During Satie’s time, where live music produced by live musicians was the main source of musical consumption, it was radical to view human, musical output as mere furniture, as something relegated to the background, not worthy of our complete attention. With machines capable of recording, copying, mixing, even creating music, has human authenticity been lost in the process? Although current musical methods of production widely differ from centuries past, there is, and will always be, an inherent human quality to music. Humans must operate machines, whether it be mixing sound files on a synthesizer, recording indigenous birdcalls, or transcribing a piece from the piano. Evolutions in music parallel transformations in society. Music is now accessible in virtually anywhere in the United States and has fundamentally transformed from prescribed, structured pieces exclusively for the elite to music for and by the people. We can access music alone through a personal media player, with others in bars, auditoriums, restaurants, or even when we do not actively seek to access it, at the gas station, elevator, or grocery store line. We can now listen to, replay, and repeat ad nauseum millions of minutes of music. This extent of accessibility resonates Satie's rebellious wit, proclaiming music to be merely furniture. Irrevocably, furniture music is both a pivotal part of music's history and a pointed prediction of its future.
COMPUTED FURNITURE /// FURNITURE MUSIC IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Now we live in the digital age: an age where print media like books, magazines, and newspapers are archaic, quaint decorations and technology that is sleek reigns supreme. Laptops, tablets, and cellphones are increasingly common to own personally and see in a variety of environments. As with any new technology, there is backlash and a desire to inoculate the old by re-appropriating the new. When the telephone was hardly a decade old and slowly entering people's homes, people found the actual object distasteful and ugly. They would cover it with dolls, lampshades, anything to disguise its newness. The same rejection and acceptance is bound to occur with computers and thus, computer music. The stigmas of what is considered avant-garde, anti-music, or not "human or real will inevitably fade away as society progresses. Computers are gradually receding into furniture, just as computer music is now considered background, ambient music.
