:00:00. > :00:35.We'll have Newswatch in about ten minutes - but first, here's Click.
:00:36. > :00:43.Everyone has heard something that has come from here.
:00:44. > :00:46.To the untrained eye, like mine, this does not look like one
:00:47. > :00:49.of the most iconic recording studios in the world.
:00:50. > :01:04.Opened in 1931 with Edwards Elgar's Land of Hope and
:01:05. > :01:13.Glory, these walls have heard some of the greatest sounds of all time.
:01:14. > :01:29.From music legends to magical soundtracks.
:01:30. > :01:32.Abbey Road has been a hotbed of acoustic trial and error,
:01:33. > :01:42.pioneering recording techniques and technologies that have defined
:01:43. > :01:45.modern music, from the acoustic treatment on the walls in Studio One
:01:46. > :01:51.That was nicknamed by none other than John Lennon?
:01:52. > :01:54.OK, so, essentially by using both machines together you
:01:55. > :01:57.can create an artificial sense that there is two people singing.
:01:58. > :02:00.Artificial double tracking has become a creative tool to create
:02:01. > :02:17.a wobbling, ethereal sound with a lot of the tracks from the 60s.
:02:18. > :02:19.Today, Abbey Road even runs and incubator
:02:20. > :02:26.Over the years, the death of the music industry has
:02:27. > :02:33.But the latest technological threat is not piracy, but streaming.
:02:34. > :02:42.This is a whole new way of consuming, paying for
:02:43. > :02:51.There are quite a few engineers and technologists looking at ways to
:02:52. > :03:01.Jamie Bartlett has been to East London to meet one artist who
:03:02. > :03:23.Their last record is one of the most critically acclaimed albums of 2013.
:03:24. > :03:36.So, you would think they might be making some money.
:03:37. > :03:38.Fractions of pennies for thousands of plays.
:03:39. > :03:49.The problem is the music industry has been through
:03:50. > :03:54.Only a decade ago, this is how most of us bought music.
:03:55. > :04:13.Nowadays, most music is licensed or bought through online services.
:04:14. > :04:15.There is little doubt that streaming and video services have helped
:04:16. > :04:20.But for some artists it is far harder to make a living than, say,
:04:21. > :04:24.Singer and songwriter Imogen Heap is one
:04:25. > :04:32.I have been making music for 20 years.
:04:33. > :04:35.It has always been this business that I do not feel
:04:36. > :04:40.I thought, in an ideal world, what I would love to be able to do
:04:41. > :04:43.is to have a song, put it up to a place, be paid directly, no
:04:44. > :05:00.Having the right to choose what happens with my music.
:05:01. > :05:03.For the last three months, Imogen Heap has been working with a handful
:05:04. > :05:08.of music technologists to create a new way of monetising music in a way
:05:09. > :05:14.Instead of these traditional contracts, they create smart
:05:15. > :05:17.contracts where they can set up the ground rules for how they want
:05:18. > :05:26.Systems like this would allow musicians to upload their music
:05:27. > :05:34.and any associated data, including smart contracts,
:05:35. > :05:38.It is based on the famous bitcoin programme and it allows you to
:05:39. > :05:47.create public data chains that are very difficult to tamper with.
:05:48. > :05:50.So when a song is purchased, they automatically trigger payment
:05:51. > :05:54.in a cryptocurrency to the intended parties.
:05:55. > :05:57.Imagine a single open database of all the world's music that anyone,
:05:58. > :06:07.a fan or streaming service, could plug into and pull the music out.
:06:08. > :06:10.It is reducing the number of barriers between the person making
:06:11. > :06:13.the music and the person buying the music and making it as efficient
:06:14. > :06:16.as possible and as transparent as possible so people know they are
:06:17. > :06:29.It would mean that everyone, artists and listeners,
:06:30. > :06:36.could see all of the contracts and how everyone involved is paid.
:06:37. > :06:39.What I want to try and make sure happens is it does not
:06:40. > :06:46.I want there to be a layer that is the artist layer.
:06:47. > :06:49.But Imogen is not the only one working on this.
:06:50. > :06:52.New age music publishing companies are creating similar ideas that puts
:06:53. > :07:04.the artist at the centre of the deals they make.
:07:05. > :07:07.Kobalt is one such company that recently signed a deal to collect
:07:08. > :07:12.Everybody wants the same thing, being at the core.
:07:13. > :07:17.How can we sustain the next generation?
:07:18. > :07:27.Currently it is really difficult to be an artist.
:07:28. > :07:29.Technology has transformed the way we listen to music.
:07:30. > :07:32.It is hoped technology can help make a simpler, fairer,
:07:33. > :08:50.What matters most is that musicians just want to create music.
:08:51. > :08:52.We are interested in how the brain constructs reality,
:08:53. > :08:54.because your brain doesn't actually see any of this.
:08:55. > :08:57.All it ever sees are signals inside the skull, and it puts
:08:58. > :09:00.So, the particular senses that you come
:09:01. > :09:04.to the table with, eyes, nose, mouth and fingertips are just a portal to
:09:05. > :09:08.But it is not the only way you can get information in there.
:09:09. > :09:09.This idea is called sensory substitution,
:09:10. > :09:12.finding alternative ways for one sense, in this case hearing,
:09:13. > :09:16.What this vest has is a series of the cellphone motors,
:09:17. > :09:19.it is the same motor that causes your phone to vibrate
:09:20. > :09:22.and what each motor represents is how much of a frequency there is
:09:23. > :09:26.You can sort of think about it like notes in a piano chord.
:09:27. > :09:28.Speech follows these patterns and the stronger
:09:29. > :09:37.the motor vibrates means the more of that note is present.
:09:38. > :09:40.Right now is taking its sound from the environment to this tablet
:09:41. > :09:43.and it converts it via a mathematically rigorous way to
:09:44. > :09:48.make sure that information gets to the brain and is useful.
:09:49. > :09:50.So, there is a speaker on the tablet that is picking up
:09:51. > :09:56.Not only that but all the sounds from the environment.
:09:57. > :09:59.The AC is going and it is capturing that noise.
:10:00. > :10:02.If you're about to cross the street and a bus is coming,
:10:03. > :10:11.The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
:10:12. > :10:15.You feel like you can really understand.
:10:16. > :10:19.It would certainly take some training, for sure.
:10:20. > :10:23.I went into a room away from Scott to see if I could feel what he was
:10:24. > :10:26.He gave me simple words like up, right, down,
:10:27. > :10:31.and left and asked me to say which words I felt through the vest.
:10:32. > :10:50.While, of course, not a scientific experiment, I was surprised at how
:10:51. > :11:02.The hope is that in ten years, this is something that might be
:11:03. > :11:06.You wake up in the morning and put these things on
:11:07. > :11:26.That is it for the short version of our music special. Much more on the
:11:27. > :11:33.full-length version, including, this. You will want to know what it
:11:34. > :11:36.is, won't you? Go and watch it now. I am working on my masterpiece.
:11:37. > :11:38.Leave the genius in peace.