The piece of musical technology that I chose for this assignment is the voice memo app on iPhones. Nowadays, artists use anything they find cool and inspirational to make music. They could be walking down the street and hear an amazing sound, take out their phones, record that sound and later put it in their music. This leads to music being more creative and expands the variety of sounds that could be used in music. 

Most people assume that music is just instruments and/or a voice but it could so much more than that. People use the voice memo app, if they even use it, to record meetings, lectures, or even just to hear how bad their singing is, but a lot of people don’t know that famous artist like Billie Eilish and Finneas used common sounds that they heard in real life and incorporated them into their music. 

The piece of music that I chose to use was “Bad guy” by Billie Eilish. When I first heard the song, I didn’t recognize the sound in the chorus, but after watching a Youtube video, I learned that her brother used a sidewalk timer as a background sound in the chorus. It made a great addition to the song because it intrigues you and its different from other music. 

Today I would like to talk about how piano change the entire music in India and one of my favorite song “Shei Tara Vora Rate”

Indeed in spite of the fact that the beginnings of the piano are known to date back to the 1700s, it proceeds to appreciate colossal ubiquity among those who need to memorize music. Inquire performer Rajiv Khati who has been playing the piano for the past few a long time and who swears by its ubiquity. “A part of music schools are coming up presently to teach children. So there are more roads accessible. As a artist, knowing how to play the piano unquestionably gives you an edge,” he says.

In teach such as Delhi School of Music and Calcutta School of Music, the piano is a necessarily portion of learning western music. The old-world charm and the elitist tag related with pianos have included to the ubiquity of the instrument. In reality, such is the appeal of the piano that numerous wealthy families have one deliberately set in their living rooms, in spite of the fact that no one within the family knows how to play it

The technology I chose was the electric guitar which drastically changed the music world for the better. According to Guitar History Facts website, electric guitars have a hollow, semi-hollow and solid body. They don’t rely on chamber acoustic to produce tones, and the presence of hollow body can cause feedback and unintentional vibrations of the strings.” Instead of relying fully on natural acoustics of the guitar shape and string vibration, the electric guitar creates sound directly from the strings itself. Some different types of electric guitars include “solid body, chambered bodies, semi-acoustic, full hollow-body, and electric acoustic” (Guitar History Facts).

I myself play an electric acoustic guitar. What’s great about it is that I can play it with the acoustics and string vibration sound while also amplifying those same sounds when I plug it in. I haven’t played a solid body electric guitar but I would like to one day. In many songs I listen to, the intro usually has a melody produced by an electric guitar or keyboard. I want to learn how to play this on the solid body electric guitar one day.

The song I chose is “Fix My Eyes” by Kings Kaleidoscope which consists of multiple genres (Christian, rock, indie…). Throughout the piece, the electric guitar can be clearly heard as the artist is playing it using chords.

Technology is defined as some knowledge, technique, or tool that can assist people or animals and help achieve certain goals. This is a very broad definition and includes various examples, such as instruments and music notation. The technology I chose to focus on today is the synthesizer. This is a type of electronic instruments, being different from having a recorded sound and just playing those, this actually generates the sounds it makes.

This had a major impact on early video game music, as a majority of those consoles used synthesizers that were very limited. These limitations however, probably makes them more memorable, as it is hard to mistake them for anything else. An example of this is the Super Mario Theme Song, released in 1985 on Nintendo’s first home console, the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES. The composer, Koji Kondo, has stated that this took the longest to compose out of all the songs in the game, as he wanted to match the overall tempo of the game. He sped the song up and thought it fit nicely, also adding that when the player has less than 100 seconds on the clock, that it speeds up, to make it more frantic for the player.

The textbook defines sampling as

“Sampling is the process of taking a sound from
one recorded medium and inserting it into a new one. Today, sampling is generally done
by digitally extracting a selection from a pre-existing recording, modifying the sample to fit
new requirements (perhaps adjusting tempo and timbre), and then inserting the sample
into the new environment. A sample can easily be “looped” so that it repeats over and over,
turning seconds of material into minutes on end..”. You might be thinking to yourself “How is it possible to re-use someone elses music” However, this method is frequently used by many Hip-Hop artists.

One artist in particular that used ‘sampling’ in her song ‘I like it’ was Cardi B. She released this song in 2018 after being influenced by two artists. One of them being Chris Rivers who released a take on Pete Rodriguez’s “I like it Like That (A Mi Me Gusta Asi). When listening to Rodriguez’s original and River’s remake it is evident that all Cardi B did is change the lyrics to the song.

Our definition of technology is “knowledge, techniques, and tools that help humans (or animals) achieve their goals”. This quotation can strongly justify the needs of today’s Hip hop and pop artists (not limited to these two genres) to ‘sample songs’ to their liking in order to create music that will please their audience.

