What kind of popular music will we see in the world 10 years from now? Twenty years from now? I have relentlessly given my opinion that whatever kind of music is in store for the future, it will surely be even more experimental, unformulaic, and creative. But hey, maybe this theory is just my subconscious trying to make my hopes and dreams for the future of music a reality. 🙂
Some other questions that I have asked myself when thinking about the future of popular music and popular songs. What kind of genres will be popular 20 years from now? An even more mind-boggling question: what will the popular instruments be for making music and writing songs? What kind of crazy instruments might come out of near future technological advances?
I would like to first talk about the questions dealing with instruments. Looking through history, there is no doubt that a major change in technology will always create a major change for the music industry. Songwriters, musicians, and producers are eager to use the latest up-to-date instruments, software, and hardware to more easily and creatively make and distribute music. Who knows what new instruments will be availble 20 years from now. Thinking about your typical popular band, the bass guitar, electric guitar, keyboard, and drumset have been the instruments of choice for quite some time now. But these instruments can’t reign forever…can they? A friend of mine and I were discussing the possibility of “mind based” instruments becoming popular in the future. Whatever you need to write and make music is implanted right into your brain. You can then wirelessly connect your “brain instrument” to a speaker and manipulate the sounds coming out just by thinking about them. You could form a band with other mind musicians and play in front of your local audience as you stand shoulder to shoulder with your band mates, no instruments to come in between you and your audience, and stare blankly into space to start your song.
Wow.
As far as popular genres go, it doesn’t seem like rock n’ roll, rap, or country are going anywhere. Will a new genre only emerge alongside new instruments? I think so. And if no new popular instruments should appear… well the songwriters only other choice is to experiment more and more within your instrument and your genre as you slowly seem to run out of “new” and “exciting” things to do.
I’ll keep this one nice and short so as to allow plenty of time for contemplation on the topics just discussed. What do you think we will hear when we tune into our HHHHD radios in our flying cars 20 years from now?
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