This article is from the archives of the UB Reporter.
Word of Mouth
Today marks the 10th anniversary of the release of Apple’s iPod. How has this device changed the way you, or others, listen to music?
Scroll down to “post a comment” and tell us what you think.
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Scholars of music are grateful to the iPod for freeing us from the programming decisions of music marketers. No longer dependent upon what CD producers have determined should and should not be listened to together, I have assembled a large variety of playlists for myself—some by composer, some by performer, some by genre. It is an ear-opening experience to listen to, say, the first 30 years of Arnold Schoenberg’s music (dozens of pieces!) in chronological order; you hear him first as a late-tonal composer morphing into a so-called “atonal” composer and thence into a “serial” composer, and yet the musical language, the style, the substance persists pretty much unchanged. One could make the same experiment with a CD or LP collection, but it would be so much trouble that who would bother? And certainly never more than once!
Charles J. Smith
Associate Professor and Slee Chair of Music Theory
Department Chair
Department of Music 
I used to have a room full of music. Now I have a pocket full of music and a room full of dusty plastic things. Anybody need a coaster?
Bob Wilder
Designer
University Communications
I can’t remember what it’s like to work out or travel without an iPod. It’s such an easy way to carry music around with you where ever you go!
Paul Hutchings
Manager of University Awareness & Special Events
Division of Athletics
The iPod generated a shift in the primary mechanics of mainstream musical experience (private listening through ear buds) and in the economics of access to music (purchasing by track rather than whole albums). The result is that we are all more discriminating about the nuances of recorded sound and we can afford to be more experimental in our listening choices. Students of the iPod generation are generally more savvy about more kinds of music than their pre-iPod peers.
Michael Long
Professor of Musicology
Ziegele Chair in Music Scholarship
Department of Music
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