Music technology describes the application of state-of-the-art tools and methods to all aspects of music, including production, composition, performance and analysis. It is an interdisciplinary field, spanning music, new media, digital signal processing, acoustics, computer science, psychoacoustics, human-computer interaction and music perception and cognition. Music Technology research explores new technologies and new ways of applying them to music, as well as investigating how they impact upon current musical practice.

Historically, as new technologies have emerged, musicians have experimented with incorporating them into their practice. From the 1600s to the 1800s, this involved using mechanical machines based on gears and cogs to construct devices such as music boxes, player pianos and the phonograph. The discovery of electricity in the mid-1800s, resulted in the production of motorised equipment like the Hammond Organ, which used spinning discs driven by motors to produce sound. Developments in the field of electronics during the 20th century lead to a boom in Music Technology. Amplifiers, tape recorders, electric instruments and computers were built first on vacuum tube technology, and later made smaller, cheaper and more efficient using transistors and integrated circuits.

In the modern era, Music Technologists typically work with readily-available personal computers with software for audio recording, sequencing and publishing scores, and audio hardware such as microphones, mixing consoles, synthesisers, amplifiers, effects processors, MIDI controllers, tape and CD decks and speakers.

Applications of Music Technology include:

• Performance on electronic instruments, laptops and by live programming.
• Computer-assisted composition, algorithmic, generative and adaptive compositional techniques.
• Computer-assisted instruction; interactive educational software tools to encourage learning and participation in musical activities.
• Production; recording, mixing and digital processing of audio.
• Storage of music on physical media (CDs, DVDs) and music distribution over computer networks in compressed digital formats such as mp3 or as streamed audio
• Automated analysis of music, for example for indexing in Music Information Retrieval systems.

Reference Book

Williams, D. B., Webster, P. R (1999) Experiencing Music Technology (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Group.

Recommended Text Book

Roads, C (1996), Computer Music Tutorial. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Summary written by

Anna Gerber
Music & Sound
Queensland University of Technology
April 2006