From The Archives 4: Music Technologies & Culture

My second semester of New College I created a tutorial (basically a 1-on-1 class with my favorite professor) that we called History of Sound Recording. It was inspired by my Music & the Environment class, and because we were creating it as we went along, my midterm was a reflection paper and my final for the class was to create a syllabus, so I've put both of them in this post!

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Spring 2016

           Undoubtedly, music is one of the most important aspects to many of our lives. The thought of living without it, and not being able to play it on our phones, iPods, or car stereos is a dreary prospect. In this tutorial, I wanted to see how we interact with music in its many forms and mediums. This formed into a History of Sound Recording Tutorial, starting with phonographs and reaching into the present day.   

     

            Before having music technology with recording abilities, music was a performance often in a concert hall that people would dress up for. As the recording technology became available, the possibilities of how one could listen to music increased. Today, it is normal to walk to class with headphones in and your music playing. The simple act of solitary listening was not feasible before recordings, nor was the ability to listen to music during any time of the day or anywhere. America used to be largely rural, which meant that it was difficult to have much exposure to a range of music before the phonograph. In comparison, our power of control and choice with music today is endless. 

            The phonograph, as the first medium of musical recordings, changed culture in many ways. Previously, music was seen as a feminine pastime, because women were the ones learning usually piano or singing. As a machine, however, phonographs made music less of a feminine pastime and equalized it between the genders. It also meant that songs needed to fit to be able 3 minutes to fully be on a record. That became the standard length for songs that is common even today. As singular objects, phonographs made music portable and affordable. A full orchestra was not needed to be in the room for a full orchestra to be heard.

The new technology also immortalized music in a way that was not previously possible. Music was auditory, and musical scores and instruments were physical, but records made music itself physical. Mistakes can also become permanent parts of a piece. And improve, once recorded, becomes a bit of a paradox. There is a complete repeatability of the music because the same version of it can be played again and again and still be the exact same thing.

            Because we can listen to music that isn’t a live performance, we can have music without the visual cues, communication, and reactions that happen between performer and listener. Of course, going to performances or concerts is still a common thing, but for the majority of our music listening, we choose our own visual surroundings. More of the musical experience is up to your own interpretation. When we do have real performances, we appreciate them more because we can see how the performer (and perhaps creator) interprets the music and how they seem to feel about it. In that way, performances become special, rather than just the way music is always experienced. 

The relationship between listener, performer/musicians, and composer/creator has also changed with technology. When someone is listening alone, is there a performer? Is the listener also the performer? For DJs are they just performers or are they also composers, even though the music didn’t completely come from them? To add another possibility, DJs can also be listeners during their performance. Labels are not so simple.

With digital technology and electronic genres of music, authenticity and originality starts to become more confusing.  According to Paul Lansky, “the essence of music doesn’t lie as much in its details as in the act of trying to understand them.” Music samples can be thought of a little “musical quotations” taken from previous works, but included in a new one. Not a new concept for writers. But if you get technical, sampling only represents the original sound, because being placed in a new medium actually cuts some of the sound waves from the music out. Sampling, more accurately, is transformation. While the phonograph turned music into an object, with files and computers, music becomes data. 

Music copyrights are greatly controversial, largely hinging on that music is more similar to an idea than to an object. Illegal downloads are considered to be “theft & piracy” but no stealing actually happens, just copying, and for the most part, those who are copying the music are not trying to take credit for it. Music is hard to define, and is ever building from previous pieces and styles of music. As digital music and music streaming becomes more prominent, we must continue to figure out what music means to us and how the different mediums it can be played in affect us.

Music Technologies and Culture Syllabus

Sofia Eury & Maribeth Clark

Description:

            The format used for listening to music affects how we listen to music. From the start of music technologies like the phonograph being available for listeners, there has been an increase of repeatability, adaptability, and portability possible within listening habits. Technologies like the phonograph revolutionized music listening, but records and digital music have made nearly as big of affects on music culture. With the dawn of each new technology not only does the listener relationship change, but the way musicians/composers must interact with the recording equipment is also changed. The very fact that we can listen to music anytime, anywhere, with very little effort has only been made possible from the past century. As we move into a highly digital age, our relationship with music continues to be questioned and molded to fit the physicality of our soundscape.

Questions to Consider:

·     How do you prefer to listen to music? How do you feel about silence?

·     What is music (sound/object/data)?

·     Do you prefer records or live music?

·     How will music streaming change our interaction with music? 

·     How do you choose what you listen to?

·     How should music be copywrited? As is?

·     What is “good” music? What is “bad”? How has that changed over time?

·     Does recording limit or expand musical creativity?

·     Does music equalize or segregate between genders/races?

·     How does the dichotomy of listener/performer/composer compare across genres?

Materials:

·     21st Century Perspectives on Music, Technology, and Culture Edited by R. Purcell and R. Randall

·     Capturing Sound by Mark Katz

·     The Recording Angel by Evan Eisenberg

Assignments:

1.     How has music technology changed throughout your life? How has that affected your listening habits? Write an exploratory essay on your experiences and how, culturally, your music technology habits reflect or disagree with societal trends.

2.     Choose a music technology that wasn’t covered in class and research how it affected culture. Can be pre-phonographs (ex. music boxes, player pianos), a technology component (ex. magnetic tape) or something new (with predictions on its future effect).

What do you think? Would you take this class? You're welcome to use our syllabus if you're a teacher, just credit us. ;)