- Title
- The role of physics in shaping music
- Creator
- Townsend, Peter
- Relation
- Contemporary Physics Vol. 56, Issue 3, p. 269-291
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2014.990676
- Publisher
- Taylor & Francis
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2015
- Description
- Physics and technology have played a major role in shaping the development, performance, interpretation and composition of music for many centuries. From the twentieth century, electronics and communications have provided recording and broadcasting that gives access to worldwide music and performers of many musical genres. Early scientific influence came via improved or totally new instruments, plus larger and better concert halls. Instrument examples range from developments of violins or pianos to keyed and valved wood wind and brass that offer chromatic performance. New sounds appeared by inventions of totally new instruments, such as the saxophone or the Theremin, to all the modern electronic influence on keyboards and synthesisers. Electronic variants of guitars are effectively new instruments that have spawned totally original musical styles. All such advances have encouraged more virtuosic performance, larger halls, a wider range of audiences and a consequent demand and ability of composers to meet the new challenges. Despite this immense impact, the role of physics and technology over the last few centuries has mostly been ignored, although it was often greater than any links to arts or culture. Recorded and broadcast music has enhanced our expectations on performance and opened gateways to purely electronically generated sounds, of the now familiar electronic keyboards and synthesisers. This brief review traces some of the highlights in musical evolution that were enabled by physics and technology and their impact on the musical scene. The pattern from the past is clear, and so some of the probable advances in the very near future are also predicted. Many are significant as they will impinge on our appreciation of both current and past music, as well as compositional styles. Mention is made of the difference in sound between live and recorded music and the reasons why none of us ever have precisely the same musical experience twice, even from the same recording. Similarly, it is impossible to appreciate earlier music from the same perspective as occurred when it was first composed and performed, or indeed from later interpretations.
- Subject
- technology; music
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1334065
- Identifier
- uon:27216
- Identifier
- ISSN:0010-7514
- Language
- eng
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