“We can’t even begin to imagine the possibilities awaiting us in the future.” Musicologist Michael Spitzer on what he predicts for the future of music.
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Musicologist Michael Spitzer shares his three predictions for the future of music.
Where will music be in a decade? What about another 10,000 years? Will it evolve into one homogenous, indiscernible sound? According to Spitzer, that’s not likely. Thanks to humanity’s desire for individualism and self expression, music will remain varied and unique. Knowing this, how can we begin to guess what music will look like in the future?
Spitzer makes three predictions: first, music will be instrumentalized beyond entertainment and used, for example, as treatments for medical diagnoses; second, it will integrate far more technology, extending our capabilities into the digital realm and becoming accessible for those who are less naturally musically inclined; third, it will become multisensory, expanding beyond our sense of sound to include taste, smell, and even touch.
Music has already expanded beyond what musicians from a few centuries ago ever thought was possible, and as we look ahead, we can only estimate what it will become. As Spitzer says, “We can't even begin to imagine the possibilities awaiting us in the future.”
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About Michael Spitzer:
Michael Spitzer is the author of The Musical Human and professor of music at the University of Liverpool, where he leads the department’s work on classical music. A music theorist and musicologist, he is an authority on Beethoven, with interests in aesthetics and critical theory, cognitive metaphor, and music and affect. He organized the International Conferences on Music and Emotion and the International Conference on Analyzing Popular Music and currently chairs the editorial board of Music Analysis Journal.