José Bowen: Beethoven the businessman
José Bowen is an accomplished musician and teacher who explores how technology has shaped the history of music. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
I thought of for this talk,
j'ai pensé pour ce talk :
I am going to tell you the story,
je vais vous raconter l'histoire,
for yourselves.
was that I would tell the story
de la musique, depuis le début,
literally from the beginning,
au martèlement du rock.
the first 10,000 years just sailed by.
années sont écoulées.
if you want to make music,
si vous vouliez faire de la musique,
des instruments... ce style de choses.
instruments, those sorts of things.
we start to get a performing class,
on commence à avoir des classes d'arts,
who were really good at pounding rocks.
we're still basically doing this.
c'est encore la même chose.
for the most part,
complicated instruments,
in the 18th century,
écouter de la musique,
you had to go to a civic event,
ou à un événement,
making music live.
jouer en direct.
social interaction.
toujours l'interaction.
there was no record player.
c'était en dehors de la maison.
you had to get out of the house.
no music in your house.
from the beginning,
together, these two disruptions.
ces disruptions.
in the 18th century,
that you could mass-produce cheaply.
peut produire en masse, à bas prix.
un instrument pas trop cher,
that's not too expensive,
if the second disruption hadn't happened
disruption en même temps :
how to do cheap music printing.
and the other kind of printing?
des partitions à bas prix ?
to distribute sheet music?
of the American Revolution,
de la révolution américaine,
the first time this happened,
when, all of a sudden,
I've got to go hear Mozart."
se déplacer pour écouter Mozart.
to actually go hear Mozart.
you didn't download Mozart.
Mozart, on ne le téléchargeait pas,
at least not easily or cheaply.
une partition de Mozart pas cher.
pour les écouter.
in fact, there's a new market.
y avait un nouveau marché.
to actually go to London.
d'aller à Londres.
and mass-distributed,
et distribuées,
and everybody else will play my music."
tout le monde jouera ma musique. »
est changée pour tout le monde.
of music for everybody.
changes the global pyramid,
la pyramide mondiale,
of composers and performers --
de musiciens, compositeurs -
du Bach à votre mariage,
d'étendre son travail.
you're starting to see a theme.
nous voyons là un thème.
for music delivery;
le piano mécanique.
player, the gramophone, the player piano.
une partition de Rachmaninoff,
Rachmaninoff sheet music,
to the concert hall.
of recording device.
dans un autre enregistreur.
you're Doc Ross in Texas,
du Texas, vous êtes Doc Ross,
market, you've got it nailed.
there's this new thing called "radio."
chose appelée « radio ».
and Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman.
Duke Ellington et Benny Goodman.
has gone global,
and digital files and Garage Band,
numériques et Garage Band,
all over again.
une fois de plus.
about these two guys.
parler de ces deux gars.
are entrepreneurs.
sont des entrepreneurs.
are software designers.
des créateurs de logiciels.
on that piece of hardware over there.
marche sur du matériel.
if you have my piece of paper.
si on a une partition.
does it sound good?
they weren't very useful.
elles ne sont plus très utiles.
dessous de verres,
are software designers.
des créateurs de logiciels.
they also both live at a time
qu'ils ont vécu à une époque
is changing very quickly.
âgés pour se rappeler,
old enough to remember,
back to Windows whatever,
and your love of Bill Gates,
votre amour pour Bill Gates,
software package came out,
nouveau logiciel sortait,
he had this instrument up on top,
he doesn't have a piano that can do this.
de pianos français -
do you want to get that piano?
que tout le monde l'adopte.
have to adopt your technology.
your fastest, latest computer,
votre dernier ordinateur,
all the memory.
la mémoire sera utilisée.
Beethoven a new piano.
à Beethoven un nouveau piano.
he writes a piece that can do that.
une œuvre qui correspond.
