With all the advances in technology, it seems we’ve created a contrast in the way music is produced, and the way it’s consumed.

On one hand, recording technology has enabled the recording of high resolution audio. Most studios these days are able to record at least 24-bit/96Khz. Some studios have the capability to record even higher sampling rates such as 192Khz. This increased sampling rate smooths out the digital audio making it a more accurate representation of the original sound wave.

Hearing a recording like this over great speakers is an incredible experience. Yet that’s not how the vast majority of us listen to music.

In contrast to the advances in the production of recorded music, technology has also affected the way we listen to, or consume, music.

The CD serves as a de-facto, though declining, standard for music delivery. CD audio is served up at 16-bit/44.1Khz, far below the resolution now possible for recorded music. And if you’re anything like me, you rarely listen to a CD over a good set of speakers. My first listen is generally over the speakers in my laptop. If I like what I hear, I “rip” the CD to AAC files for playback on my iPod.

The AAC files are simply a newer standard than mp3, delivering a slight increase in quality and decrease in file size. Nonetheless, these files are highly compressed and there is a distinct loss of audio quality with either mp3 or AAC. Even so, this is my preferred listening format, simply for the convenience of it.

I listen to these compressed files over the speakers in my laptop, my iPod earbuds, or my car stereo via iPod playback. And I have to say, as one who works in the recording industry, I don’t mind the loss of quality. The favorable benefits of having my music with me wherever I find myself, far outweighs the downside of the reduction in audio quality.

For me, the quality of the music itself is far more important. Is it a good song? Is it well played and sung? Is the arrangement interesting? And on the recording side of things, the important factor isn’t the resolution, it’s tones and the mix. The quality of the tones captured comes through even in and mp3. And the mix is the most important part. If the recorded resolution is as high as it gets, but the mix is bad, I don’t want to listen to it. If the mix is good, I’ll tolerate a low fidelity file.

I would encourage all the artists out there to keep this in mind. I don’t think I’m alone as a music consumer. The quality of the music is much more important than the quality of the recording.

Brian Baker, writing for CityBeat Cincinnati, recently suggested that we coronate a new King of Bluegrass.

His suggestion as to who should wear the crown? Ralph Stanley.

His reasoning for recognizing Stanley is certainly sound, but his premise is wrong.

If Monroe was the King of Bluegrass, the fact remains that the king is dead and the throne can’t remain empty, the crown unworn. Perhaps it’s time to coronate a new King of Bluegrass, and if so the only true heir is Dr. Ralph Stanley.

Two errors of understanding on Baker’s part inhabit this suggestion.

First, succession to the crown just doesn’t happen that way in the music world. No one is suggesting that because Elvis is dead we should crown someone else as the King of Rock-n-Roll. That suggestion would be met with great protest by true Rock-n-Roll fans. The crown is the King’s and he lives on in his recordings. So too in bluegrass, the King may have left us, but his music has not.

Secondly, but just as important, Monroe was never considered the King of Bluegrass. That distinction falls to Jimmy Martin. Baker has just shown his lack of familiarity with the genre, to engage in a discussion concerning the royalty of bluegrass, and mistake the King.

He does acknowledge Monroe’s rightly deserved, and highly honored, title as the Father of Bluegrass, and gives Dr. Ralph perhaps a very fitting title at the same time.

Bill Monroe is widely recognized as the Father of Bluegrass, and so, in that context, perhaps we can consider Ralph Stanley as the genre’s kindly Uncle ‚Äî the guy who teaches us about life and ourselves without inflicting the unflinching discipline and judgmental subjectivity of our old man.

Baker should have stopped there with the giving of titles. I think most of us bluegrass fans would be perfectly OK with Uncle Ralph. But then, that wouldn’t have worked with his angle: The Bluegrass of King, The King of Bluegrass.

Still, it’s not Stanley’s sizable global accomplishments that will be honored at Sunday night’s Cincinnati Entertainment Awards but his local connection to King Records on the occasion of the label’s 65th anniversary.

The recognition of King Records’ 65th anniversary, and Ralph Stanley’s connection to the label, are worth celebrating. I love Dr. Ralph’s music as much as the next trad-bluegrass fan, but let’s not be so quick to attempt the coronation of a new King. Jimmy’s music is alive and well.

All hail the King! Honor your Father! And enjoy hanging out with your Uncle!

