Breaking The Sound Barriers

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

Music knows no walls. It travels from apartment to apartment, welcome or not; it shakes the bedrooms of the parents of teenagers; it spills, boomingly, from passing SUVs onto previously silent sidewalks. And there are other boundaries that music penetrates, those that can't be seen: the barricades of tradition and technology.

As one band sang, "This is the game that moves as you play." Even as one barrier is defeated, another goes up. File-sharing services allow a river of music to flow across your desktop--though lawsuits may slow the flood to a trickle. The practice of sampling that lies at the heart of DJ culture is encouraging a new generation of music fans to investigate the sounds of eras gone by--but unless hip-hoppers can find a way to preserve their own creations, they may simply be spinning their discs. And as today's country queens and hat acts gallop off in pursuit of pop glory, country music's grand ole history seems abandoned, like some sad burden left roadside. Fortunately, there are musicians who have found new ways to overcome old barriers and fresh approaches to reclaiming worthy traditions. These performers, composers and programmers hear cinematic sounds in computer games; they've discovered lush new fields of bluegrass in which to play; and they've found that the whole world can be balanced on the reed of a clarinet. They pass through walls like music itself.

--By Christopher John Farley