Technologies That Reshaped The Way Of 'Music'

Muic is among those categories where the influence of technology has always been at its peak.

Muic is among those categories where the influence of technology has always been at its peak. Few have been born as per the necessity of the entire process, and several others that got modified along with the genre and trend of music. Music has always been a forum for exploring and developing new technologies.

Ten technologies, in particular, have had an outsized influence on not only the compositional process, but on the relationship we all have with music. From the software used to record and manipulate audio, to how music is stored, to novel ways of generating tones, these ten developments from the last hundred years or so, presented in rough chronological order, fundamentally changed what it means to be both a composer and a listener.

1. THE MICROPHONE

Nearly every technological innovation related to music presented here depends on one thing - taking vibrating air-sound-transforming it into an electric signal, and then transforming that signal back into sound. The transformations themselves are achieved via vibrating membranes that we encounter as microphones and loudspeakers. It is such a simple concept that it is almost shocking that it actually works. But as remarkable as these processes are, the signal a microphone captures is extremely faint, making it essentially useless unless something is done to it to make it louder.

2. AMPLIFICATION

Amplification fundamentally changed our relationship with music. Before it, music was experienced as an event. After things like radio and commercial recording became possible because of amplification, music became more common, and it became a thing. It also meant that more composers could reach more people than ever with relative ease. Guitars went from being barely audible chamber instruments to beasts capable of deafening thousands in an arena. An entirely new world of sound became possible. In short, everything changed.