Assignment No. 1: Musical Technologies
When you pick up a violin bow, are you just picking up an amalgamation of wood, fiberglass, plastic, and hair? Or are you picking up the labor that went into constructing it, be it man- or machine-made? What about the global economic and transportation networks that brought it to you? What about the technique with which you hold it—the hours and hours of private lessons and practice that enabled you to cock your elbow at just the right angle, to press with just the right amount of pressure, so that you’re able to use that bow to draw a full sound from the violin? What about the centuries of invention and refinement that went into that bow? Is it really just a bow after all? Or is it actually so much more?
This assignment asks you to consider the “little histories” behind the objects, instruments, tools, and technologies that we use while making and listening to music. Choose a musical technology to write about—this can be an instrument (bow, violin, timpani mallet, theremin), an audio playback device (iPod, record player), a type of media (tape, LP, CD, MP3), or more (music software, iPad with score reader). Maybe you’re a singer—can we think of a single, human breath as a “musical technology”? What goes into the process of inhalation and exhalation? Be creative and really explore the hidden stories behind everyday technologies you might otherwise overlook.