Please
note: This website is in its early phases and will be continually
updated and improved and therefore should be regarded as always
"under construction".
Please
note: This website is in its early phases and will be continually
updated and improved and therefore should be regarded as always
"under construction".
Page updated 17 December 2009
You can find popularity rankings of these webpages
at:
http://www.danbyrnes.com.au/report/db0306a.html
Contact via the convenient (and virus-free): e-mail form
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Dan | HoTM -
another website book from Dan Byrnes Word Factory - You are now on the
about page for: History
of Technology of Music - HoTM |
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| Here you will find a friendly, feasty and feisty treatment of musical history drawn from the world's records... A slow-growing website, perhaps, but destined to become large, with an emphasis on music in Australia. (This page updated 26 November 2005) |
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HoTM - The website for music demons by Dan Byrnes and Ed
Matzenik.
Music is one of the great joys of life - one of the reasons
this
website originates. But why does this website originate in Australia?
It is partly because Australia is a country of recent historical
origin, 1788++, meaning, as decades pass by, Australia as a nation of
migrants becomes a collection point for the latest technology of all
kinds from the Western World.
Therefore, Australia has
become a
collection point for the latest in music technology. Related, is our
habit of inviting famous world acts to our cities for performances.
Voila! Australia is interested in music, new artists, new
instruments, and new music technology! HoTM! will be fascinated to
trace all such developments.
|
|
If you value the information
posted here, |
The main purpose of this website is to deliver news and views on the history of humanity's use of music to the present...
* Timelines on innovations in instruments * music technology * enjoying recorded music * performance of live music * the early music recording scene (internationally) * from gramophones to the first radios * technology for film music * the arrival of tape recording * the arrival of stereo (and later, surround sound) * to the first computer-generated music, * to MIDI, then CDs, WAVs, MP3s and other digital formats * today's DVDs and also portable MP3 players like iPod and countless others... * issues in music industries around the world * pages or outlines on individual and exotic instruments *
Also being considered are: musical instrument technology, and general social and cultural history associated with music.
Phone:
(02) 6771
5243.
Dan Byrnes Word Factory,
Unit 4,
145
Marsh Street,
Armidale NSW 2350.
ABN 27 526 974 374
[Top]
CREDITS: HoTM - History of Technology of
Music website is
based on an original idea from bass guitarist Ed Matzenik,
who
once played with the famous Australian surf band, The
Atlantics,
and today plays bass with best-awarded pub band, Johnny
Green's
Blues Cowboys, who regularly tour NSW and Queensland.
Some
graphics appear here courtesy of their creator, Joel Byrnes.
Something is also owed to conversations with Tamworth-based
musician Andrew Clermont.
Early in this website's development, an emailer warned that use of a too-rigid classification system might end up looking foolish, or turn out counter-productive. But some kind of a system had to be used to help define the navigation plan and the overall design.
He added: "If you are talking about technology, then you have to list all the inventions and what use has been made of them. In reality, only things that are feasible can actually happen, so the history and technology go arm in arm, never more than two years apart. Many early technologies were barely up to it, but the public loved them, for example the first typewriters and gramophones; early cinema pre-1911; the early TV sets - were very hard to keep going with as many as 30 valves, but it was worth it.
So, I have decided to start with history and list a few events that act as milestones in my mind...
