9Music & Technology

Question 1

What does Affordance mean?

Answer 1

What’s now possible; function or relation of the organism & something in the environment; every change in the organism or environment sets up a change in what’s possible for human living

Question 2

What could the interaction zone between an organism & the environment be called?

Answer 2

Technology

Question 3

Once the new capacity of technology turns up, new affordances are possible. What is it that changes?

Answer 3

Interaction zone

Question 4

What technological affordances enable human music making/listening?

Answer 4

Musical instruments (sound source); architectures/furnishings (resonant & presentation spaces; e.g. concert hall); scores; filtering/processing; storage media; hearing devices

Question 5

What are the sound sources of mammals?

Answer 5

Percussion; mouth (percussively, vibrationally, with vocal cords)

Question 6

What were technological affordances/first musical instruments used by early humans/nomads?

Answer 6

Voice/mouth; hand-axe (rearrangement of stick & rock); tube/pipe (hollow wood/bones/tusk/shells); string under tension (vines/grasses/branches/guts/antlers/ribs); mallet (stick/bone); animal skin; wood; stone; body/mouth interactions; grass & leaves (first reeded instruments); animal bladders (bagpipes); bow & arrow

Question 7

What’s techno-morphogenesis?

Answer 7

Combining older technologies with new; rearranging existing bits & pieces, & morphing together

Question 8

What are all string instruments a version of?;
In the machine age, by adding more strings & a resonator, how have we adapted this?;
If we turn it on its side with the resonator at the bottom?
Add hammers?;
Add movable frets?;
Add fretboard?

Answer 8

A bow & arrow; 
Harp & lyre;
Zither;
Hammer dulcimer;
Kyoto;
Banjo, guitar & sitar

Question 9

If you take the bow & arrow, & rub it back & forth with another bow, what do you get?;
If you turn rubbing thing into a round shape & add frets or little buttons to push?

Answer 9

Violin, viola, etc;

Hurly gurdy

Question 10

What’s techno-morphogenesis?

Answer 10

Combining older technologies with new; rearranging existing bits & pieces, & morphing together; crucial bits that give us a different musical capacity in terms of sound, volume, gestural control, etc

Question 11

What are all string instruments a version of?;
In the machine age, by adding more strings & a resonator, how have we translocated this?;
If we turn it on its side with the resonator at the bottom?
Add hammers?;
Add movable/sliding frets?;
Add fretboard?

Answer 11

A bow & arrow; 
Harp & lyre;
Zither;
Hammer dulcimer;
Kyoto;
Banjo, guitar & sitar

Question 12

If you take the bow & arrow, & rub it back & forth with another bow, what do you get?;
If you turn the rubbing thing into a round shape & add frets or little buttons to push?

Answer 12

Violin, viola, etc;

Hurly gurdy

Question 13

What instruments have the piano & harpsichord evolved from?

Answer 13

It’s a resonator; a harp (has lots of strings at different lengths); hammer dulcimer - has felt hammers (one per string cluster), which are controlled by an added keyboard interface)

Question 14

Up until the 1900’s, when instruments were evolving into mechanical additions, what could this period be considered as?

Answer 14

The machine age

Question 15

The drum is essentially the function of what?

Answer 15

Membrane, tension device (of string, screws turned), resonator (bowl) (eg. timpanis, djembes, tamborines, etc)

Question 16

What bits of a tube make sound?

Answer 16

Wind coming in; excited wind coming out (oscillations); splitting the air; mouthpiece; sharp edge/flaps; length of tube (cutting to different length/holes/valves)

Question 17

What is the origin of the keyboard interface?

Answer 17

Panpipe

Question 18

Bagpipes share the same topograghy as what?

Answer 18

The organ (except the bagpipe stops the notes with the fingers)

Question 19

When inventing a new instrument/or using morphogenesis what are we doing?

Answer 19

Using cognitive patterns recognition to pre-imagine what the bits & pieces might do; an active experimentation; (could be accident, happenstance, fiddling about, etc); recognition of something to manipulate

Question 20

What are two functions of media in the electronic age?

Answer 20

Storing media enables things over time & transmitting media (over space)

Question 21

Phonograph was in the foreground for the beginning of the electronic age (last of mechanical). How did it work?;

Answer 21

A medium that sound gets funneled into a vibrating point (which etches a wave)

Question 22

The first phonographs were not used for playback; what did this evolve into?;
What was it?

Answer 22

A storage medium which encodes the audio wave as a physical groove; it’s played through a stylus & comes out a loudspeaker;
Record player (wax then vinyl)

Question 23

Why was the invention of the record player such a big feat, especially for early ethnomusicologists?

Answer 23

You could take it to any place & capture old folk & tribal songs & traditions among cultures being lost or destroyed by globalization

Question 24

How is sound transmitted electrically?

Answer 24

Audio waves (from voice) go to a transducer, turned into an electrical signal; vibration of magnetic material produces electricity (e.g. microphone); turns it into an analogue electrical current

Question 25

How is sound transmitted over space?

Answer 25

Send electrical signal; gets listened to via recording device, put onto an analogue groove (wax cylinder , vinyl or tape); play back through a speaker (takes electrical current, puts through a magnet which vibrates a membrane)

Question 26

The development of the electrical signal allowed the invention of the synthesizer, which showed what we can do with electronic processing (gadgets) in the space of the audio-focused electrical signal. What are some its capabilities?;
How do we regulate these?

Answer 26

We can generate, apply oscillators (shape – square, sine wave, etc); modulate; apply filters, gates & envelopes (achieved with 2 new interfaces; e.g. dials/knobs & switches/buttons);
Through control voltage – an understanding of how the voltage of the waveform codes into the different frequencies/amplitude/shapes, etc, before the time we hear it

Question 27

Once you have an electrical signal, we can do what?

Answer 27

Modulate & process it

Question 28

Most synthesizers we know operate inside the electrical signal & generate their own oscillations. How is a guitar effect generated?

Answer 28

Weak electrical signal from guitar into an effects box (digital or analogue) for reverb or delay etc; then pops out the other side through the guitar amp