Newspaper music
Reading last week's New Yorker -- I always seem to be reading last week's magazines -- I came across a review by Steven Shapin about what sounds like a fascinating book: "The Shock of the Old: Tecnology and Global History Since 1900" by David Edgerton.
One point Shapin makes in the review put me in the mind of thinking how it applies to newspapers and journalism.
Knowing about technology is not the same thing as understanding the scientific theories involved. Just as innovators commonly understand the fundamentals of a technology better than subsequent users, so users can acquire knowledge that would never have occurred to the innovators.
In 1817, Thomas Broadwood, a vastly successful English piano manufacturer, visited Beethoven in Vienna and, shortly after, sent the composer a top-of-the-line instrument. Which of these two men understood the piano better -- the craftsman-entrepreneur whose product adorned drawing rooms throughout Europe or the deaf genius whose works are a glory of piano repertoire? Or, for that matter, Liszt, who later owned the piano, and could do things at the keyboard that no performer previously could, or the curator in the museum where it resides today? The piano is one thing to a pianist, another to a piano tuner, another to an interior designer with no interest in music, and yet another to a child who wants to avoid practicing.
Ultimately, the narrative of what kind of thing a piano is must be a story of all these users.
One result of today's news world is that editors are realizing that the piano builders may not be giving the pianists what they want. Who understands a newspaper better -- the journalist who works for one or the person who reads it? My answer is different today than it would have been two years ago. We're not in the piano-making business; we're in the music business.
A corollary is we also need to help/engage with/serve those who create their own music. We know it's value, but we don't have the how completely figured out.