Is Electronic Music Really Music?

Let’s put it in perspective. Music uses current technology just as much as any other human creation; and musicians have always relied on “current technology” to make their music.

Consider the piano. Up to the 17th century, musicians used bowed or wind instruments to create music. The various types of flute, horn or “stringed/plucked” instruments made the “mainstream music” from ancient times up to the 16th Century.

But in the 1600’s, that changed. A new form of musical instrument was developed. Musicians no longer had to master a particular bow technique on the violin or cello, or train their breathing to master the flute and trumpet to make a sound.

They just had to press a key.

The piano, and it ancestors changed how music was created, how it sounded, and how it was played; and it’s quite possible that audiences who first saw and heard the piano felt just like many modern critics of electronic, digitized, computer created music feel today, that it was “destroying the soul of music!”

But music changes with time and technology, as much as everything else in the world; and electronic music is slowly, but surely taking its place as a new music medium; and for the same reasons that the piano did.

It took a while for “keyboard technology” to evolve from the clavichord of Mozart to the Grand Piano of Beethoven. And digital, computerized music is still in its infancy, but advancing as fast as the technology allows. Composers are already composing digitized, computerized music for films; all it really needs is a digital Mozart and Beethoven to make it “mainstream”.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.