The RIAA

The RIAA or the Recording Industry Association of America is a very important organization in the terms of the music industry. The RIAA is made up of different record labels and distributors, who “create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 85% of all legally sold recorded music in the United States.” They help protect the artists first amendment rights as well as protect the intellectual property rights. This is important so the artist may have a say in which way his or her music is used or not used. They also stay current with laws and regulations that are current in the industry.

One of the things the RIAA is known for is their gold and platinum certifications. A gold record is achieved when an album reaches 500,000 sales, this is also true for singles. A platinum album is achieved when the album sells 1,000,000 copies. An album can also go multi-platinum meaning that the album has sold at least two million copies albums have been certified as ten times platinum which in my opinion is a bit ridiculous.

As technology changes so must the rules and regulations for how an album gets rewarded with a gold or platinum status. In 2004, the RIAA started to include “digital” sales for its certification. A digital sale is one that is transferred over the internet.  They added the silver certification to this category, so if an album sells 100,000 copies on the internet it receives a silver certification. Gold and Platinum albums remain at the same sales level, and the multi-platinum status is the same as well. Now if an album does so well that it sells over 10,000,000 copies over the internet it is deemed the diamond level certification.

The RIAA is here to protect musicians and as a person who wants to put a new style of live recording out, it is very important to me.

TED Talk with Bobby McFerrin

While I was stumbling around the internet a few weeks ago I came across this video from TED.com. It shows Bobby McFerrin, the writer of the popular song “Don’t Worry Be Happy”. In the video Bobby shows us that without prior music knowledge peoples’ brains could be hacked to understand music. He starts by standing in one space and tells the crowd to sing a certain note. Afterwards he proceeds to move to the left and right, showing members of the audience that when he steps to the audience’s left the note the audience is sings should be lower. Oppositely when he steps to the right the note the audience sings should go higher. Stepping back and forth the audience starts to create a song, under the direction of Bobby McFerrin. He soon begins to extend the range of the song and the audience is shocked that they are going that high and low. Bobby McFerrin only told the members of the audience to sing the note only 1 step left and 1 step right of the original spot. When the audience followed along with him as he began to move farther up and down the stage (scale) he was basically hacking the peoples’ brains. Afterwards you can hear one of the other guests on the stage asking if he was ever interested in a job in neuroscience, showing how well thought out this talk and experiment was. Bobby McFerrin sure made me not worry and be happy after I saw this great presentation.

I thought this was very interesting that all people are created with something inside of them that after they are exposed to music, was released. The ability to count and follow basic musical notation, without being taught to do so shows us how amazing human beings are and how powerful the music influences all of our lives.