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Digital Music – Maximum Sound In Minimal Space
Posted by: | CommentsTime was that you had to visit a record store to get the music you wanted. Later, a membership to Columbia House meant you could easily order music from the comfort of your own home, but you had to wait. Technology advanced and media got smaller, delivery faster. Vinyl records were replaced with magnetic tape, cassettes and 8-tracks, then compact discs and even smaller compact discs. Silly me, I thought other than making the disc smaller what could possibly replace CD’s? Well, as usual, technology has kept the pace and left me flailing in it’s dusty wake. Digital music has revolutionized the way we acquire and listen to music. Now when you want an album or even a single song, it’s as easy as pointing and clicking, waiting a few seconds for the download and you’re rockin’ and rollin’. Or groovin’ to the tunes. Or gettin’ down with the beat, etc., etc.
Oh, and check your downtown area for a local music store. You’re more likely to see a Starbucks or 7-Eleven.
Roots In The Fatherland
MP3, or MPEG Audio Layer III, got its start in Germany in 1987 when the Fraunhofer Institut began doing research on the subject and started the EUREKA project EU147. Karlheinz Brandenburg, sometimes called The Father of MP3, explains how MP3 almost never got off the ground. The code, for some reason just would not work. Luckily, just before they were to submit the project to the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) subcommittee, the group that oversees standards for the industry, they found the compilation error that was causing the problems.
A company called Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft now owns the patents and licenses the rights to its use.
The Technology – In Simple Terms
The amount of data or information in just one second of CD quality music is about 1.4 megabits or almost 1 and a half million pieces of information per second. MP3 technology compresses the file, shrinking its size to a more manageable 1/12 the original with almost no information loss. This means more information delivered more quickly to your MP3 player for better sound quality. So it’s not a matter of storage but a matter of transferring so much data in so little time. MP3 technology squishes that data so more of it fits into a smaller space, namely the pipeline from your player through the wire connecting to your ear piece.
MP3 Players
The first successful MP3 player was developed by Tomislav Uzelac in 1997. and was called AMP MP3 Playback Engine. A year later, two university students, Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev ported it to the Windows platform to create WinAmp. Frauenhofer was actually first to create the player but the software was unsuccessful.
Now we have all manner of choices for our listening enjoyment. With offerings from Sony, Apple, Panasonic, Samsung and more, we have an endless array of players, with a multitude of features like phones, video, internet and others too numerous to mention here.
The Industry
Taking full advantage of this new technology, Napster picked up the MP3 ball and ran with it. I would have been surprised if someone hadn’t come up with the idea. The still growing community of Napsterites was able to use MP3 technology to listen to their own music and share it with anybody who had an internet connection. While this was great for the community, not to mention Napster, the music industry was less thrilled with it. They reasoned: Nobody is going to buy music when they can share it for free… They had a point. Napster still has free music but has changed its policy in response to the industry’s reaction. You’ll need to purchase a song if you want to listen to it more than 3 times.
For The Consumer
MP3 brings with it a freedom that no other music technology has before. The devices are small enough to bring anywhere. They fit so much music into such a tiny space, you never have to hear the same song twice or carry boxes of tapes or cd’s. If you do need to update your collection, more songs are an internet connection away. No searching through stacks and stacks of records or tapes to find a song. Pull up a menu, highlight your selection and your good to go!
The Digital Music Revolution has changed the way we buy and listen to the music we love. We can take our music wherever we go, never missing a beat. The technology behind MP3 no doubt isn’t finished in its tinkerings and soon enough we’ll have yet another incarnation to astonish us with its amazing breakthroughs and its somehow even higher quality sound. I don’t know what direction this new technology will take but if I could guess, I would say it involves surgery. I’ve been wrong before though.
Well, I have to go into town to run some errands now so I’ll be off now, heading out on the open road. I think I’ll pop in an 8-track and listen to some Grateful Dead.
