What Steve Jobs Did for Music...

By Ernie Mansfield

My story with Apple Computer (founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak) dates back to 1985 and the Apple IIe. As a music arranger and composer, I was actually making most of my income by copying out parts for other composers and arrangers, in a niche field called "music preparation." We prepared parts for orchestras, commercials, and movie soundtracks. With the new Apple IIe software, we were able to plot out music faster than the human hand! Soon we had entered a new world of "music typesetting"; music that looked uniform and professional and could be used for publication. This was quickly followed by the Mac computer and laser printers that were now every bit as "print-quality" as the old – and arcane – methods of music engraving.

With the birth of my second child, I had no idea how I was going to increase my income to pay all the bills. Luckily, with my new music typesetting profession, I launched my new career and I was soon working for a number of music publishers. Due to the increased speed of the computer-generated work, my income improved.

Of course, my experience with Apple was minor compared to the mass explosion of computers and music that was eventually to happen. Soon companies like DigiDesign and Mark of the Unicorn appeared and created virtual music recording studios within the computer environment. This created access to studio recording to almost every musician, and broke the barrier between big-budget studios of the "Big Record Companies" and small independent artists. Right at the time where popular music was appearing to stagnate and be represented only by "Major Labels" who wanted to just promote big-selling stars, the home studios started to breed independent talents and opened the doors for many types of alternative music, including and embracing all styles of music.

When forced out of Apple, Jobs purchased Pixar and created another major success; this time in the computer animation world. Although this had nothing to do with music, it represented another major leap for the arts in technology.

A "second wind" of Apple, once Steve Jobs returned, was to create iTunes and the iPod. This created a "sea change" in music distribution; up until this time (2001) the digital distribution of music was threatening to become a "digital bust" for artists who were basically being ripped off and not paid royalties. Steve Jobs created an equitable royalty structure for artists, much to his credit. He was a self-described fan of music, and spent personal time with the famous artists he admired.

Today as a music instructor I work with students on contemporary songs that we can pull up on You Tube and play through our iPhones and Macs. We can spontaneously record audio and video on our iPhones and work on our music. In my performing life, I have added recording tracks via GarageBand and Logic to commercial CDs being produced around the world.

Would all that have happened without Steve Jobs? Perhaps. But it would not have happened as elegantly, or as completely, as it did. He had the "Vision" to create "insanely great" products, and he was always pursuing the artistic side of computing when the rest of the personal computing industry was simply focused on the business world. To me, Apple has always represented the struggle of the artist to succeed in the contemporary world. I shall always remember and honor Steve Jobs for that.

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