Mus 205 Musical Circuits: Popular Music and Technology Professor Steve Waksman office hours: TuTh 3-4 pm or by appointment 205 Sage Hall 585-3161 [email protected] Course Description This course will explore a range of ways in which technology has affected the production and consumption of popular music. We will be taking an historical approach to music technologies -- too often “technology” is used only to designate the most advanced tools of a given moment, those which are seen to be the most important markers of progress. While we will spend some time on current technologies (the internet, digital music devices, etc.), we will be spending much more time on earlier technological developments, most of which still remain an integral part of American musical culture: the piano, the phonograph, radio, and the electric guitar, to name a few. One of the guiding assumptions of this course is that we cannot adequately understand current forms of music technology without understanding what preceded them. At a more conceptual level, we will be examining technology from the following perspectives: Music and media technologies: When the sound of music could be recorded onto a wax cylinder, music underwent a fundamental transformation as a commercial and aesthetic object. It is hard to overestimate the importance of recording to the experience of music in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It is just as hard to summarize the meaning of this phenomenon. Recording allowed music to be reproduced and distributed well beyond historically established boundaries. To an unprecedented degree, it allowed audiences to be exposed to music deriving from locations with which they had no firsthand experience. Over time, recording shaped the ways in which music was played, as musicians more and more came to tailor their musical endeavors to what would sound good in a recording studio. And, importantly, recording allowed for the dramatic expansion of one of the most important entertainment industries of the modern era. Developing alongside recording was radio, a rather different sort of technology but one with similar effects. Radio too transmitted music over space to an unprecedented degree, and it also had a significant impact upon the marketing of popular music. Taken together, radio and recording were the primary media through which people encountered music during the twentieth century, and the patterns established by the two formats have been partly continued and partly altered by newer media technologies such as the internet. Music technology and material culture: Developments in music technology tend to create new musical objects. Recording technology, for instance, has produced a range of artifacts, some used to record sound (tape recorders, mixing boards), some to play it back (phonographs, turntables, compact disc players), some to contain the music that’s been recorded (records, cassette tapes, compact discs, MP3 files). Musical instruments are another sort of musical object, and changes in musical instrument design are often indicative of broader changes in musical culture. An electric guitar is on some level just an acoustic guitar with the addition of an electromagnetic device called a pickup which allows the sound of the instrument to be amplified. Yet once this basic modification was made, the design of the electric guitar assumed a life of its own, as musicians and manufacturers pursued further refinements, some of which were driven by musical goals and some by commercial ones (and often both at once, as is common). As we move through the various aspects of music technology that are the subject of this class, we will spend time at each step along the way thinking about the specific forms, shapes and designs that music technologies have taken. Musical instruments and musical performance: Instruments are perhaps the most fundamental of music technologies, for they have the most direct impact upon the work of musicians. Three musical instruments will be a particular focus of our endeavors for part of the semester: the piano; the electric guitar; and the synthesizer, in its analog and digital varieties. Studying these instruments will allow us to put the development of music technology in historical perspective, and to explore how musicians make creative use of available technologies. New musical instruments have often laid the groundwork for significant changes in musical style and performance practice, but by the same token the inventors of new instruments have rarely envisioned the full range of uses to which any given device might be put. Thus, in observing the importance of musical instruments, we will be following the insight of music technology scholar Paul Théberge, who noted that “the manner in which you play an instrument can transform both the instrument itself and the nature of the musical sounds produced.” Readings Mark Katz, Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music