Beethoven piano sonata,
de piano de Beethoven,
and you've got a five-octave piano
un piano à cinq octaves.
latest technology last year.
flambante de l'année dernière.
piano sonata, and what happens?
nouvelle sonate de Beethoven, et quoi ?
the same relationship with his audience
avec son public
smarter than Bill Gates.
intelligent que Bill Gates.
his new Érard piano,
son nouveau piano Erard,
concerto pour piano,
and he and uses all those extra notes.
toutes ses notes en plus.
and gives the concert?
he has in Vienna
on the piano. It's great.
n'a cet engin récent. »
has one of these latest things.
publishes piano sonatas
il publie toujours les sonates
about Beethoven -- basically wrong.
de Beethoven est faux.
le marché populaire -
for the popular market --
qu'il allait jouer lui-même,
himself, but the piano sonatas --
in some part of Southern Italy,
quelque part dans le sud de l'Italie,
disruptions in music technology?
disruptions sur la technologie musicale ?
les gens, ont réagi ?
and they really all worked the same way.
and the piano.
l'impression et le piano.
is: it redefines the product.
redéfinir le produit.
that you can then take home.
pouvez rapporter à la maison.
ça devient un enregistrement,
un fichier numérique.
it becomes a digital file.
you've got to go listen to Bach;
il faut aller écouter Bach -
and we've got composers,
des compositeurs,
la musique, comme vous venez de le voir.
manipulate music like you just saw.
Count Basie and Benny Goodman,
Count Basie et Benny Goodman,
with your local band as much anymore.
de votre orchestre local.
listen to Benny Goodman some more."
écouter du Benny Goodman. »
that you didn't use to hear.
que vous n'entendiez pas auparavant.
we take away some social interaction.
on diminue l'interaction sociale.
play Beethoven at home.
jouer Beethoven chez vous.
Mozart à la maison.
acheter la partition, et chez vous,
the sheet music, you can go home,
that do the same thing.
of social interaction.
une nouvelle expérience.
experience each time.
I can play it slower.
the experience now.
s'agrandit et le marché aussi.
the marketplace gets bigger.
in those music stores goes up.
les magasins de musique augmente.
you can't always tell what you want.
on ne peut pas dire ce qu'on veut.
How do you pick?
Comment se décider ?
« Qui est le musicien à la mode ? »
that's not on the list:
to write fake Chopin
composer du faux Chopin
comforted by the fact,
aurait été réconforté en pensant :
who buy fake Chopin
qui ont acheté du faux Chopin
intelligent, vous savez ce qu'il fait ?
you know what he does?
France, Allemagne et Angleterre
France, Germany and England
d'auteur internationaux,
international copyright,
published on the same day.
d'un pays à l'autre.
sont faits exprès,
are different on purpose,
de tracer le piratage.
to track who was a pirate.
that Sony thought of.
auquel Sony aurait pensé.
it makes it more global,
à plus de gens, c'est plus mondial,
to have a marketing filter.
d'avoir un filtre de marketing.
that's not always direct.
pas seulement en direct.
à Internet n'a eu lieu »...
of disruptions in music technology
dans la technologie musicale
is the same as we see
because of these things called books.
car on vend des livres.
novels without books.
in the record business.
only because that was the technology
car c'était la technologie
gas or buying food;
l'achat de gaz ou de la nourriture :
points all over the place.
a different distribution system.
de distribution différent.
about what we're selling.
se demander ce qu'elles vendent.
interaction is not going to go away.
ne va pas disparaître.
comme nous l'avons montré,
here, as we've demonstrated today,
to know each other.
mieux nous connaître.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
José Bowen - Professor of musicJosé Bowen is an accomplished musician and teacher who explores how technology has shaped the history of music.
Why you should listen
In his over thirty-year career in music, José Bowen has appeared internationally with artists like Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bobby McFerrin, written over one hundred scholarly articles, and composed a Pulitzer Prize nominated symphony. He began teaching at Stanford University in 1982 before moving on to University of Southampton, Georgetown University, Miami University, and Southern Methodist University -- where he now resides as Dean of the Meadows School of the Arts, and Algur H. Meadows Chair and Professor of Music.
José Bowen | Speaker | TED.com