Yesterday, Apple announced the HomePod, a speaker which incorporates microphones to access Siri. And as part of that presentation, they used the word “musicologist,” in a way that makes no sense.
It seems that Apple is using the word to mean “DJ,” perhaps riffing on the word “mixologist,” the hipster word for bartender.
It’s frankly stupid. Apple could easily have found out exactly what this word means:
Pianist Andy Lee found this a bit disturbing:
First of all, I do feel sorry for all my musicologists friends who now have to deal with this bs.
— R. Andrew Lee (@AndyLeeDMA) June 6, 2017
Before, I imagine the questions you got were more, "What's a musicologist?"
— R. Andrew Lee (@AndyLeeDMA) June 6, 2017
Now… "Do you work for Apple/Spotify/Amazon?" "Are you worried about losing your job now?" "You went to college for that?"
— R. Andrew Lee (@AndyLeeDMA) June 6, 2017
And the confusion about why so many musicologist are into classical music.
— R. Andrew Lee (@AndyLeeDMA) June 6, 2017
It’s a bit odd that Apple would take a word with a very clear meaning and twist it in this way, just to sound hip.
Given my musical tastes (early classical music), having a “musicologist in the box” could be a very handy thing. “Siri, tell me about the successors to Corelli in Rome before 1700, and play some of their music.” 🙂 🙂
Given my musical tastes (early classical music), having a “musicologist in the box” could be a very handy thing. “Siri, tell me about the successors to Corelli in Rome before 1700, and play some of their music.” 🙂 🙂
This is typical of the way people use words without thinking about what they mean. Like Humpty Dumpty, a word means what they choose it to mean. There’s no excuse for this, as there are plenty of free online dictionaries.
This is typical of the way people use words without thinking about what they mean. Like Humpty Dumpty, a word means what they choose it to mean. There’s no excuse for this, as there are plenty of free online dictionaries.
This is the worst thing to happen to the field since Prince issued an album entitled “Musicology.”
But, seriously, what do you expect from a company that refers to any musical track, including individual movements of symphonies, as a “song”?
This is the worst thing to happen to the field since Prince issued an album entitled “Musicology.”
But, seriously, what do you expect from a company that refers to any musical track, including individual movements of symphonies, as a “song”?