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Some people write songs the old fashioned way.   They sit down with a guitar, or at a piano and think about a melody.

[Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody piano part]

Then they think of some lyrics.

[Lyrics come in.."mamaa…just killed a man."]

But what if the next Freddy Mercury turned over some of that process to his listeners?  What would the music sound like then?  The internet makes those kinds of possibilities a reality.  And a lot of musicians simply haven't begun to think that way.

Savoca: "I would say artists are still rooted in the traditions of writing songs. And I don't see that going away for some time."

Steve Savoca is the head of digital at Domino Records. 

Savoca: "I think for a generation that's coming up, there's the possibility that participating in music will be what they're after.  Which means that the passive experience of listening won't satisfy them enough, and they'll want to interact with the music.  And I think that Guitar Hero and Rock Band are examples of this at an early iteration.  And I think over time we'll see people wanting to create music or add to the creation of music, or participate in the creation of music."

At its simplest level, that could mean interacting with musicians while they are in the process of creating their art.  Ben Perreau calls that the democratization of music.  He used to edit the British music magazine N-M-E and now he runs his own music news aggregator called Gigulate.   

Perreau: "You can just crowd source and distribute that manufacturing of music because in itself, music as a piece of audio is just a digital thing right? I don't mean to belittle it, but it's just something that exists as a piece of culture that you can do whatever you want with. And once it's in the hands of the audience, then it's theirs to distribute, so you should do as much as you can to drive value out of it as you're creating it and I think artists want to do that more and more."

An obvious place to witness this change is a genre of music that draws heavily on technology.  Electronic dance music.  It's the daughter of disco.  And while the disco era saw its share of remixes, mp3 sharing and relatively cheap music production software have caused an explosion of reiteration in dance music.

Jones: "I was in bands, punk and hardcore, and then once I got a computer and realized I could record wave samples, and just take anything and chop it and do literally anything with it, that's when I got really amazed and jumped head first into it."

That's Brooklyn-based musician Ashley Jones.  He goes by the moniker Treasure Fingers.  Jones will take a piece of dance music like this.  

 [Cut of original]

And change it to this.
[Cut of remix]

Jones: "It's a loose interpretation, sometimes I'll keep the same chord structure and create a new song, but sometimes, if you muted the acapella track and just exported the music, you would say that this is a whole new song."

This isn't something just for electronic music fans or technology nerds.  It's about finding new ways for musicians to engage fans, and in a way, it's about turning the listener into an active participant. While some of these technological barriers remain high, gaming platforms are making it easier than ever for people to recreate music, and social networks are making it easier for people to share their musical experiences.  But despite the convergence of music and interactive technology – South by Southwest Music and South by Southwest Interactive are still separate conferences.  Tammy Lynn-Gilmore says that is unlikely to change anytime soon.

Lynn-Gilmore: "It's pretty overwhelming right now how many people come into town for SXSW, which can be overwhelming in a good way, but on the other hand we have to make sure there's enough hotels rooms and cars and space for these folks. We're limited somewhat by the size of the areas downtown in Austin."

That may be the case.  But as the convergence of music and digital technology continues, the impact is nonetheless being felt at South by.  There's talk of starting music a day earlier perhaps to take advantage of some of the interactive events.  And this year, for the first time, more people signed up to take part in the interactive conference than the music conference.

In Austin, I'm nathan Bernier

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Some people write songs the old fashioned way.   They sit down with a guitar, or at a piano and think about a melody.

[Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody piano part]

Then they think of some lyrics.

[Lyrics come in.."mamaa…just killed a man."]

But what if the next Freddy Mercury turned over some of that process to his listeners?  What would the music sound like then?  The internet makes those kinds of possibilities a reality.  And a lot of musicians simply haven't begun to think that way.

Savoca: "I would say artists are still rooted in the traditions of writing songs. And I don't see that going away for some time."

Steve Savoca is the head of digital at Domino Records. 

Savoca: "I think for a generation that's coming up, there's the possibility that participating in music will be what they're after.  Which means that the passive experience of listening won't satisfy them enough, and they'll want to interact with the music.  And I think that Guitar Hero and Rock Band are examples of this at an early iteration.  And I think over time we'll see people wanting to create music or add to the creation of music, or participate in the creation of music."

At its simplest level, that could mean interacting with musicians while they are in the process of creating their art.  Ben Perreau calls that the democratization of music.  He used to edit the British music magazine N-M-E and now he runs his own music news aggregator called Gigulate.   

Perreau: "You can just crowd source and distribute that manufacturing of music because in itself, music as a piece of audio is just a digital thing right? I don't mean to belittle it, but it's just something that exists as a piece of culture that you can do whatever you want with. And once it's in the hands of the audience, then it's theirs to distribute, so you should do as much as you can to drive value out of it as you're creating it and I think artists want to do that more and more."

An obvious place to witness this change is a genre of music that draws heavily on technology.  Electronic dance music.  It's the daughter of disco.  And while the disco era saw its share of remixes, mp3 sharing and relatively cheap music production software have caused an explosion of reiteration in dance music.

Jones: "I was in bands, punk and hardcore, and then once I got a computer and realized I could record wave samples, and just take anything and chop it and do literally anything with it, that's when I got really amazed and jumped head first into it."

That's Brooklyn-based musician Ashley Jones.  He goes by the moniker Treasure Fingers.  Jones will take a piece of dance music like this.  

 [Cut of original]

And change it to this.
[Cut of remix]

Jones: "It's a loose interpretation, sometimes I'll keep the same chord structure and create a new song, but sometimes, if you muted the acapella track and just exported the music, you would say that this is a whole new song."

This isn't something just for electronic music fans or technology nerds.  It's about finding new ways for musicians to engage fans, and in a way, it's about turning the listener into an active participant. While some of these technological barriers remain high, gaming platforms are making it easier than ever for people to recreate music, and social networks are making it easier for people to share their musical experiences.  But despite the convergence of music and interactive technology – South by Southwest Music and South by Southwest Interactive are still separate conferences.  Tammy Lynn-Gilmore says that is unlikely to change anytime soon.

Lynn-Gilmore: "It's pretty overwhelming right now how many people come into town for SXSW, which can be overwhelming in a good way, but on the other hand we have to make sure there's enough hotels rooms and cars and space for these folks. We're limited somewhat by the size of the areas downtown in Austin."

That may be the case.  But as the convergence of music and digital technology continues, the impact is nonetheless being felt at South by.  There's talk of starting music a day earlier perhaps to take advantage of some of the interactive events.  And this year, for the first time, more people signed up to take part in the interactive conference than the music conference.

In Austin, I'm nathan Bernier