THE ARTS | Reshaping ideas, expressing identity
29 July 2008
Music Technology: Innovations and Controversies
New distribution channels also shape musical performances
(The following is excerpted from the U.S. Department of State publication, American Popular Music.)
From the heyday of printed sheet music in the 19th century through the rise of the phonograph record, network radio, and sound film in the 1920s, up to the present era of digital recording, computerized sampling, and Internet-based radio, technology has shaped popular music and has helped disseminate it to more and more people.
Although we tend to associate the word “technology” with novelty and change, older technologies often take on important value as tokens of an earlier time. Old forms of musical hardware and software – music boxes, player pianos, phonographs, sheet music, 78s, 45s, and LPs – become the basis for subcultures made up of avid collectors. In some cases, older music technologies are regarded as superior to the new. Some contemporary musicians make a point of using analog rather than digital recording technology. Musicians who prefer analog recording say that it is “warmer,” “richer-sounding,” and “more human.”
Sometimes the rejection of electronic technology functions as an emblem of “authenticity,” as, for example, in MTV’s Unplugged series, where rockers like Eric Clapton demonstrate their “real” musical ability by playing on acoustic instruments. However, there are also many examples of technologies being used in ways that encourage active involvement, including the manipulation of multiple record turntables by hip-hop DJs and the increasing popularity of karaoke sing along machines and computer software in American nightclubs and homes.
[This article is excerpted from American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3 by Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman, published by Oxford University Press, copyright (2003, 2007), and offered in an abridged edition by the Bureau of International Information Programs.]
