The Voice

Voice and singing are fundamental to music. Scales and content reflect our personal culture. Something beautiful and inspiring to one person may be a boring cacophony to another. Viewing musical evolution from the perspective of culture is therefore varied and individual. Input from science is generally less obvious, except for changes generated from acoustics of buildings, broadcasting, and electronic sound equipment. Medical studies reveal how we form sounds and tone quality, and modern electronic signal processing shows the complexity of the harmonic content of singing. The changes between sweetness, harshness, carrying power, and so on, all depend on not just volume, but the fundamental note and its harmonics, plus all the other frequencies generated in our vocalization. One fundamental may have 50 or more other frequencies. This signal processing tool is invaluable for understanding voice production.

Analogue or Digital Recording

Recordings have progressed from wax to shellac, vinyl, tapes, and CDs with recent variants of downloads or streaming. In every case the sound and type of distortion are different. Nevertheless, they all have impact on every type of music and the quality of reproduction with different challenges for each genre. This chapter details many examples. There is no ideal answer because all systems produce music that is distorted from the original performance. It is a matter of personal preference as to which is favoured. Of considerable concern to the music industry—and to audiences interested in listening to classical or jazz—is the trend of the mass market pop music to be heard via streaming. This produces very poor financial returns for the industry, and to most performers. A discussion of future scenarios is timely and is included in this overview.

From Live Music to Electronic Offerings

Distribution of music via recordings and broadcasts has been a lively activity for well over a century. The value for music is immense, but this is a symbiotic process, where the musical demands spawned the invention of electronic amplifiers, microphones, speakers, and onward to all modern electronics. The original aim was to make a faithful recording of a performance. In reality, this is impossible because the conditions for listening are always different from the original performance. The musical data and reproduction are modified by every aspect of the electronics, and the way in which sound engineers and marketing companies handle the music. There may be advantages in that performance errors can be corrected, balance between instruments adjusted, or the pop music autotune which corrects the pitch. This chapter considers many aspects of current and future sound processing.

Musical Changes Driven by Technology

This chapter explores how science and technology has revolutionized the sounds produced by different instruments. The main examples here are for the violin family and wind instruments. Some changes do not significantly alter the visual appearance, but allow different types of performance, more power, changes in tone, and totally new instruments (e.g. the saxophone). This has had an immense influence on composition, to exploit these new sounds, and of course an equally major swing in fashion from the audiences and players. Understanding of the science has been a key factor in the developments. Change is not always popular, and for example many players of early musical compositions believe they should be played with original sounding instruments and pitch. Unfortunately, the majority of audiences are now so accustomed to the new sounds that they find the earlier ones difficult to appreciate.

Musicianship and the Cult of Personality

Public access to secular music started the cult of superstars. Composition matched this new demand. Stars were eclipsed by ever greater virtuosity. This created a demand for more powerful instruments and better concert halls. Fame was equally available for the conductors. The pattern continues to the present day, with faster tempi, more power in performances, larger orchestras, and access to a wider range of music from recordings and broadcasts. We like this concept of idols, even if we can rapidly switch them off, to replace them with new ones. Nevertheless, they influence our musical tastes. A key factor in this is attributed to the new sounds generated by the science of recordings and electronics. The science that has allowed superstars to be heard worldwide has also changed the public perception of musicians and raised them from the unfashionable to include some with the status of musical heroes (and heroines).

Orchestral Layout and the Best Concert Seats

Orchestras have grown larger over the last 200 years, with more volume, and many new instruments. There are time lags produced between playing and arrival at a seat in the audience. This can produce a disconnect between the visual actions and when the note that is heard. Worse is that notes from different parts of the orchestra, or after reflections, will blur and overlap. The pattern of sound emission differs noticeably between instruments (e.g. for a trumpet, or singer, power is sent forward at high frequencies). Power levels along a row of seats can differ by as much as 1000 times (we hear this power difference as just eight times, as our hearing scale is logarithmic). Understanding this allows us to select the ideal seat if we like particular instrumental sounds.

Music—An Ever-Changing Landscape

Music is universally a key part of life, with a diversity of styles and usage from love songs to warfare and religion. The variations are immense, and always changing. This introduction has a historical outline, with a rapid overview of early instruments and music. Music developed partly from a gradual relaxation of religious control of what was acceptable. The Renaissance in art and literature contributed, but they require language and knowledge of the symbolisms. Music has none of these restrictions, and our responses are totally personal. There has been a major role of scientific inputs into instruments, concert halls, distribution of music via printing and notation, plus the electronics of recorded music and broadcasting. These factors altered compositional styles. The following chapters will expand on these highly diverse and numerous scientific and technological features and their musical consequences.

Music, Emotions, and Political Influences

Music is emotive, and an excellent and powerful route to controlling and influencing opinions in fields as diverse as religion, politics, and war. There are parallel splits between different social classes and individuals. While it is highly personal, it nevertheless is used to gain control of the way we behave, from lullabies to political rallies. There is no unique definition of ‘good’ music and this criterion should be a totally individual decision. Equally, enjoyment of classical music does not inhibit pleasure from jazz, pop culture, or something more exotic from different continents. Many examples are used to show both the power and diversity of music in its influence on people and nations.

Acoustics of Concert Halls and Rooms

Performance is merely the first step in the way we hear music. Acoustics of concert halls, churches, electronics and recording, or broadcasting all modify the original sounds, often quite dramatically. Even in the best auditoria no two seats will receive identical sounds. Buildings designed for different types of music will rarely perform well across a range of musical performances. Understanding this can help in the choice of seating. For music that is broadcast or played from recordings there are considerable changes from the electronics, recording, transmission, reception, home electronics, and acoustics. This chapter examines many possible situations and the attempts at optimization. Hearing differs considerably between people, and it changes with age and our level of concentration.

Decay of Information and Data Loss

Our impression is that advances in science and technology are improving music and all the recordings etc. will mean that we have long-term access to ever more music. In the very short term this may be true but historically the pattern is the reverse, and faster data production of words or images actually result in a shorter lifetime. This pattern is seen from carvings on stone (with little content but long-term survival) to computer generated pop music with vast distribution and a very short life expectancy before it is out of fashion. Languages change meaning or die, and so do musical fashions. This chapter explores how this inherent data loss applies to music.