the chop, but the vast majority of my CD collection has been turned into a series of zeroes and ones and the CDs themselves ready for sale to music shops, or given away to charity shops if they’re that knackered. My vinyl collection isn’t going anywhere. That’s something I’ll hang onto for a much longer while yet, but CDs? For me they take up space that could – and should – be taken up by something else.

The eternal debate of analogue vs digital is no more hard fought than in the musical arena. In publishing there is probably less disparity because simple text copy does not suffer any loss of quality when parsed from one medium to another. And once that is established and accepted, the benefits of publishing online as opposed to print are infinite. Your publication does truly become a community, instead of dating from the minute the front page leaves the press. But with music, diehards decry digital formats as destroying the listening experience, cheapening the cultural currency of music, perhaps even indirectly responsible for the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. In reality, I’d say 90% can’t tell the difference in sound quality, 9% can and aren’t too bothered, 1% can and dig their heels in. For me, it’s the same in any industry. You have the medium, you have the message. What’s more important?

This week I’ve been researching infographics and how we could possibly make use of them to show the results of our recent members survey. The survey, which we ran over the summer, has already been incredibly useful in helping shape our editorial policy for 2012, but we also intend to share the results with the community by the end of this year. Stay tuned for that.

 

In any spare time I've had over the last two weeks, I've been systematically digitising my CDs. Yep, I'm living the rock and roll lifestyle. Since coming back from abroad it's become very much apparent that my Victorian terrace isn't big enough for the detritus that 33 years on this planet drags with it. I've not been too ruthless. Any music of any sentiment has been spared the chop, but the vast majority of my CD collection has been turned into a series of zeroes and ones and the CDs themselves ready for sale to music shops, or given away to charity shops if they're that knackered. My vinyl collection isn't going anywhere. That's something I'll hang onto for a much longer while yet, but CDs? For me they take up space that could - and should - be taken up by something else.

The eternal debate of analogue vs digital is no more hard fought than in the musical arena. In publishing there is probably less disparity because simple text copy does not suffer any loss of quality when parsed from one medium to another. And once that is established and accepted, the benefits of publishing online as opposed to print are infinite. Your publication does truly become a community, instead of dating from the minute the front page leaves the press. But with music, diehards decry digital formats as destroying the listening experience, cheapening the cultural currency of music, perhaps even indirectly responsible for the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. In reality, I'd say 90% can't tell the difference in sound quality, 9% can and aren't too bothered, 1% can and dig their heels in. For me, it's the same in any industry. You have the medium, you have the message. What's more important?

This week I've been researching infographics and how we could possibly make use of them to show the results of our recent members survey. The survey, which we ran over the summer, has already been incredibly useful in helping shape our editorial policy for 2012, but we also intend to share the results with the community by the end of this year. Stay tuned for that.