Illustrated compendium of musical technology

Abstract

In recent times, without much acknowledgement or help from the musical establishment, there has been a paradigm shift in musical activity. Music Technology, or, as Cary puts it, Musical Technology, is a fast-growing area. Exactly what this term embraces is open to considerable discussion. In fact flit had been coined in a previous century, we would see the piano and most contemporary orchestral instruments also classified as musical technology. From what date do we list new developments in music making as being technological? Is the saxophone a musically technological instrument? What about the Ondes Martinot or the vibraphone? The day must surely soon come when this mushrooming area will be unable to be so marginalized and therefore separated from the more traditional fields of music. It will be accepted to have become part of the central creative fabric of musicmaking.