Electromagnetism is a term which describes the interaction between electric currents and magnetic fields. This interaction was first noted in 1820 by the Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted when he saw that an electric current passing through a wire affected the needle of a magnetic compass. Experimenters soon discovered that electromagnetism could be harnessed to perform useful tasks. Less than a quarter of a century later Samuel Morse had constructed a device, based on electromagnetic principles, by means of which a coded message could be sent almost instantaneously from one location to another many miles away. Since then, a succession of scientists and inventors have added to our knowledge of electromagnetism and created thousands of devices which exploit that knowledge: Telephone. Phonograph. Vacuum Tube. Loudspeaker. Radio. Stereo. Television. Computers. The Internet...
On May 24, 1844, Samuel F. B. Morse dispatched the first telegraphic message over an experimental line from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore.
-- from the Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/may24.html
Of course the effect of this technology on music and on people's relationship to music has been profound. Consider the fact that, up until 1877, when Thomas Edison first recorded a human voice on a tinfoil cylinder, the sound of a human voice could only be heard if a human was speaking or singing or crying or...well you get the idea. Similarly, music could only be heard if musicians were playing. The invention of the phonograph ushered in a new era in human experience where sounds could be recorded and then listened to over and over, possibly far removed in time and place from the source of their original creation. This phenomenon has been labelled "schizophonia" by Canadian composer and writer R. Murray Schaefer.
Now the phonograph, in its original form, was a purely mechanical/acoustic device. Electromagnetism was not introduced into sound recording until later. First, the electric motor for spinning discs, then, later, the introduction of electronic recording in 1925.
So what's the significance of all this?
Music performance has become portable. What was once the unique experience of a musical performance, an event/spectacle which occured only in one place and time, is now reproducible and may be experienced in many times and places.
Of course, there is one major problem with all this talk about reproducible sounds. What we are really talking about is clever fakery. The sound of the guitar you hear coming out of your stereo in not the sound of a guitar. It is the sound of a loudspeaker, an electromagnetic device which turns electronic audio signals into sound waves in the air.
First, a bit about sound, and why it is impossible to actually capture sounds and turn them loose later. Sound happens when something vibrates, causing air pressure waves, much like the waves that radiate outwards when you drop a stone in a pool of water. To capture sound means to capture air. Once it is contained, the waves will dissipate and the sound disappear. So when we talk about recording or capturing sound we are really talking about recording a facsimile that is analogous, or similar to, the original sound.
When the guitar in our example is recorded, the vibration of its strings causes air to move which causes a small diaphragm in a microphone to vibrate, which, thanks to electromagnetism, creates a small electrical signal. That signal, is encoded onto a storage medium. The medium and method of encoding varies depending on whether the recording process is analog or digital.
For playback, the information is retrieved from the storage medium and converted into an electrical signal which is amplified electronically and fed to a speaker, causing it to vibrate. The vibration of the speaker causes air to move, which the human brain perceives as the sound of a guitar.
But it is not, in fact, the sound of a guitar. It is the sound of a loudspeaker. It is a facsimile, a clever fake.
But this bit of electromagnetic trickery has transformed music in the last 100 plus years.
Let's look at some of examples of this transformation and the effect it has had on the way people experience music.
Recording turned the performance of music, which was at once a spectacle and a social event, into disembodied sound which could be experienced by one person in private. With the exception of sound shorts and, later, TV and music videos, the experience of recorded music was an aural experience only. The listener could not see the performer picking or strumming the guitar, or the performer's movement, facial expression, costume, etc. It is rather curious that electromagnetism was used to eliminate a part of music experience which depends on another part of the electromagnetic spectrum; the part we know as visible light.
The same is true of radio. Radio uses certain wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation to send signals through the atmosphere. So radio delivers music via certain wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, but does not deliver the part of music that exists in the visible light bands.
Commercial radio broadcasts began in the 1920s in the U.S. Vocal music was preferred by broadcasters and programmers in those early days because it was feared listeners might not be able to take long periods of disembodied sound without human contact. In instrumental music, that contact was traditionally provided by the sight of the musicians performing. So vocal music, often with verbal interjections added during instrumental sections (as in the recordings of Fats Waller), was seen as the way to keep that human contact and keep listeners tuned in.
The length of a piece of music was determined by the technology of recording. Until the introduction of microgroove long play records in the late forties, records were limited to about three minutes per side. Hence the three minute pop song.
Microphones, introduced into music recording in the late 1920s, allowed singers to perform in a softer, more intimate fashion, giving birth to the crooner style of pop singing best exemplified by Bing Crosby.
In the 20s and 30s electric and electronic instruments such as the theremin, electric organ and electric guitar began to appear. Over the next few decades, these instruments along with the development of the synthesizer and various electronic effects would totally change the sounds and timbres in pop music.