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Download iPhone Music
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Putting music on an iPhone is pretty easy. If you have ever owned an iPod, you should be a pro at this by now. However, if this is your first foray into the portable mp3 player world, let’s take a look at how to get music onto an iPhone.
You need music; the question is where to get it. The first place to look is on your own shelf. If you have a vast selection of CDs or even just a few, you probably want to be able to listen to them without having to lug around your CD collection everywhere. To get the music from the CDs into your iPhone, you will need a computer with software that rips the music onto the computer’s hard drive. This software will convert the music into an .mp3 file so the iPhone can read it.
This software can be found anywhere on the Internet. If you use a search engine you can find a free software download this way. You can also use iTunes to get music into your iTunes library. When ripping your music, make sure to use at least a 192 bit rate. It will make your music sound better while listening to it. But stay consistent with the bit rate. If you constantly change the bit rate for different songs, you will hear a different sound quality. It can get pretty annoying.
The Internet is also a good resource for downloading music. Most of the time these songs are already in an .mp3 format so there is no need to rip the song. Once you download the song, it is yours and you can listen to it as often or as many times as you like.
You have to be careful when downloading music. The p2p and torrent sites may seem like a good idea when you find them because the music is free, but they are not. First, the sites are illegal and you can get in trouble. The fines would be astronomical, a lot more than you would have paid for the music. Secondly, this is a great way to catch a virus or any other type of bug that will mess with your computer. P2p sites are not monitored for malware, so your computer can get easily infected.
Look for sites that offer a one-time administration fee. These range from $20 to $50. These types of sites are great because for the one-time fee you have access to thousands of files. You will end getting more than your money worth with these sites.
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Recognize a Good Music Therapist
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Good for you! It looks like you finally found a music therapist! Now, in the words of Uncle Ben, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Music therapy is a profession working diligently to establish itself as a credible and legitimate therapy, so someone calling herself a music therapist has a lot to answer to. The average person hasn’t even heard of music therapy and surely isn’t familiar with the ins and outs of the field, so let me give you a leg up. Your music therapist should roughly resemble the following description.
EDUCATION: A music therapist will have an actual degree in music therapy (sounds so new age, doesn’t it?) from an accredited school of music, within a legitimate university. (This generally rules out most online programs.) This could be in the form of a bachelor’s degree or a bachelor’s equivalency and they might also have a master’s degree or even a PhD in music therapy. Higher education is all the rage these days. By the way, this means that she auditioned and was accepted based on her musical skill on a particular instrument, meaning she was pretty much on par with all those other elitist music students (I was one, so I can say bad things about us).
INTERNSHIP: MT students are required to complete a 6 month internship at a site that has been approved by the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA, musictherapy.org). Not only are they monitored and evaluated by the site’s music therapists, they also complete undergrad coursework during the internship for their professors back at school. Each university handles this a little differently…some schools will award just a plain music degree at the end of the student’s on-campus coursework, and then further bestow the music therapy degree once he finishes the internship. Others withhold any degree until the internship is complete. Either way, you can feel confident that your hand-picked therapist has worked her butt off to get an internship. The world of music therapy is small and the world of approved internships is even smaller and increasingly selective.
Often a student attempts to secure an internship with a population they are interested in. For example, I happen to enjoy psychiatry and thus, completed my internship in a psychiatric hospital. (Did I mention that I am, in fact, a GOOD music therapist? Thus my ability to comment on this topic.) Anyway, you definitely want to ask your MT about her internship (no matter his or her age-there are lots of “non-traditional” MTs out there who could have very likely entered the field at the astonishingly old age of 50 or get this-even older!).