Music technology can be defined as knowledge, techniques, and tools that help humans or animals to achieve goals. One example of a musical instrument is a xylophone. The xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. The purpose of a xylophone is usually played so that the music sounds an octave higher than written. Because the sound is always very short the xylophone is often used for short solo tunes which are fast and dry. The marimba is a kind of xylophone which has a softer sound and more bars, especially low notes. 

There are people who use this technology other than the reason it was designed for. This type of music was most present in the traditional music of Melanesia, Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa, and more. But, in Senegal it was used to scare monkeys and birds and other pests from people’s gardens. Also, it is used by many children as a use of a toy. Children love pressing random beats in a sense of enjoyment or fun. Now there are many songs that were created for the beats such as twinkle twinkle little star, baby shark, amazing grace, etc. Yes, I have experience with this technology because I have also played this instrument when I was much younger because I used to play around with the keys and make sound because it wasn’t dissonant and it didn’t scare me away. 

This musical technology influenced the music it helped to produce because it helped to give more of a calm and relaxing tone in music rather than being harsh. For example below, it has a very short note and also the sound is very soft and doesn’t seem to be harsh or annoying to the ear in any type of way. It gives a joyful and happy tone to listen to.

Musical Notation is a way to keep track of how the music will be played, it contains the rhythm and the pitches of it. Originally it was used as a way to plot out how the music would go for monks and remind them how it would go, as music was originally meant to be taught and not written to learn. Pieces that have been influenced by musical notation was Beethoven Symphony No. 5 as it has been preserved and passed down for people to play. I used this technology when i was learning to play violin, and piano.

The instrument that I have chosen is the electronic organ. This organ was created in the 1930s by Laurens Hammond. One of the most well known organ, used by many jazz musicians and gospel musicians, is the Hammond organ. The manufacturers have changed over the years and many models have been made. The organ adds a gospel feel to the band and it should accompany the other instruments playing. It works by pushing down on the keys, moving the leslie, using the drawbars above the keys and the pedals on the bottom. The pedals and the Leslie aren’t necessary to play but it adds to the muscian’s playing. The pedals are notes as well but are at a lower pitch. The drawbars add volume to individual keys. The Leslie switch controls the frequency of the vibrato. You will tend to see organist moving it around alot. The black keys are presets used that change the sound of the organ. 

The organ is not really used as much in other types of music anymore while the piano is used much more. The only main function is for it to be played. I have experience with this instrument because I play the organ and I am currently learning more about the organ. I play by ear and I try to practice every week so that I can get better. The organ has helped me get better at playing piano because of the techniques can be taken from the organ to the piano. 

The song that I chose was Solid Rock by Sean Tillery. In the beginning there is an organ solo and you can hear how the organ gives the song a fuller sound. People may say it sounds “churchy” due to the way the organ is being played. 

A musical format is something that shapes the music within it. One very relevant use of musical format is the streaming application, Spotify. The invention of Spotify definitely fits our definition of technology as it immensely helps humans achieve their goals; the purpose of Spotify is pretty simple, it’s to be able to stream music. There are over 30 million songs on Spotify that are available by artists from all around the world. The format of the app is very convenient, as one can make his own playlists, listen to only specific artists, find albums, listen to singles, and even have personalized mixes made for users based on their algorithms. Your own personal playlists shapes the music within the app, and the way you listen to your music is affected by your preference of songs. Spotitfy even designed different albums for different moods, activities, or vibes one has, allowing people to find that perfect song. Some of my favorites include “songs to sing in the car,”  “mood booster,” and “chill hits.” Additionally, people can follow other people’s playlists so they can share music with each other and (with Premium, which costs a nominal monthly fee) people are allowed to download music so you can even listen to your favorite jams without internet, such as while taking a flight. Furthermore, there are podcasts that can be listened to on the app, radio options, and there’s even video streaming on some songs. The way that Spotify strategically decides what shows up on your feed helps to make it so popular. Spotify can also be used on a range of devices such as smartphones, computers, tablets, speakers, TV, and cars.

I don’t believe there are people that use Spotify in the way that it wasn’t designed for. The sole purpose of Spotify is to be able to listen and stream music, and there are not many other options to do on the app besides that. I have a lot of experience with this technology as I use Spotify every single day, multiple times a day. Whenever I want to listen to music (which is almost all the time) I open up my Spotify app, find my playlists, daily mixes, or an artists album I like and listen away. A piece of music that uses this technology is the song “Intentions” by Justin Beiber. This song came out on the app as a single on February 7, 2020. Spotify made this song available to users, allowing it to be streamed, and then gave more suggestions of Beiber’s music after listening to the song.