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E-book Between Air and Electricity : Microphones and Loudspeakers as Musical Instruments

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Penilaian

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Are microphones and loudspeakers musical instruments?This question is the starting point for my book Between Air and Electricity which tells the story of how microphones and loudspeakers have changed music over the past 100 years through artistic experiments and innovation. It is very common nowadays to have microphones and loudspeakers used on stage next to musicians and conventional musical instruments. One of the initial seeds of inspiration for my book was how these elements of a musical performance contrast with one another. The sound producing relationship between a gesticulating musician and a musical instrument is obvious. Even without knowing much about the violin or piano, it becomes immediately clear by hearing and seeing a violinist, what this person is doing and how the sound is changed according to her gestures. On the contrary, the sounds emitted by a loudspeaker can theoretically be any sound: a musical instrument such as a violin; environmental sounds such as the sea; or machines, such as car sounds. And what might have been originally a very soft sound whispered by a performer into a microphone might be diffused very loudly through loudspeakers. Besides, whereas the musician is also able to communicate visually with the audience, the microphone and loudspeaker on stage are just seemingly immovable devices, often painted black to remain as unnoticeable as possible.Microphone and loudspeaker technology is omnipresent not only in music but as well in our everyday life. Here, also, these devices are often designed to remain invisible and sonically transparent; that is, ‘inaudible’ in the final sound result. We hardly seem to notice them anymore – how often are our voices transmitted through a telephone receiver, do we hear the latest news on the car radio, or are simply listening to music through our headphones? These are all microphones or loudspeakers. Microphones and loudspeakers are employed in almost all music we hear nowadays: to amplify the voices and electric guitars of a rock band, to facilitate the production of a ‘perfect’ recording of a symphony orchestra, to reproduce that recording in the living room, and as an essential component of many modes of presentation, from the Jamaican sound system to techno parties. All music has now become available everywhere and is available at any moment. This is in contrast to the way it had been in all music cultures before sound reproduction technology, which was created by musicians only for their own society and in its own specific context. Inventions such as the phonograph, radios and telephones – usually grouped under the term ‘sound reproduction technology’ – changed our relation to all sonic events in society. But the invention of microphones and loudspeakers using electricity for amplification particularly changed musical performances, since their quality of sound reproduction is ameliorated extensively in comparison to the horns used before. This made their sonic quality good enough not only for communicating speech through the telephone or reproducing well-known music through the radio but also attractive to composers and musicians who wanted to use these devices that were able to reproduce all kinds of sounds on stage.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

780.72 VAN b

Penerbit

London : Bloomsbury Academic., 2017

Deskripsi Fisik

217 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781501327629

Klasifikasi

780.72

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Musicology

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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