BOARD CERTIFICATION: After MTs complete their internships, they are eligible to take the music therapy board certification exam. That’s right…your music therapist should be able to tell you all about her horrible experience at the “local testing center” where she was required to take her exam (mine was at a dirty H&R Block in a bad part of town). The exam is a comprehensive review of topics ranging from data collection and statistics to music theory to counseling models. If you pass, you get exciting initials to put at the end of your name (you also get to pay $80 a year to maintain those initials…not so exciting). Those initials are MT-BC, which stands for music therapist-board certified. It is absolutely essential that your music therapist carry those initials or at the VERY LEAST be preparing to sit for the exam. (She could be in music therapy no man’s land…between the end of her internship and the completion of the exam). If she doesn’t pass the test, you need to pass on her. Harsh, I know, but this world is rough.
ADHERENCE TO STANDARDS OF PRACTICE AND CODE OF ETHICS: A board certified music therapist is expected to practice according national standards and ethics. The standards provide a benchmark against which to measure a music therapy practice. I won’t insult you by explaining what ethics are. Anyway, as a consumer of music therapy, this is basically what you can expect to experience regarding the standards of practice:
Assessment-Your MT should complete a well-rounded assessment of the client, including at least the following: history, interviews with caregivers, and behavior both in and out of a musical setting.
Recommended Treatment Plan-After the assessment is complete, the MT will decide whether or not MT will be beneficial to client (usually yes, but sometimes not). The basis for this decision will be evident in the assessment report, of which you should absolutely have a copy. Such paperwork is not a secret and if your therapist ever declines to show you this assessment, dump her immediately. This treatment plan should also give the amount of treatment recommended (usually on a weekly basis) and what goals will be addressed over what time period (these goals should reflect what you were seeking, at least in part). A GOOD MT will give you the opportunity to agree or disagree with the projected course of treatment before anything can be implemented.
Appropriate Termination-A responsible music therapist will terminate therapy when goals are met or no further progress can be made.
CONTINUING EDUCATION V. RE-EXAMINATION: Once you are in a long-term relationship with a music therapist (ooh, commitment!), you will notice that she disappears every year or every other year around Thanksgiving. This is because she is attending a conference…the national conference to be more specific. And depending on where you live, she may disappear more often to attend smaller regional or state conferences. THIS IS A SIGN OF A GOOD MUSIC THERAPIST! She is undoubtedly participating in continuing education and more importantly for you, is combating burn-out. MTs are required to re-certify every 5 years either by accruing 100 hours of continuing education classes (CMTEs-continuing music therapy education) or by re-taking the certification exam. Now, what I am about to say is an extreme personal opinion-be wary of a MT who chooses to re-take the exam over completing the 100 hours of CMTEs. I say this because a person who chooses the exam is not necessarily keeping current with emerging research and/or new techniques and interventions. Over time, she will become a dinosaur…like the creepy librarian at my high school who put duct tape lines on the floor to keep us from looking at each other’s computers. Forgive your MT for her absences, for you shall be the benefactor.
YEARS OF EXPERIENCE: Lastly, there isn’t much that can substitute for experience. Only being a 5 year old therapist myself, I realize that I am risking a loss of business for those of us around my age. However, for anyone that has ever worked, you know that even ONE year of experience can put you light years ahead of those graduating behind you, so don’t totally count out the “young and inexperienced.” They do have the most recent research and “best practices” stored somewhere in their brains, even if they don’t know what to do with it yet. My point is, if you have someone that fits into all the above criteria and has at least one year of experience under her belt, she is probably going to work out just fine.
A FEW QUICK TIPS:
If your MT rarely plays live instruments and relies mostly on recorded music, get rid of her.
If your MT keeps no paperwork, turn her out on her ear.
If your MT is performing and not interacting, get your light saber and look threatening.
This article is by no means an exhaustive list of what makes someone a good music therapist. It is simply to give you, the non-music therapist, an idea of what to look for and expect. It would probably take me 30 articles to go into detail about the importance of interpersonal skills, to preferred models of practice, to something simple like payment and reimbursement. Like I said, the above is just a skeleton…lots more goes into making a whole body
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