DIY Music Production in the era of Enshittification
DIY Music Production in the era of Enshittification
Hi Music Friends!
... I thought about creating a seperate community to post this (and any future ones) but since the last contribution on here is already a while back, I'll just go with it for now...
The next paragraphs will be a somewhat lengthy Introduction explaining why I'm here and what I'm doing here now :)
I'm a Musicology student from Vienna, Austria and usually research topics such as Electronic Music and technology in music as well as surrounding culture and practices. However, over time, I became interested in Media Studies as well, primarily investigating Social Media and Streaming Services .
With this research account I will now begin my journey doing Hybrid Fieldwork on the Fediverse for my MA Thesis.
Planned as an (auto-)ethnographic research project, I will write about
The Bedroom Producer in the era of Enshittification
background
I've been wanting to write about Music Production for a while now, but wasn't too sure about a precise topic as I began my Master's. As I engaged myself in literature on the history of Music Production, I became quite fascinated with the narrative beginning around the turn of the millenium, hailing the internet as an opportunity for DIY Musicians (or Amateur Musicians) as a place to share their Music, to build an audience, or to find like-minded Artists via online forums.
Almost a quarter of a century later, many of these aspects are still true, while the online world surrounding Musicians changed drastically with the emergence of streaming services and social media platforms. Today, BigTech companies inherit monopoly positions not only concerning the computer techologies allowing such online communications, but also do so in gate-keeping positions within the Music Industry and beyond.
As an autodidact Bedroom Producer myself, I spent the last decade on such online platforms and was able to witness the changing media landscape towards an increasing number of privacy-invading business models oriented towards infinite growth, which are so prevalent today.
It was probably not until I began researching such platforms and online communities as an undergraduate student that I became more invested with and wary of these technologies. Around 2 years ago, I also found an interest in FOSS and decided to start my Linux journey, which further fostered this idea of wanting to write something incorporating all of these topics.
Further down the line, I also stumbled upon the Fediverse, which I have been using personally for a while. I now decided to give Mastodon and Lemmy a go as my research field, especially after having considered issues with other platforms that are often used in Music Production contexts such as Discord YouTube or Twitch (that I wish to not participate in any longer).
about the project
I hope the title is self-explanatory to most of you: Doctorow's Enshittification applied to a Music context - focussing on hobbyist Music Production.
The Ethnography focuses on practices, perceptions and perspectives surrounding Bedroom Producers. While research will take place on Mastodon and Lemmy, it does not mean that topics are restricted to those platforms or that experiences do have to be connected to platforms at all, it can be anything connected to Music Production and Media/Technology use. I mainly chose these platforms as I do 1) feel comfortable doing research here and 2) I'm looking for alternative voices and experiences. As I consider many Fediverse-users as tech-savy, I hope to get some insights that I would otherwise not be able to find - topics such as selfhosting, discussions about OS compatabilites or issues with Music technology as well as FOSS or even infosec are highly encouraged
I wish to get a better understanding of
- how Music Producers make sense of today's (online) world,
- which choices they make concerning technologies used for Music Production,
- how such technologies are used in everyday life and why,
- which strategies they might have found to navigate privacy-oriented media participation,
- further challenges and sentiments along the way (mental wellbeing, competition, peer pressure etc.)
- [...]
Initially, I hoped to being able to outline the needs of Musicians in order to suggest solutions for alternative media platforms, opening new perspectives for a possible emergence of new platforms. I won't be able to do so, as there is a lot to write about already, but I hope I can contribute to that goal somehow, or at least spreading awareness on (the importance) of some of these topics.
some more details
Research is outlined as partcipatory fieldwork. This means, I will actively participate in discussions, sharing content and ideas on here while I do also observe what I encounter online (which I will mainly note down in a research diary but may also take screenshots of etc.). I mainly thought about sharing some thoughts based on literature I read or some of my own observations while engaging online here and there to encourage discussions.
Another aspect is that this research is also autoethnographic, which means my own experiences will play a huge role in the end result (I chose to do this mainly because it is difficult to find any literature concering how some of the major music platforms operate behind the scenes and because I felt inspired by reading Eshun's More Brilliant than the sun, which gave me this idea of giving this thesis a slightly techno-dystopian undertone).
I hope I can find some people here that are willing to talk about their experiences and opinions not just on this platform but also in interviews - which will form another big chunk of the thesis. I am aware that research of this kind on here and conducting interviews with you folks may be a bit tricky as many people value privacy a lot. In general, I have to comply to ethical standards, so everything I will use for my thesis will only happen after I get each user's permission. It will always be possible to be anonymized or contact me after an interview if you changed your mind on anything you said or if there are any other concerns until I will begin the process to analyze all the collected data and begin writing results (which I will announce beforehand).
I put some time/effort/thoughts into planning this project, so I will try to make this as transparent as possible and hope that I can make everyone participating to feel safe. It's a bit weird to ask, but please feel free to block me if you feel that way. I also want to mention that, as I have done research of this kind already twice, this time I will also keep an eye on my own well-being, so bare with me if I will be offline for some days or won't share too much personal information.
