The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Blame the Nordics:

    According to Dagens Nyheter, Firefly Entertainment is doing a roaring trade in what some would call “fake artists” on Spotify.

    These are the now-well-known pseudonymous artists on the streaming platform – artists with no discernible online footprint – whose music fills up many of Spotify’s own key mood and chillout playlists.

    For a long time, music industry figures have wondered aloud whether Spotify has deals in place that see it pay less in royalties for streams of music from “fake artists” – whose cumulative streams now sit in the billions – than streams of artists signed to major record companies.

    In its report Dagens Nyheter obtained a list of 830 ‘fake artist’ names linked to Firefly, and discovered that at least 495 of these artists have music on first-party Spotify playlists.



    An insider writes:


    More importantly, since there is no longer any cost to access a single piece of content, music for more niche use cases like meditation, working, reading, studying or putting your baby (or yourself) to sleep are becoming important habits. It turns out, most people have more time in their day for these activities, than for actively looking for and listening to Thom Yorke’s recent single. In fact, most users who come home from work just want “something chill” to listen to and could not be bothered what artists will be part of that session.



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  3. #2

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    Yep, the economic shift in music changed what music is demanded and produced. That's why everything in the popular arena got way faker after the turn of the millenium with high speed internet, file sharing, then youtube. Yet, we still have the 'real' older music and some artists. Listening to some emo from 1999.


  4. #3

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    People no longer listen to music they have chosen; they hear music selected by machines.

  5. #4

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    As long as that music is calm jazz I’m fine to let the algorithm run.

  6. #5

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    Hi, L,
    I was listening to some "Oldies from the 70's"--Aretha, Sam and Dave, Wilson Pickett, Luther Vandross, Teddy Pendergrass, Stylistics, etc, the other day and after about 5 minutes, I realized that none of the artists were singing the songs. They were all "covers." Also, with the sound effects available today, musicianship is always questioned--did someone really play that on an instrument? We live in a world of quick fixes, shortcuts, and faux entertainment and the performers they call 'Stars" are nothing short of pathetic. This, for me, is why 90% of the music discussed on this Forum is by musicians who died, at least, 20 years ago. I hate to always beat a dead horse, but we are in a real cultural decline here in the U.S.
    Marinero

    P.S. Is "Rap Artist" an oxymoron?????

  7. #6

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    OK

  8. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by Litterick
    People no longer listen to music they have chosen; they hear music selected by machines.
    The crux of the situation in the age of "You no longer own anything, you are renting everything - your home, your car, your amusements. All of 'your' things are Ours and you are paying through the nose for it. All of your things are belong to Us." "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," the famous phrase from the American Declaration of Independence, was in its first draft "Life, Liberty, and Property." Was Jefferson hedging here? Had he glimpsed the future, and decided it wouldn't sell?

    "Do not adjust your set. We control the horizontal. We control the vertical. Do not adjust your set." - The Outer Limits, an ancient TV (remember airwaves, and the public "ownership" thereof?) program in the Before Time. The era of the backyard mechanic and trading stamps and polio vaccines. And Beatniks and berets and BeBop. People were rollin' their own, and liking it.

    What happened?

  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by Litterick
    People no longer listen to music they have chosen; they hear music selected by machines.
    Is it supply side? I think it's more demand side. People don't have to pay for music - the masses can determine their dumb music more - then that is what is produced.

  10. #9

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    Many of us who were here in the ‘Before Time’ would agree people today, ourselves included, are much less engaged with music. Could it be the loss of the physical involvement in the listening experience?

    The trip to the record store; browsing bins and selecting an album. Taking it home and breaking the sealed wrapper. Gotta clean it before that first play. Then, holding only by the edges, placing the disc in the turntable and dropping that needle. You sit down to listen; can’t wander too far because you are going to have to flip that record in about 15 minutes. Cover art, liner notes, even the occasional poster. Once off the turntable you have to decide how to organize the albums. Genre / artist / release date / top 5 / mood . . .

    Listening to music was the experience; it was not an automated backdrop to everything else.

  11. #10

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    Litterick, I saw the article in DN but brushed past it, will have to go back.

  12. #11

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    Exactly what is fake about these artists? Are they just juicy names for algorithms (I kind of doubt that)?

    Musicians making a living off of playing background music have existed ever since there were hallways, elevators etc. to fill with muzak.
    See also Mantovani - Wikipedia ...

