To Örebro University

Before twentieth century, in the times when the composer had only pen and paper for writing music, music composition had long been considered as a production of the creative genius only. In the last century, the term composer has had new meanings with emerging technologies. Recently, it has reached to a level that every computer owner could have the chance of becoming a composer with the new title of producer, and in this process of change, music software has well been accepted as a tool for the democratization of composing. However, my paper takes this change of meaning in hand with a reversed approach.

Drawing on the recent research on indie culture’s consuming practices and the recent research on music technology press, also with references to Marx’s concept of commodity fetishism, Adorno’s arguments on the fetish-character in music, Bourdieu’s theory of social distinction, and Boulez’s comments on the technology and the composer, my paper argues that, within the spread of amateur level use of music software, the act of composing music has turned into means of self-presentation. My research indicates that the recent change in the meaning of the term composer has been indoctrinated to amateur music software users through a process of fetishism instead of a process of democratization. In this sense, I discuss that, through this influence exerted by the companies, the feeling of acting as a composer gets ahead of the aim of music making itself among amateur users, and concordantly, those users turn into customers rather than fellow users while music software becomes an object of desire for them. Methodologically, my paper centers upon the marketing strategies of software companies Image-Line and Ableton. My research is mainly based on comparative analyses of FL Studio’s and Ableton Live’s user-friendly interfaces, programs’ promotion in written and social media, and their user forums (Looptalk and Ableton Community).