Medieval music - church or secular, sacred or profane;
The
advent of the minstrel and putting tunes to stories;
The
invention of the organ;
The invention of the piano and other
keyboard instruments;
The invention of the tempered scale;
The
orchestra and the composer, the construction of a set of instruments;
The invention of musical instruments before amplification;
The
era of the music hall, vaudeville, travelling shows and popular
entertainment;
The rise of military and college bands and
local
orchestras;
The era of mechanical music;
Learning
an
instrument or learning to sing;
The birth of the blues;
The
jazz and Big Band era;
The invention of the electric guitar;
The
birth of rock and roll;
The group replaces the orchestral
leader
and vocalist;
Electronic music and the avant-garde;
Improvisation as an art form;
The Broadway musical
and its
conversion to sheet music, film and LP;
The phenomenon of
the
rock festival and the stadium concert;
Crazes such as
surfing,
disco and break dance;
The rise of the home studio;
The
computer era, professional technology at home;
Music seen as
nostalgia and sense of place - country/folk/roots;
Mastering
your
instrument;
American teen/pop/rock culture sweeps the world;
Your music defined by your social standing or tribe (goths,
mods,
surfies);
The invention of world music;
The
unplugged
concept;
The role of the fan in a technological era (as
collector, buyer, consumer);
Music everywhere as in shopping
malls, the rise of the CD Walkman and the MP3;
Doof Doof and
techno music - technology supplants both tune and words, leaving only
the mechanical rhythm;
The rise of the music gathering, from
Woodstock to the Big Day Out;
The dumbing down of musical
talent,
replacement of musician by celebrity.
The emailer went on...
=================== The
return to
simplicity;
Real musos who play without technology;
The
end
of the recording industry;
The quest to control new artists
in an
era without contracts;
The end of the professional recording
studio;
The decline of the CD specialist shop.;
Live
your
life how you want to, be a musician;
The over-supply of mass
marketed music;
The owners of technology and bandwidth
struggle
to define mass taste;
How to hear enough styles of music to
decide what you like;
The return of the TV show where music
is
discussed (it's gardening and cooking for this decade);
How
the
music festival defeated the stadium rock concert;
Most
artists
reject recording studios and record companies;
Royalties
paid
directly to artists, promoters are paid for their services;
The
decline of community radio as the FM franchises pump out mainstream
music;
AM Radio becomes solely chatter and talkback;
The
return of the local pub band and the live music venue.
"Going
to the gig" becomes the only way to get a new band's CD, apart
from an internet order;
The backlash against miming at
concerts;
Action movies give way to even more feel-good movies with
nostalgia;
soundtrack albums. Movie CDs to be sold at the
cinema
box office;
The rise of new social trends - inviting friends
over
to practice music;
watch concerts on DVD etc (all this
re-interprets singing round the piano);
Increased music in
schools, the post-modern theory prevails that everyone is or can be a
musician - true or not?
(Ends)
THE electric guitar grew from the electrified Hawaiian guitar.
So who electrified the Hawaiian guitar?
Various opinions can be found on the Internet. Looking at them, Armidale writer and webmaster Dan Byrnes decided to go further into any issues.
In October 2003, Dan Byrnes and bass guitarist Ed Matzenik, who plays with Johnny Green's Blues Cowboys, put their heads together and developed a website idea to treat aspects of the history of the technology of rock music. But well, why not music in general, technology-wise?
The website's early version now appears on the Net at: http://www.danbyrnes.com.au/hotm/
Byrnes on the Net found a website article from US steel guitar enthusiast, Bobby Lee, an opinion from Bud Tutmarc that his father, Paul H. Tutmarc, then of Seattle, "invented" the electric guitar, also the electric bass, from early 1931.
If so, what happens to claims from Adolph Rickenbacker and others in the USA? How closely was the race run?
Curious, Byrnes wrote to Bud Tutmarc to obtain permission (now granted) to look further into Bud's claims on his father's work in 1989.
The result is a debate arena, with contact information, now seen at: http://www.danbyrnes.com.au/hotm/techmus2.htm/
Also interesting, there are claims, not yet properly dated, that the father of the late steel guitar player, ex-Tamworth, Norm Bodkin, worked in Australia at inventing techniques to electrify/amplify guitar sounds during the 1930s.
It's a fascinating sidelight on the history of today's guitars.
Dan Byrnes says it's a fun discussion, so he'll continue to search for any relevant information he can find and post it in the above-named file on the Net.
:::::::::::: Ends::::::::::
For
more information, e-mail Dan Byrnes at dan@danbyrnes.com.au - Phone
(02) 6771 5243.
View
these domain stats begun 18 December 2005