    EDIT: and their trademark trick (quite interesting really, different from the "just not playing at the same time in a controlled fashion" approach I thought it was, but equally difficult): Cascading strings - Wikipedia

  13. #12

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    A.I doesn't need any royalties and is able to create music so can't tell what is behind those pseudonyme but I won't be surprised if there was some algorythm music, but I can be wrong.

  14. #13

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    Most of my teenage and elementary school age students don't really listen to music, don't follow any artists or collect music in any form. They just listen to whatever comes across, in media, radio or YouTube.

    Music used to be relevant in other ways behind the notes as well, that's one thing missing from today's mainstream scene.

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by RJVB
    Exactly what is fake about these artists? Are they just juicy names for algorithms (I kind of doubt that)?

    Musicians making a living off of playing background music have existed ever since there were hallways, elevators etc. to fill with muzak.
    See also Mantovani - Wikipedia ...
    They are invented by the streaming company. The listeners do not hear real music by real performers, but music invented to avoid royalties. This practice is nothing like Mantovani or Muzak. Mantovani was a personality. Muzak is a corporation, but it does not deceive.

  16. #15

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    This isn't a new idea. 1979.



  17. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by Litterick
    [FONT=book antiqua]The listeners do not hear real music by real performers, but music invented to avoid royalties. This practice is nothing like Mantovani or Muzak. Mantovani was a personality. Muzak is a corporation, but it does not deceive.
    So what do they hear? We've come a long way since the A.I. that composed Popcorn (and follow-up non-hits that were so similar that I think they were never even released) so maybe part of the offering is indeed conceived and performed by software. But that leaves a remaining portion that *is* performed by humans, be it by playing an instrument or by manipulating samplers and the like (a practice which isn't exactly new either). Studio musicians, those professionals who've rarely ever received credit beyond the fine print of the liner notes or CD booklet?

    Mantovani had his orchestra and undoubtedly competitors who were never mentioned (is that worse or better than crediting fake performers?) and Muzak has become the term for all nameless background music in parts of the world (I honestly thought it was a Dutch contraction of "music" and "achtergrond", background until today).

  18. #17

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    [QUOTE=Alter;1196821...

    Music used to be relevant in other ways behind the notes as well, that's one thing missing from today's mainstream scene.[/QUOTE]

    Yes, pre millenium young people found their identity through their favourite artists. The artists often stood for something greater than just the music, there were attitudes, ideologies, heck, even philosophies ! And the culture was shared and understood by all, going all the way back to the 60's with the Stones vs the Beatles, most people camped on one side or the other, sure some liked both, and some liked neither, preferring perhaps one of the more obscure groups. But it was a shared culture, everyone knew what the going choices were and knew why they chose what they did wilfully as well as what they wilfully rejected.

    Yes, they were simpler times (just like every generation before them going back all the way to Adam and frickin' Eve), but you knew where you stood and drew identity from that. OK, I'm willing to concede that perhaps it was more a case of thinking you knew where you stood, and that might have been transient for many. However, for teenagers forming their world view, sometimes their music heroes were more influential than their friends, families or teachers. Now one might argue "how is this better than today- you had less choice, you had influential pop stars with a limited world view, you'd have to be crazy to insist you had it better then, grandpa ! ". Yep, we were dreaming if we thought Dylan was gonna save us from the evils of Government and Media, or that the Beatles were gonna make everything groovy, or that the Sex Pistols were gonna really bring Anarchy to the UK, or that Nirvana were going to permanently wipe away soulless, meaningless machine made muzak for morons....

    But if we all accept (and I hope we do) that all is illusion anyway, then you may as well go down with something that makes you feel secure in your (limited) knowledge, and empowered (by the flawed or even fake courage of others - haha, I once thought Joe Strummer knew what was going on!). I work with young people and quizz them all the time and I'd never kid myself that I know what it's like to be young these days, but it seems to me that kids are getting their attitudes from either the woke Media, or the cynical internet's Conspiracy echo chambers, or from the loudest mouthed Rap artist of the day (yawn). The ones without strong attitudes seem lost and confused, rudderless in an ocean of doubt about, well, everything...

    So when I was a kid, I think I had a nicer time than most kids do today. "The Future Is Fake?" - sure, but then, in it's own way, so was the past, just in a "more fun" kinda way !
    Last edited by princeplanet; 05-08-2022 at 12:28 PM.

  19. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by Litterick
    People no longer listen to music they have chosen; they hear music selected by machines.
    Not me.

  20. #19

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    You can get the pedal, too.