I’ve had several discussions with artists over the course of 2008 with regard to the final destination of promo CDs. Everyone sends them out, but no one talks about where they end up. The artists and labels send out large quantities of promotional CDs targeted at journalists, DJs, and promoters. But many of these CDs find their way quickly to the used record shop or ebay.

The cost of sending out several hundred CDs is quite high. If you’re sending out an actual production copy, which is what most journalists and DJs want, it might cost as much as $4 per disc. Here’s the breakdown. The disc costs you roughly $1. Then you’ve got the cost of printing a one-sheet, bio, and any other promo materials you’re including in the package. And then you’ve got the mailing costs. Next consider the added cost of hiring a PR agent to work the release for you. That can cost anywhere from $2,000 – $10,000 depending on how good they are and how long you let them work it.

And the result? Some radio airplay, a story here and there in a paper, magazine or website, maybe even a gig or two get booked as a result, or you could sell a few CDs. Odds are though, that a good many of the promo CDs sent out just ended up at a used record store.

The artist, the label (if there is one), and the songwriter all lose out on income when someone buys one of those promo CDs from the store. They lose the money they would have made, had this person been of a mind to purchase the CD legitimately. That can be questioned for sure. I blogged about this same topic back in June, when a court case made the resale of promo discs legal. Legal it may be, but taking the cost of the promo into account, someone did lose some money on the deal.

I’m not condemning those who are selling, or for that matter buying, the promo discs. I’m just asking the question, why did you send it out to begin with?

What is the point of promotional CDs other than to serve as a visual reminder to a tastemaker? Do we really need them anymore? Is it worth the waste the mailings generate? And for music critics, does earning a spot on the gravy train even ensure that she will be more plugged in to the vast array of music available in 2008?

Those questions are asked by Randall Roberts in a piece he wrote in September (which I just now discovered) for the LA Weekly.

His answer is, no. The environmental (I’ve got a lot of plastic sitting in a pile on my floor), economic, and time costs associated with mailing out hundreds of promos, just aren’t worth the returns. Send your promos digitally and you save time and money. Not to mention making it easier for journalists like myself to deal with the promo. DJs may still want a hard copy, but I don’t. Every CD that was sent to The Bluegrass Blog this year went strait into my MacBook Pro for a listen. If I liked it I imported it to iTunes. If I didn’t like it, it went in a stack that I still haven’t dealt with. And if we chose to write about it, we had to go looking for a digital copy of the cover art anyway. A digital promo would sure speed things up for me, and a lot of other journalists.

I’m not saying you should stop sending out hard copies. Many DJs will still need/want them, especially bluegrass DJs who are volunteers and have to supply their own music for the show. Taking some time to work through your PR list and find out who would benefit from a digital version, should pay off for any label or band who plans to promote more than one recording project next year.

Put me on the digital list.

Does music have value? Some would say it used to, but that it has recently be devalued by the internet age and mp3s. Is that true?

Andrew Dubber tackles these questions in a recent blog post, Has music been devalued?

Dubber shares a lesson from history, in which musicians and composers in the early 20th century were worried that recordings would ruin the music business and put them all out of work. After all, if people could listen to recordings for free on the radio, why would anyone hire a band, or buy sheet music? The truth is, the business didn’t die, it just changed.

The industry changed. People learned how to make money, lots of it, from the new recordings. It seems we are facing a similar restructuring of the music business now that the physics of the media have changed, and I’m sure some savvy people will discover ways to profit in the new environment.

Dubber’s conclusion bears repeating.

But more people listen to, engage with and enjoy more music than ever before. It’s not only valued, but prized. Personal identity, association with a sub-genre ‚Äòtribe’, clothing style, use of language, socialisation and a great many other cultural factors are now entirely predicated on music. Far from being devalued, for a lot of us – it’s pretty much the most important thing.

So – to take what might be seen as a provocative stance, I propose the following:

1) Claiming that ‚Äòmusic has been devalued’ is both entirely defeatist and a complete cop-out;

2) Blaming everything and everyone else for the problems you may be facing as the world changes around you makes you come across, like Sousa, as a miserable old sod;

3) Recognising the fact that you haven’t yet found a way to tap into the ways in which people now consume music (but that such a way does exist) might just be the key to solving the problem of extracting commercial value out of the immense cultural value everyone’s getting out of music – more than ever before.

Read it all.