Music Technology in the Electronic and Digital Age

The fourth area of inquiry examines how technology has reshaped the making, sharing, and hearing of music. From the first recordings to today's digital tools, technology has not merely delivered music but transformed what music can be. Understanding this area is essential for both analysis and the creating you will do in the course.

Recording changes everything

Before recording, music existed only in live performance and notation. The ability to capture sound permanently, beginning in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, changed music profoundly. Performances could be preserved, studied, and sold; listeners could hear musicians from distant places and past times; and the recording itself became an art object distinct from live performance. Studio techniques such as editing, o