  21. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by RJVB
    So what do they hear? We've come a long way since the A.I. that composed Popcorn (and follow-up non-hits that were so similar that I think they were never even released) so maybe part of the offering is indeed conceived and performed by software. But that leaves a remaining portion that *is* performed by humans, be it by playing an instrument or by manipulating samplers and the like (a practice which isn't exactly new either). Studio musicians, those professionals who've rarely ever received credit beyond the fine print of the liner notes or CD booklet?

    Mantovani had his orchestra and undoubtedly competitors who were never mentioned (is that worse or better than crediting fake performers?) and Muzak has become the term for all nameless background music in parts of the world (I honestly thought it was a Dutch contraction of "music" and "achtergrond", background until today).


    We are not talking about AI. We are not talking about background music. We are not talking about an equivalent to Mantovani and his Orchestra or, for that matter, Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians. We are talking about fabricated artists, that exist only so far as the Nordics have created them: they have a name and a repertoire, but they have no other existence. They fill the Spotify playlists because Spotify owns them, and thus does not have to pay royalties to real artists. Spotify has replaced real artistic creation and commercial production with fakes.

    This is nothing like Muzak, which is licensed and played in semi-public spaces, like hotel lobbies. It is nothing like Mantovani, who made albums bought by middle-aged people. It is like replacing the artists on the singles charts with clones.

    I think you should read the article before commenting further.
    Last edited by Litterick; 05-08-2022 at 05:37 PM.

  22. #21

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    Whatever. I don't care as long as it allows them to maintain their free offering and as long as they don't force it into the things I do listen to on their platform.

  23. #22

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    Spotify's share price is now less than the IPO, four years ago. Spotify needs to cut costs to increase profit. Jazz guitar is hardly likely to be much of a burden – the royalties paid will be small, because so few people listen to jazz these days. But still, Spotify might decide to have some recordings made – jazz musicians are not expensive and a writer could knock off a few songs in no time.

    One day, you might find the jazz on your chosen stream to be disconcerting. The musicians are not quite the standard you would expect; nobody swings, the solos are perfunctory. The songs are unfamiliar – but not remote; they are pastiches of standards. The music offers you no comfort; it is uncanny. You are in a state of unheimlich. You will no longer be listening to jazz but to an approximation of it, made by a corporation to meet consumer demand at minimal cost.

  24. #23

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    Regarding the owning vs renting thing, the most important is home, in point of existential. Is not it, that in the US it was always way shifted to the direction to the renting side compared to Europe?

    In age 30, here the majority of people own her/his own home, and as a child was groing up the in parents owned home.

    ***

    Yes I know owning LPs vs renting music via Spotify, etc is a different for an individual, but the ability to listen everything also means liberty, so at least there is two side of the coin.

    Regarding cars, I think this is an enhancement in eco direction. The era when the "man" definig himself by the car he is owning is slowly started fading. A car is just a tool to go one location to other, like train, airplane.

    I always wondering when one cares her/his freedom, why focus on objects, and why not focus on *abilities to access* and last but not least freedom her/his thoughts, underestimating the impact of media and other influencer chanels of the freedom of formulating and discovering our own thoughts.

  25. #24

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    The car is a machine for living in (to paraphrase Corb). Owners carry around so much stuff in their cars; they are satellites of home. If they were merely tools, we would share them.

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gabor
    Regarding the owning vs renting thing, the most important is home, in point of existential. Is not it, that in the US it was always way shifted to the direction to the renting side compared to Europe?

    In age 30, here the majority of people own her/his own home, and as a child was groing up the in parents owned home.
    Great for you if fthat's still possible where you live! Here in Western Europe housing shortage has made prices soar so much that it's become impossible for "normal people". Esp. if you want to live in a famous/historic city "centre". AFAIK you can't even buy France's social housing ("HLM"), except when it's "desocialised".

    AFAIK we never owned the music we bought, only the carrier and a license to play privately. This is how I'll continue to invest in new music; pay a 1-time price for this license, possibly more if I want to have the physical support - I'm not about to pay a monthly fee allowing me to listen to music I won't listen to anymore than I listen to the ads Spotify inserts in their free stream.

    So ... what I suspected all along turns out to be true
    Spotify might decide to have some recordings made – jazz musicians are not expensive and a writer could knock off a few songs in no time. [...] The musicians are not quite the standard you would expect
    I'd say "good for them" if a streaming platform gives "not-the-standard-you'd-expect" but still very real musicians a chance even if they won't get much name-recognition from it. Calling them fakes seems like an arrogant over-generalisation to me