This week in class, we had the pleasure of having Alberto Linares come and speak to our class about Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, and his experience working with them. One of the main things that Alberto is passionate about is music, and specializes in drums and guitar. He has had the opportunity to work with many famous musicians for example he mentioned that he got to work on a project for a band called Mumford and Sons. Since Albert spoke about how he has used AR within the music industry, I wanted to focus on how AR can change the music industry completely.  Harris study says that 78% percent of millennials would rather put money into experiences and events over a desirable object, and another 72% say they want to increase the amount they put towards experiences over physical objects in the coming year. Audiences are already familiarized with the technology, and the most popular, mainstream examples of AR would be Pokemon Go and Snapchat. The first way AR can change the music industry is through Music Videos. AR can empower musicians to bring the video to their audience and even make the listener part of the video.

Looking as far back as 2010, Rihanna and David Guetta partnered with Doritos to create an AR experience for the video to their track “Who’s That Chick.”

Another way AR made its way into the music industry would be through Music Marketing. As Inc. notes, AR can bridge the human and virtual worlds. While technologically impressive, virtual can be hard for audiences to connect with. For example, one restaurant in New York City increased business by 75% through a strategic use of Pokemon Go.  Next we can look at AR within Music Education. AR is a tool for the music industry to meaningfully and emotionally connect with younger audiences. AR has already made its way into the music industry if we look at the example of a Japanese company has already produced a hologram that can teach people to play the piano. Lastly one of the most important ways AR has changed the music industry in my opinion is the overall music experience. The possibilities for altering physical experiences like concerts and events with AR are limitless. For example, song identifying app Shazam just launched the world’s first scaled augmented reality solution for brands. AR has the potential to bring the concert to fans in their own environments. Augmented reality has the potential to become the new reality for the music industry.