Recording changed the way music was learned and the way musical styles spread. In the 1920s, a group of suburban kids from the west side of Chicago were introduced to New Orleans jazz from records they heard at an ice cream parlor. From then on the Austin High Gang devoted themselves to playing jazz. Generations of musicians since have learned to play by listening to records of other musicians. This has, in some cases, eliminated the need for a teacher/pupil relationship. A guitarist in Austin, Texas can learn to play Nigerian Juju without ever having travelled to Africa or studied with an African guitarist.
Another effect of recording on music was that innovation became necessity. The glut of music that resulted from radio and records required that artists and producers come up with new sounds and new styles in order to keep the public interested. And so jazz progressed from New Orleans brass bands to bebop within the span of 25 years. Rock and Roll went from Bill Haley and the Comets to Black Sabbath in the span of 15 years.
One of the biggest effects of recording was on the economy of music and the place of musicians in that economy. By the 20s the recording companies discovered that it was more profitable to sell many copies of one record by one artist than it was to sell many different records by many artists and so the star system was born. This has resulted in a situation where a few musicians (the stars) become very wealthy while most musicians cannot make a decent living from their profession and must work other jobs to support themselves. I'll return to this in a moment.
Recorded music and sound also created the possibility of a whole new way of composing music: using bits and pieces of existing sound recordings to make new compositions. This new technique was pioneered by French composer Pierre Schaeffer in 1948. Schaeffer and other pioneers of the new technique such as Karlheinz Stockhausen used records, tape loops and such to create compositions using existing sound recordings. This style of composition was called musique concrete or concrete music. Experiments with tape machines and ways of manipulating tape loops led to the development of the mellotron, the first commercially produced sample player, in a sense.
By the 1980s the use of prerecorded music to make new music took a new form. Rap and Hip Hop artists looped beats from earlier records in the practice known as sampling.
A transformation also has occured in the way people relate to music.
Because of the fact that sound recording enables sounds, or a facsimile thereof, to be stored on a physical object or device, it has become possible to own a copy of a musical performance. This is really significant, particularly in a capitalist society. Recording enabled capitalists to sell sounds as objects and set in motion a kind of commodity fetishism among the public. Owning records became a kind of status symbol and a means of creating identity for consumers. You could know something about who someone was by that person's record collection. Now, with mp3s and the Internet, collecting recordings has become something of a mania. How many days worth of music do you have in your iTunes library?
Today many people navigate their day in musical cocoons. The car with the sub woofer rattling windows as it passes defines for it's owner a physical space. It is a way to dominate space; to drown out competing sounds with your sound. The personal stereo or mp3 player allows one to exclude outside space; to move around in your own space, cut off sonically from the rest of the world.
It is impossible to make it through a day without hearing music, often someone else's music. In the office, at the job site, in a restaurant, in the car. Silence is unheard of. For some people it is actually unbearable.
Another effect of recording on music performance and music appreciation is that recordings have become definitive and authoritative. The music industry has traditionally made its money from selling records. Musicians would go on tour in order to promote sales of records. This is changing due to the Internet. Now artists are beginning to release recordings in order to promote their live shows. In any case, it is the human contact that is absent in a disembodied sound recording. An interesting paradox has resulted. Fans place great importance on seeing their favorite artist perform live, but are often disappointed if that performance varies from the one on record. A good performance is often equated with how well the artist can reproduce the sound of the record on stage.
Another way to look as this is as a fulfilment of E. M. Forstner's prophetic short story "The Machine Stops" in which humanity has come to distrust direct experience of the world in favor of mediated facsimiles.
By now some of you may be wondering whatever happened to Sam Morse and his clickety-clack telegraph.
The ability to send electrical signals over wires has facilitated, along with computers, the emergence of the Internet. Electromagnetism is again transforming our relationship to music.
In the era of recordings encoded in physical objects, i.e. tapes and records, Capitalists could control both the means of production and intellectual ownership of recordings. The technology to make commercially competitive records was expensive as was the promotion and distribution of recordings. Record companies could get artists to sign away ownership of their creations in exchange for recording and promoting their music. The carrot was stardom.
Technology has changed all that. Competitive recordings can be created by an individual with a computer and some relatively inexpensive studio gear. The Internet has provided a way for artists to promote and distribute their music to a worldwide audience. Music that is owned by major labels is routinely pirated and downloaded in mp3 form from peer to peer networks. It is becoming increasingly difficult for the traditional music industry to control the ownership, production and distribution of recordings.
So, are we on the brink of another transformation?
It would seem so, at least in terms of production and distribution. The music industry as it existed in the 20th century is in deep trouble. The star system, one in which a few artists sold the most records and became, in some cases, fabulously wealthy while the vast majority of musicians could not earn a living may be undergoing a signal change. With the ability to produce and distribute music in the hands of musicians, maybe a more just system will come into being. I would like to see a world in which musicians could earn a living from their work. There are many problems for independent artists trying to sell records on the Internet. Copying and pirating affects the DIY people as much as the major labels. Nevertheless, artists who, a few years ago, would never have dreamed their music might be heard by people around the world now have the ability to put it out there where it can be heard. And maybe this is a start.
But one thing won't change. Our electromagnetic toys have changed music and how we experience it and there's no going back.
