Mankind Music Technology

This book examines the modalities of human relationships and technology as reflected in the musical thinking of the authors of art music of the 20th and early 21st centuries. The discursive and reference frame of the treatise consists mainly of individual artistic poetics and more general musical-aesthetic reflections embedded in the basic theoretical concepts of technology and its functions in culture and society. The departure point for the work is Heidegger's lecture "Die Frage nach Technik", in which he suggests humanising technology through art. The book chapters examine the relationships between man, music, and technology from three points of view. Chapter 3 deals with music from a technical point of view, chapter 4 analyses the transformation of the musical artefact in the developmental arch of the 20th century from numerical abstraction through digitisation to materialisation in musical as well as non-musical art forms. Chapter 5 is a representation of man and his thinking in relation to technology in music. Here we distinguish between four basic types of attitudes in musical thinking on technology, categorised by the degree of influence attributed to technology: techno-utopian/techno-optimistic, techno-realistic, techno-sceptic, and post-technological. In the latter, we define four basic artistic strategies forming separate types: critical attitude, adaptation of technological models, recycling, and inspiration. These strategies are ranked from generally negative attitudes through specifically positive to generally positive.

"This book illustrates how interactive music can be used for valorizing cultural heritage, content and archives not currently distributed due to lack of safety, suitable coding, or conversion technologies. It explains new methods of promoting music for entertainment, teaching, commercial and non-commercial purposes, and provides new services for those connected via PCs, mobile devices, whether sighted or print-impaired"--Provided by publisher.

This book is the most definitive attempt to date to discuss the achievements of women as composers of experimental and avant-garde music from the 1930s to the present day. Using a wealth of primary material, it also explores currently relevant issues in gender and technology. Drawing out the relationships between composers and their working environments, and between teachers and students, Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner discusses the contribution of women composers to electroacoustic music. The book includes a bibliography and discography covering the work of ninety composers.

"The financial planning industry has grown into a massive factory -one that's definitely not designed to help you create the life you want ... Holcombe challenges you to think differently about your money ... learn how to avoid the traps of the financial factory ... be quipped to ask better questions of your financial advisor ... develop the instincts you need to avoid toxic advice"--Publisher's description.

This is an introduction to basic music technology, including acoustics for sound production and analysis, Fourier, frequency modulation, wavelets, and physical modeling and a classification of musical instruments and sound spaces for tuning and counterpoint. The acoustical theory is applied to its implementation in analogue and digital technology, including a detailed discussion of Fast Fourier Transform and MP3 compression. Beyond acoustics, the book discusses important symbolic sound event representation and software as typically realized by MIDI and denotator formalisms. The concluding chapters deal with globalization of music on the Internet, referring to iTunes, Spotify and similar environments. The book will be valuable for students of music, music informatics, and sound engineering.

Simon Zagorski-Thomas sets out a framework for the study of record production using current ideas from psychology and sociology.