It’s been a while since we brought together some of D.C.’s musical minds. In the name of open forums and discussion, we bring you the third installment of DCist’s Music Roundtable. This time around we asked our panel about the effects of emerging technologies on the music industry. Will record labels become obsolete? Is a proletariat uprising of music fans in our near future? Does MySpace really make a difference? We got some input from J.K. Royston of Adelyn, Don Zientara of Inner Ear Studio, Finley Martin of Gist and Vince Scheuerman of Army of Me on the issue — which was so lofty, we had to pose the question in two parts. As you can see, they had a lot to say.

Part I: Today you can record (at home on a computer with Pro Tools), distribute (with iTunes, eMusic, Rhapsody) and promote (MySpace, GarageBand, PureVolume) your music to a wide audience for next to nothing and with no outside help. How does this change the music business?

Don Zientara, Inner Ear:
It changes the business by making it far more democratic. But, as we’ve learned in the MIddle East, democracy carries its share of trade-offs and costs. The most efficient method of production (music or otherwise) relies on NOT multi-tasking. Being a professional means knowing your craft extremely well, and knowing the peripheral duties somewhat less. Why? Because then we can concentrate on what we do best. Can we be engineer and musician, switching freely between both roles? Sure, but with the result being (pick one): a) Quality suffers, or, b) It takes a long, long time to produce satisfactory results. Either one will quell creativity greatly.

If quantity alone was a gauge, we surely must be in the Golden Age of Music. The good news is there is a lot of MUSIC. The bad news is there is a LOT of music. Should there be a screening (read: censor) mechanism? How much data must there be before there is TOO much to take in?

I enjoy cooking, but I also profit from eating what other chefs have cooked. Call it not letting my style go stale. Call it creative input. The net result is a better product my next time in the kitchen.