[JohnFen]

> being able to make music on your computer probably radically altered the number of people making music

I don't think this is substantially true. I'm old enough to remember back before it was possible for most people to make music on a computer. My view is that if the computer affected this at all, it slightly reduced the number of people making music, not increased it. But I really think that the percentage of people making music hasn't changed that much at all. People who want to compose or perform music have always done so, and always will, regardless of the toolset. The barrier to entry isn't high.

And it seems to me that most regular people who are making music now don't seem to be doing it on a computer.

[techpineapple]

Interesting, do you think that computer music cannibalized other forms of music?

I may be biased, because I feel like personally, I would not have made music without the computer, because my main interest is in like full work composition of multiple instruments, and the barrier to entry to really learn an instrument does turn me off.

[JohnFen]

> do you think that computer music cannibalized other forms of music?

I don't know, but my gut tells me that is has not to any serious degree. That is, I don't think that many people who were making music without computers stopped doing that to make music with computers. Some may have added computers to their instrument repertoire, though.

[owebmaster]

There are definitely less bands playing together nowadays than 20 years ago and way less famous ones. While there are much more single musicians using computer music as base.