Ellie Goulding’s recent YouTube performances of songs from her latest album, Brightest Blue, demonstrates emerging XR “mixed reality” technology in a stunning fashion. Mixed reality combines live performance and computer-generated virtual imagery to augment and enhance the live performances of musicians, dancers, and other performers. Goulding’s XR-enhanced performances during the launch of her new album have so far included Brightest Blue and New Heights, which were both directed by Giorgio Testi.

The performances feature Goulding performing on a stage with live off-stage musical accompaniment while surrounded by evocative visual imagery. The aesthetic stands out for its subtlety and excellent, cohesive art direction. The beauty of the technology is that the videos are uncannily somewhere between ordinary reality and the type of CGI that viewers are accustomed to seeing within heavily edited videos.

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Paradigm agent Mike Malak has urged to live business to take advantage of the opportunities offered by new technology.

Speaking in Music Week’s recent feature on how modern technology is reshaping the concert experience in the age of Covid-19, Malak likened the current situation to the issues facing the record business around the turn of the century.

“This is another version of when the record industry was going through trouble in the early 2000s with Napster,” he said. “That eventually birthed iTunes and streaming because the industry was backed into a corner – and I think COVID has just sped up something that was going to happen anyway.

“The legacy of this period can be that we work out new revenue streams for artists. I don’t think it would save us from not having live shows in the future, but it could protect us to a point where you’d be able to ride things out.”

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It seems as if audio and fast cars are converging.  Aston Martin Red Bull Racing have teamed up with IRIS, an audio technology company, in a bid to bring fans closer to the track, with the launch of a limited edition state-of-the-art wireless IRIS Flow Headphones.

IRIS is a company that’s backed by music industry leaders, including Queen’s drummer, Roger Taylor, and Concord, the world’s largest independent music company. The IRIS technology uses a proprietary algorithm that the company claims can restore sound quality lost during the recording process; making the music and audio sound as good as it did when live.

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The sounds of school will change when music students return to learn this year.

One expert says students are more ready than ever to take their tunes online.

“What that’s going to do is break down the barriers that we have had about fear of technology and the idea of performance,” said Christopher Cayari, assistant professor of music education at Purdue University.

Music-making research, projects, technologies and literacy usually occurs within three dispositions:

1. Do-it-yourself
2. Do-it-with-others
3. Do-it-for-others

“We’re used to selfies now. We’re used to holding a camera up and taking a picture of ourselves. We’re used to taking videos of ourselves and putting them on Snapchat, on Facebook, on YouTube,” Cayari told KATU News. “That makes it so there’s less of a barrier for students when they start to make music and record themselves.”

The lack of in-person music education in the fall could still put a burden on the development of children.

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In K-12 music classes and performances may look different this fall, but creativity and music-making technology will mean classes won’t be silenced, one expert says.

“There are so many online tools out there that music educators can use to bring students together during the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Christopher Cayari, assistant professor of music education in the Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Design, Art, and Performance at Purdue University.

“One option is for programs to host online concerts or performances through the recording and mixing of virtual ensembles and individual performances,” Cayari says.

Platforms like Soundtrap by Spotify and Protools are great resources for sound editing. Other software like Flipgrid and Adobe Premiere do video editing, while Acapella by PicPlayPost and BandLab are compilation apps available for mobile devices to create musical productions amid the pandemic.

Cayari encourages music educators to experiment with these kinds of software to make music with their students, and the skills they develop while distance learning can then be carried into physical classrooms after the pandemic is over.

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As we’ve said before: We can’t do this without you!

Thanks to everyone who helped make this our best fundraiser to date!  With your help, we are a big step closer to getting our Live Music in the Schools program off the ground.  See below to check out our results.

If you would like to help by purchasing some items directly, check out our moving forward page here.

Thank You:

Step aside Zoomers, these kids and their music teachers deserve the title as much as you. With the closure of schools and tuition centers during the COVID-19 Circuit Breaker and Phase 1 periods in Singapore, music schools offering instrumental lessons saw no exception.

Singapore-based music school, The Music Circle, pivoted quickly to allow lessons to continue virtually. Using a mix of cloud-based notation software, interactive illustration tools, and working with parents to adjust their children to a new environment for learning, group classes and music camps were able to be translated digitally.

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Call me a fool, but I have never been very invested in a speaker. My focus would be on the lyrics of the song and as long as I got to hum along with the lyrics I was a happy soul. This cocoon of mine shattered after I took an interest in product design and joined Yanko! The sheer variety and functionality of the speaker designs we showcase have made me a fan of these designs, with a special focus on interactive speakers. The process of manually changing a speaker’s controls now feels like an almost meditative process to me and now that I have a better collection of speakers with me, I still find myself in awe when a designer mixes this essentially physical product with a physical interaction that helps us feel the melody. This is the collection curated here today – speakers that attune themselves to your needs – be it associating color to music, using non-traditional interfaces or adding a new digital element to the design, each speaker will inspire you to look at this humble everyday object in a whole new light!

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Laura Tahja Johnson of Brooklyn Park was driving her second-grader Niko home from She Rock She Rock music camp years ago when suddenly a little voice piped up from the back seat.

“ ‘Mom, do you wanna know what we did today? We ripped up stereotypes,’ ” Johnson recalled Niko saying. “They literally ripped up magazines of female stereotypes and talked about that sort of empowerment. That’s when I knew that this camp was definitely a good thing.”

Niko and twin sister Ellie Johnson, who both just completed eighth grade, will return to She Rock camp this summer — the seventh consecutive year for Niko, sixth for Ellie — with a major twist. The sessions will be virtual due to COVID-19, and the focus will be on studio technology instead of rocking out on guitars, drums and other analog instruments.

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The business owes much of its wealth to the work of Black artists but has just a handful of Black executives in its most senior jobs. Companies large and small say they’re devoted to change.

What’s the fastest way to put music industry money into the hands of its Black creators? A small Swedish synthesizer manufacturer has a plan.

Teenage Engineering, which makes sleekly designed, retro-sounding machines adored by dance-music producers, will soon begin sharing sales revenue with a set of Black musicians and other artists of color in the United States in recognition of their role in popularizing the company’s products.

“This is not charity,” Emmy Parker, the company’s chief brand officer, said in an interview. “Not only is it the right thing to do, but it is also good for our business.”

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