Music Technology Early 20 th Century Listening

Early 20 th Century The 5 styles we are going to cover in this section are:

Jazz

Black Keys Improvisation Walki ng Bass in L.H Synco pation in R.H

Ragtime

Ragtime Piano Synco pated R.H Vamp in L.H

Blues C Majo r

Swing

Country Music

Technologic al Developmen ts

Player pianos A player piano is a self playing piano containing a mechanism inside that operates the piano action via pre-programmed music that is recorded on perforated paper. These are often associated with ragtime music.

The Phonograph Cylinder was created by Thomas Edison in This was the earliest creation for recording sound. Wax Cylinders Wax cylinders were originally just called ‘records’. They are hollow cylindrical objects that have an audio recording engraved on the outside surface.

This sound was then reproduced when played on a mechanical cylindrical phonograph. To recreate the sound, the surface is rotated while a playback stylus traces the groove and is therefore vibrated by it, very faintly reproducing the recorded sound. In early acoustic phonographs, the stylus vibrated a diaphragm which produced sound waves which were coupled to the open air through an acoustic horn. The wax coating meant that the cylinders could be shaved down and reused.

Gramophone Record A gramophone record is an analogue sound recording medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed modulated spiral groove starting near the periphery and ending near the centre of the disc. The Gramophone disc record was the primary medium used for music reproduction until late in the 20th century, replacing the Wax Cylinders.

Vinyl LP At the time the LP was introduced, records were originally made out of a shellac compound which was very noisy. These required a much larger groove therefore making the records larger in size. This played at 75rpm (revolutions per minute) limiting the playing time to only 5 minutes per side.

The new product was a 10 or 12inch fine grooved vinyl record and was played with a smalled tipped ‘micro-groove’ stylus at a speed of 33½ rpm. This meant the record could play for up to 20 minutes on each side. Although the LP was especially suited to classical music because of its extended continuous playing time, it also allowed a collection of ten or more typical pop music recordings to be put on a single disc.

45 rpm record The 7-inch 45 rpm record was introduced in 1949 by RCA as a smaller, more durable replacement for the 78 rpm discs. The first 45 rpm records were monaural, with recordings on both sides of the disc. As stereo recordings became popular in the 1960s, almost all 45 rpm records were produced in stereo by the early 1970s. These could hold as much sound as the 12” 78rpm records but were much smaller and more attractive.

Coin operated boxes and Player pianos were the first forms of automated coin- operated musical machines. A jukebox is a partially automated music playing device, usually a coin operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media. The classic jukebox has buttons with letters and numbers on them that, when entered in combination, are used to play a specific selection. Juke Box

These instruments used paper rolls, metal disks, or metal cylinders to play a musical selection on the instrument, or instruments, enclosed within the device. In the1890s these devices were joined by machines which used actual recordings. These are mainly associated with Rock & Roll, but the popularity extends back further to the Swing era.

Solid Body Electric Guitar There are some common characteristics of solid body electric guitars. They typically have six strings although there are some seven- and eight-string models. Most have at least a volume and tone control. If they have more than one guitar pickup they have a switch that allows them to switch between the different pickups.

A pickup device is a transducer that captures mechanical vibrations from string instruments such as the electric guitar, and converts them to an electrical signal that is amplified, recorded, or broadcast. These were first needed during the Swing era when Big Bands began to incorporate more brass. An early attempt was made known as a resonator guitar but it did not meet the requirements.

Electric Organ An electronic organ was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Electricity arrived on the organ scene in the first decades of the 20th century, but it was slow to have a major impact. In place of reeds and pipes, Robb and Hammond introduced a set of rapidly spinning magnetic wheels, called tonewheels, which excited transducers that generated electrical signals of various frequencies that were mixed and fed through an amplifier to a loudspeaker.

Most Hammond organs have two 61-note (5-octave) manuals. Each manual is laid out in a similar manner to a piano keyboard, except pressing a key results in the sound continuously playing until it is released. There is no difference in volume regardless of how heavily the key is pressed, so overall volume is controlled by a foot pedal (also known as a "swell" or "expression" pedal) Hammond organs come with a wooden pedal board played with the feet, for bass notes. The sound on a tonewheel Hammond organ is varied through the manipulation of drawbars. A drawbar is a metal slider that controls the volume of a particular sound component, in a similar way to a fader on an audio mixing board. As a drawbar is incrementally pulled out, it increases the volume of its sound. When pushed all the way in, the volume is decreased to zero.

Reel to Reel Magnetic Tape Reel-to-reel/open-reel (audio) tape recording is the form of magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording medium is held on a reel, rather than being securely contained within a cassette. Magnetic tape revolutionized broadcast and recording. It was invented for recording sound in 1928 in Germany, and was based on the magnetic wire recording of 1898.