How has Covid-19 helped to accelerate digital revolution in music around the world?
- ReNew Vision – the streamlined platform of Hong Kong’s New Vision Arts Festival – introduces live online performances and storied music videos
- Programmes curated by celebrated musicians highlight rapid changes in the way music now performed, shared and enjoyed amid Covid-19 pandemic
Technology’s impact on the world of music – through decades of evolution of instruments, tools and other equipment – saw the Beatles and producer George Martin, and the Beach Boys all experimenting in the mid-1960s with things such as sampling, multitrack recording machines and tape-delay double tracking.
A decade later Queen created its groundbreaking, six-minute operatic rock song Bohemian Rhapsody, featuring multiple overdubbed harmonies.
The digital revolution has seen musical transformation gathering pace, not only through hi-tech production techniques but also through greater accessibility: the days of must-have Walkmans and iPods have now given way to music for the masses, via ubiquitous smartphones and AirPods or other cordless earbuds.
The global Covid-19 pandemic has not only transformed our lives but also helped to further accelerate music’s evolution, with musicians around the world forced to go online to share and perform their music because of the ban on performances at venues.
Members of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, for example, are among the many musicians who have embraced the “new normal”, by offering online performances to stay connected with classical music lovers. In July the orchestra broadcast a live-streamed 2020/21 Season Preview Concert to introduce next season’s programme.
