The Four Fields of Music

Participatory

In participatory music making, there is no distinction between artists and audience members. The success and effectiveness of this particular field of music is judged based on the level of participation of everyone involved. In this example, the dancers playing the rhythm game are making beats. Everyone is expected to participate, and keep adding to the rhythm until one of the people messes up. Since participatory music does not have a skill level requirement, there is no set hierarchy. Everyone is allowed to participate,and the music making is not rehearsed. As a result, there are limitations on the quality of music that can be made. For example, the person that messed up the rhythm and caused the game to end in the video may not be as skilled as the other dancers. One advantage of participatory music is that it is open, and the possibilities for the types of music can constantly change and grow depending on who is participating. Participatory music making is not highly valued in American society because everyone is expected to participate. Americans value being in the audience or being entertained more than participating in the music.

  

Presentational

When music is made by an artist or a group, and there is an audience watching, there is a definite separation. This type of music making is presentational. Strict rehearsals often go into the process of presentational music making, and there is a set skill level among the performers. In the example below from the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, Beyonce is doing a presentational performance of her single, Single Ladies. There is an obvious separation between Beyonce and the audience, and even the other performers. This is an example of hierarchy that is present in presentational performances. Presntational music making is one of the most valued fields of music making in American society. This is due to the level of talent that most performers that make music in a presenational style for an audience have. One of the limitations that of presentational music making is that it cannot change or progress. It always has to be performed the way that it was rehearsed. However, having strict rehearsals and highly skilled performers gives the possibility of a perfect performance.

 

High Fidelity  High fidelity music includes sounds that index live music. The music that is made sounds like what an artist would create during a live performance. High fidelity music is any form of recorded music that can be recreated by performers during live presenational music making. In some cases, studio engineers have control over the outcome of the sounds and not the artists because the engineers are in charge of editing and manipulating the sounds that artists make to resemble a live performance. The video below is a recording of the song Happy by The Maine. The song was recorded live with the full band simultaneously in a recording studio and then edited by a sound engineer. This makes it very close to a live performance but is not a live performance because it is a recording. One of the limitations of high fidelity music making is that the artists have less control over the music, and sound engineers have more control. One of the advantages of high fidelity music is the ability to sell the actual recordings in large amounts. This advantage is what makes high fidelity music more valuable to Americans in a capitalist society because it can be sold.

Studio Audio Art Studio audio art is music that is computer generated, and there are no expectations of it being performed live. There is a certain amount of knowledge and skill required to be able to produce studio audio art. In Hoodie Allen's I Am Not a Robot, there is a small portion of Marina and the Diamond's You Are Not a Robot sampled and changed by computers to sound higher. The song also has a computed generated track. Studio audio art is not as highly valued in American society because there is less exposure to this particular field of music. One of the limitations of studio audio art is that it cannot be played live. One possibility is that the music can always be created to have a distinct sound, and the artists that created the music have more control over their art than artists creating music in any other field.