Steve Waksman, Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience Paul Theberge, Any Sound You Can Imagine: Making Music/Consuming Technology A number of essays and articles will also be assigned during the semester. Most of these are contained in the coursepack, which is available at the Smith College book store. However, for reasons of cost, some readings will only be available on Moodle, the Smith electronic reserve system. For these latter, I strongly prefer that you not only read the material but make copies of it that you can bring to class. All readings -- books, coursepack and Moodle materials -- are required. There will also be occasional listening assignments announced during the semester, for which materials will be on reserve at Josten Library. Assignments and Grading The grading breakdown for this course is as follows: Essay 1 -- 25% Essay 2 -- 25% Final Essay -- 35% participation -- 15% Essay 1 is a critical essay evaluating the impact of recording and mechanical reproduction technologies upon popular music. It will be 4-6 pages, and will be due on Thursday, October 12. Essay 2 will ask you to evaluate a particular recording with attention to the uses of technology that it reveals. This might involve discussion of the different musical instruments evident and their technological basis, or a discussion of the recording techniques that seem to have been used in creating the piece. It will be 4 pages, and will be due on Tuesday, November 14. The final essay for this course will be an 8-10 page paper on some aspect of music technology that you will choose. More specifically, you will be asked to focus on a particular item of music technology (a musical instrument, a media device) and to analyze its uses and significance, drawing upon class readings to supply necessary context. Further guidelines will be distributed later. This paper will be due during finals week. Class participation is based on two factors, attendance and discussion. Class will be a mix of lecture and discussion, but every class will include at least some opportunity for discussion. You are expected, first of all, to attend class regularly, and second, to come to class prepared, meaning having completed the assigned reading for the day and ready to discuss the material. Undue absence from class will negatively affect your grade. If you need to miss class for some reason, or need an extension on a writing assignment, please let me know before the date in question; otherwise, you risk losing a part of your grade. Generally speaking, having too much work to do or staying up late to finish an assignment for another class is not an adequate excuse for missing class or turning in a late assignment. Only illness or unforeseen personal circumstances such as the death of a family member are proper excuses. If this policy presents a problem for you, arrange to talk with me at the beginning of the semester to clarify your concerns. Course Schedule Readings marked with a (C) are included in the coursepack; readings marked with an (M) are available on Moodle. week one (Sep. 4) Th -- intro week two (Sep. 11) Tu -- getting a handle on technology; Paul Theberge, “Plugged In: Technology and Popular Music” (C); Simon Frith, “Art versus Technology: The Strange Case of Popular Music” (C) Th -- the piano in the nineteenth century; Michael Chanan, “The Age of the Piano” (C) week three (Sep. 18) Tu -- the player piano and mechanical reproduction; Craig Roell, “The Origins of a Musical Democracy” (C) Th -- phonography; Mark Katz, Capturing Sound, pp. 1-47; Evan Eisenberg, The Recording Angel (C) week four (Sep. 25) Tu -- the phonograph and musical aesthetics; Katz, Capturing Sound, pp. 48-71; Andre Millard, “The Machines,” pp. 115-135 (C) Th -- from reproduction to production; Katz, Capturing Sound, pp. 72-136 week five (Oct. 2) Tu -- the electric guitar and the quest for purity; Steve Waksman, Instruments of Desire, pp. 1-74 Th -- clean and distorted tones; Waksman, Instruments of Desire, pp. 75-166 week six (Oct. 9) Tu -- no class; fall break Th -- rock and roll radio; Susan Douglas, “The Kids Take Over: Transistors, DJs and Rock ‘n’ Roll” (M); first paper due week seven (Oct. 16) Tu -- the electric guitar and the body; Waksman, Instruments of Desire, pp. 167-236 Th -- global noise and popular nostalgia; Waksman, Instruments of Desire, pp. 237-294 week eight (Oct. 23) Tu -- recording sound; Steve Jones, “The Process of Sound Recording” (M) Th -- engineering sound; Albin Zak, The Poetics of Rock, pp. 163-183 (C); Edward Kealy, “From Craft to Art: The Case of Sound Mixers and Popular Music” (C); Tom Dowd and the Language of Music (video) week nine (Oct. 30) Tu -- producing the Beatles; Kari McDonald and Sarah Hudson Kaufman, “Tomorrow Never Knows” (C); Ian MacDonald, Revolution in the Head, pp. 148-153, 170-175 (C) Th -- industrializing musical instruments; Paul Théberge, Any Sound You Can Imagine, pp.