photo by farrokhi
I want to do two things in this article. First, I want to make some predictions about where I think music, technology, and culture are going in the next 20 years. Second, I want to explain how my career and this website fits into my vision for the future. Why make predictions about the future? The truth is that we all make predictions about life. Usually they aren't conscious calculations. They are part of our existing paradigm. Someone said that a paradigm is what you think before you think. For example, we expect our vehicles to start in the morning. We expect a continuation of the status quo. We generally expect life to go on. But how would you act if you knew today that the world ended tomorrow? Or what about the threat of eminent war? Game changers and black swan events come along every so often and shift the predominant paradigm. So, we take chances no matter what decision we make. Or as conventional folk wisdom puts it, "all of life's a gamble." Why not spend a little time to take a serious look at what we expect to happen before we plan our lives?
If we expect life to be considerably different the next 20 years, we should plan appropriately. A musician in the 1950s had a much different set of circumstances in which to derive a livelihood than we do today. Jazz music was reaching a new zenith, and in places like New York or LA, you could get work if you could play. Fast forward to the 1970s. The scene had changed. You could still work in New York, but increasingly so, audiences expected to hear rock influenced, jazz-fusion. And except for the crossover between rock audiences and fusion bands, the general jazz audience was starting to dwindle. You also saw the beginnings of college jazz programs take root. Fast forward to the 1990s and the early 2000s, and you find that fusion is dead, jazz has an even smaller general audience, and a place like New York is paradoxically over-saturated with hungry and talented musicians in part because of college jazz programs. I interviewed pianist Mulgrew Miller once and asked him what he would tell a young musician who wants to move to New York. He said to come when your services were required, and that NY is a different place than it was in the 70s when he moved there. My point with all of this is that music and society are never static monolithic entities. When they are, you are looking at history instead of current life. I'm not in favor of trying to guess the next big moves in musical styles or innovations. I don't think it works like that. However, I do think it's prudent to imagine what life might be like in 20 years. Rather than look back wishfully at some golden era, it's up to us to shape our lives, our music, and our world.
photo by braniffelectra
ENERGY DESCENT- Okay, now for the Debby Downer doomer portion of this article. We're running out of energy. More accurately, the world's demand for energy and growth is outpacing our ability to generate cheap energy, namely oil. Energy decent is known by other names such as peak oil or simply the end of cheap gas. And that's all it is. The world's not going to blow up, and I don't think we'll see the discontinuance of using oil in my life time. What it does mean is that we will see higher and higher prices at the gas pump, which will translate into higher costs at the grocery store and essentially every part of the world economy. I'm not trying to be overtly political. In fact, I don't think this is even a political topic. The solutions to peak oil may or may not be political. But the problem isn't. It's misleading to even say "solutions", because it's not as if there's a magic bullet out there that's going to suddenly produce all kinds of cheap oil. People mention tar sands and shell oil. Those may be viable energy sources, but they certainly aren't cheap ones. So what does this actually do to an economy? Quite simply, it affects every part. There are energy alternatives like solar, wind, coal, natural gas, and even firewood. But none of these have the unique qualities of the liquid fuel, oil. So it seems reasonable that things like home utilities which are powered by non-oil sources may be more stable, but things like transportation, shipping, and even oil dependent agriculture are at risk of serious disruption. For a much better discussion of this topic and other related challenges check out Chris Martenson's video series The Crash Course. I find his work to be fairly objective and apolitical. His thesis arguing that the next 20 years will be drastically different than the last 20 years seems tenable.
photo by doodle DUM
TECHNOLOGY- I had a research methods class once, and at the end of the semester the professor did something unusual. He made predictions for the future. He began with presuppositions such as the fact that predictions are historically very inaccurate. The remarks I remember best were those he made about technology, and they happen to be the same expectations I have for the foreseeable future. Essentially technology will continue to get smaller, faster, and less expensive. This is most true in the field of computer technology, wireless communications, and the internet. I can still remember a life before Facebook. I remember when the Internet was a novelty, and people were excited to go to chat rooms and talk with strangers just for the thrill of it. I still remember telephone booths and looking people and businesses up in the phone book. I remember life before GPS, when you had to read a map. All these ways of life have seemingly disappeared in less than a generation. I can't help but see a trend consisting of increased utilization of web technologies for our daily lives.
photo by lopiccolo
SOCIETY- I predict that society will grow larger and smaller. Because of the rising cost of energy, the world related to travel will shrink. Commuting 120 miles each way from Knoxville to Chattanooga twice a week like I did last Fall isn't sustainable. So in this way, people will live and work closer to home. The trend of home gardening will continue to grow, and more people will know a farmer on a first name basis. The world related to communications will conversely grow. People will continue to telecommute from home, and the web will become more accessible to the developing world. In regard to music, the digital download will almost permanently replace CDs. Population densities and demographics will change. We first saw a return to the land in the 1970s, but by the 1980s the tides had turned. We are currently seeing a renewed interest in a return to the land, but I don't think it will be the right answer for everyone. Believe it or not, cities will continue to be inhabited when gas hits $10 a gallon. 100-150 years ago, there were less people living in cities like New York, but they were cities nonetheless. I've heard that there were two channels of travel in NY city. One was horse drawn wagons bringing in all of the food grown from a relatively small area surrounding the city. The second consisted of horse drawn wagons bringing all of the horse manure back from the city, which was reused as fertilizer on the farms. I seriously doubt things will revert verbatim, but new solutions will be needed for high density populations.
photo by jster91
MUSIC AND MUSICIANS- 1000 True Fans- that's what blogger Kevin Kelly calls it, and it's all we need as musicians to sustain a career. No longer do we need to wait to get signed by a major record label or sit by the phone waiting for Wynton Marsalis to call. All we need is to find 1000 people who truly appreciate the art we create and will buy every recording we release. To illustrate the point, if I made a recording every six months and sold the digital download for $10, my 1000 True Fans would provide 20k in annual income. And that's before gigs, teaching, and other revenue streams. Of course, there could be some additional, albeit less fervent, customers too. What I like most about this model is the lack of coersion. There's no high pressure sales pitch. You just develop relationships with real people all over the globe who like what you do. That's essentially what my website and career aspirations are geared toward accomplishing.
CONCLUSION- I have no crystal ball, and I could be plain-wrong. It's possible that some game changing events will come along and blow up this whole vision, but I choose to deal with the reality I see in front of me while simultaneously working toward a better future. The future I'm describing is one that comes with great challenges but also wonderful opportunities. Ultimately what can be seen as a real burden, energy decent, can be the catalyst for a more sustainable and-I would argue- meaningful lifestyle.
