N-three-P

 That's what Michael Scott called the ever popular and widespread music format of the mp3 on the hit show The Office. He was a little digitally illiterate.

I just recently was in the multimedia lab of the library, learning a basic tutorial of garage band via fellow classmate David Potter. This was useful to me, as I recently switched to a mac from windows and I am eager to learn all of its creative tools. I am an illustration major, so I don't use audio tools quite as often as photoshop, but I do enjoy creating music as a hobby (I've always fiddled around with the piano and violin. When I say fiddled, I mean I don't read music at all.)

As an illustration major, I have learned to apply my skills through the online use of photoshop. Therefore, It's only natural in our technological age, that there is a digital counterpart to traditional music. I learned that garage band functions in ways somewhat similar to photoshop: Layers are a main tool, and you can save the file in different forms (AAP or MP3). When I first was experimenting with my new macbook, I tried to open up garage band as someone with no experience, and found myself a little confused. David explained how to use the system's keyboard even if you don't own a keyboard to plug-in, to use the wide array of instruments on the program.You can even plug in instruments and make vocal recordings using the program.

Using the vocal recording option and layers on Garage Band.

 To tie this in with our theme of protestant reformation, I think we can look at the recent history of music within the last few decades. We discussed this a bit in class, but the age of music sharing has been here for a solid decade now, and in a way, the widespread music can be compared to the widespread use of the Bible with Martin Luther's efforts. Maybe Shawn Fannin, creator of Napster, is like music's Martin Luther. I know religion and music are a bit different (Although, to some people they are synonymous), but I vaguely remember my dad, a bona fide music junkie, so excited to download one single song in 10 minutes. Now a days where we have torrents and sites in which we can upload music (youtube, beemp3, imeem, myspace music, etc), everyone is able to access their favorite artists and be in the "know" of what is cool just by clicking on a link or a play button that gives us the music in seconds. 

Cool Stuff. And if I were really into Garage band, its nice to know that I have the option of creating music via layers and recordings and keyboards on the program, and then exporting it as an .mp3 on my hard drive, and then uploading it to myspace and potentially becoming the new Justin Bieber. I'd be living the dream...