Hello wonderful people of AFRI and INLEO community and welcome to my entry for week 55: what has changed about music in digital age?
Well before kick off, i would love to say a big thanks to the Inleo and Afri-tune community for such a great opportunity to share topic concerning music every week. I am one person who this initiation has greatly helped as it is always a learning experience for me.
I believe a lot of things regarding music have changed in this digital age ranging from the distribution Style and packaging, the production cost and Time frame even promotion and consumption.
• PACKAGING AND DISTRIUTION
Prior to the digital age, (the analogue times) artist would package their album in a vinyl records, cassette tape and computer disc (CDs).This method of packaging would greatly limit their distribution as their songs would be limited to those who buy the CD or had a DVD player. However In the digital age, we have online streaming platforms like; spotify,audio mark, boomplay etc. They connect people globally and all that is required is a smart phone. The digital age has not only expanded their distribution but changed their packaging style. As I mentioned earlier that before the digital age cassette and CDs were used in package music digitization has debunks all those tedious process of packaging in form of hard copy. Now all artist need to do is upload their music on reliable platforms for streams and views.
• PRODUCTION COST AND TIME FRAME
With the digital era, the cost and time it takes to produced music has lessened as opposed to when an artist required an entire team to make music.He requires a studio, a studio manager, a producer, sound engineer, a manager, publicist and possible background vocalist. All this does not just time,but cost money especially if the artist doesn’t own a studio, he then has to pay per hour for sessions and pay all the team involved.
Don’t get me started about the music video were we have to think of things like the costume of the artist, video director, dancers, set, makeup artist, cinematographer and so on.Although a lot of artists still go through this process, the digital age has made it possible that we don’t have to. As an artist, you can boycott all tis long process by adapting software that help you do most this at the comfort of your home. For up coming artists you can even take online lessons on how to edit video andthat will reduce cost.
• PROMOTION AND CONSUMPTION.
I mentioned in the previous paragraph how an artist need publicist in his team for publicity in most case entire publicity team is needed for better creativity.
Now when I say the digital era has changed the promotion I donot mean artist does not require publicity but rather, the publicity is done differently.Through influencer and other opinion leaders which you can reach on social media. Instead of paying an entire team of PR, it has proven tobe more efficient numerous times that word of mouth is the best type of advertisement.
So let’s say you reach out to an instagram influencer to use your sound continuously in his or her videos would make the audience very much interested I the song and this has made possible through the digitalized world we find ourselves in.I believe in one word, the digital age has brought about convergence.
One person can perform the job of a producer, a sound engineer and an artist at the same time.
Honestly, I was tempted to go into the downside of what the Digital age can cost like; loss of jobs, laziness, dull creativity. Due to-powered AI tools that can help edit videos and mix audios smoothly in a few years, people may lack the ability to think for themselves with the revolution of AI. However,for what it is worth, one must lose something to gain something. 
Thank you so much for reading through. I still remain your very enthusiastic writer @gemangel