I will use dedicated devices for this research to keep things a bit seperated. Also, I will store whatever I collect on a seperate and encrypted device, no Google services, iCloud and such involved. For the writing process, I will use LibreOffice (Markor and just regular pen and Papep for note-taking and planning, Obsidian for University-related stuff), I will still need to find a suitable solution for Interview transcripts, so any recommendations are welcome.
Concerning communications, I haven't decided on how and where to do interviews yet (jitsi?) but most likely will also make it possible to contact me on Matrix. Signal would be another option, as I have registered a number to use for online accounts (just in case), but I get the opinions to not use Signal beyond close personal contacts. I wish I could offer any other solutions but I'm also limited to my skill set - but again, any help is appreciated!
Everyone who does produce Music as a Hobbyist (or Ex-Hobbyist) on some kind of DAW is very welcome to participate! Unfortunately this means I will exclude people with a purely analog, DAW-less setup that might frequent this community as well. Genres do not matter really, and it is also not about skills in Music Production (as mentioned, I'm self-taught in this as well).
The current plan is to do research until January, but I may extend it to April.
Thanks if you made it this far ;)
That's all the info I have for you so far. Feel free to let me know about any ideas, opinions, concerns or if you feel I should create a seperate community for this. Your input is appreciated! Please use She/They pronouns ;) I'm also on mastodon if you prefer that way of communicating.
As a final word, I'd also like to thank Beto for supporting the project and providing the space here!
Hope you have a great day, x
Fascinating read, yeah I’m very interested in your work! I feel like my local scene changed a lot during covid, I know I absolutely got way more bedroom oriented personally during that time and have been bleeping away since then
Thanks for the reply and your interest in the topic! This takes away a bit of the anxiety after having posted that chunk of text about the project (always takes a bit of courage to start sth like this to be fair)
Fascinating to read that you feel things changed a lot with covid. To me, it's been pretty much the same than before, even though I had a lot more inner peace and in general calmer days to sit down and do music during lockdowns, so I got a lot more accomplished. Something I often struggle with now after.
Curious to hear what you noticed had changed in your local scene, but only if you feel like sharing ;)
Oh yeah so I was engaged with lots of smaller in-person events and house shows, focussed on more experimental and improvised music. A mix of electronic and instrumental. Lots of groovebox and synth syncing. I got pretty into ableton, and purchased an interface with 5 pin midi so I could control older synths and also record the midi outs to possibly reuse later.
Some notable highlights include one occasion when we had four korg electribes synced up and did a set that way. We joked that perhaps this was the most that had ever been used together anywhere in the world lol.
Everyone was addicted to vaping at this point in time, back when the massive cloud producing box mods were still more popular than the smaller cartridge vapes. I mention this just because I have so many fond memories of sitting in these dimmed rooms, with the lights from all of our machines flashing and diffusing through the fruity smelling cloud we were sitting in.
That’s how small and irrelevant my “scene” was btw lol, that we could sit and fill these indoor spaces with vapor without issue. I wouldn’t want to give the impression that my experience is a part of something much larger than it is, if it were to in any way affect your research. As an experimental artist I believe in delivering music to the people in front of me, and bearing witness to experience of others no matter how radical their expression. Along the way I’ve been to and thoroughly enjoyed performances of circuit bending as well as both ambient and harsh noise, some of which I credit as being the most important and moving artistic experiences of my life. But a crowd of 30 people was something I considered “ultramassive” haha, like selling out a stadium for us. More often there would be only three or four people present who were not making music themselves.
A group of open minded and charitably-thinking people to say the least, so when the virus was getting going there was an immediate agreement not to risk any in-person events. Then we began experimenting with the process itself, via primarily online means. We developed a file-sharing structure for snippets to be uploaded and processed by others automatically, created a discord server where we met weekly to keep the element of socialization, did weekly themed events where we all worked on small projects to listen to. Many people used the time to invest in furthering their music knowledge beyond what they had grown accustomed to.
I myself during this time found a renewed passion for the guitar, and began writing and singing some more folk inspired things. It became somewhat spirit crushing to sit at my computer all day at work, then come home and do it again all night. So sinking into my couch with the guitar and closing my eyes and getting wrapped into the moment became a very powerfully relaxing and meditative experience. I found myself singing about things that were very therapeutic for me to process and put into words, and propelled me into a process of joy and healing.
A difficult point to make without sounding insecure to some haha, but for me, having access to this experience is the payment for my art. I can tell, because I am not delusional, that my 90 minute meandering soundscapes are not going to make a big influence on the wider world of music, nor frankly will my attempts at more traditional music. But they have changed me, for the better by far, and by extension they have in many small ways benefited and will continue to benefit the lives of the people who come to know me.
Anyway, apologies for so much rambling, the last few days have been very stressful and I’ve been reminiscing a lot. TL;DR: we would get together often to jam, transitioned to bouncing stems and producing more planned recordings during the pandemic, and have now basically continued on with that procedural shift while also bringing in the different styles people explored during that period of isolation we all experienced