Go punch a tree. (nerd joke)

In thinking about what music is today and might be in the future, it drives me to think about what the evolution of music might be over the next few hundred, or even few thousand years; and beyond. We’re taught in school that music started with cavemen beating on rocks, but aren’t we still banging, plucking, and humming almost the same way we were in our ancient civilizations. The only real thing that has “changed” is our technique. The same way we used to pound a key to hammer a string, we now pound a key to impact a simulation of said string. It can be argued that musical sound, as it’s perceived, has not undergone any real evolutionary changes since the documented “beginning” of music. What we consider to be “new” is nothing but a distorted regurgitation of something that already exists. I draw to example the poster that was hanging in our music class when we were in elementary school. It gave us the basic food groups of music: percussion, strings, woodwinds, etc… Anything changed? Nope. One might say, “what about electronic music?” My answer- What about it? It’s STILL just a regurgitation of what we already have. I hardly consider the difference in digital drums vs. physically pounding a stretched animal skin to be substantial enough to consider this “electronic” derivative in its own class. You’re thinking, “Well, the instruments and groups on that chart are not as much about the sound they make as much as how the instruments are played to create the sound.” I will grant you that. So, by that definition most of our electronic instruments are percussion right? You hit something…It makes a sound. Percussion – easy as that.

Ready for the twist?
I’M WRONG….sorta.

It would be impossible to try to make a legitimate argument for why music has made NO changes since its inception. The catch? I am standing by my assertion that music CREATION hasn’t really changed since the first rock beaters of yesteryear, BUT how the music is delivered has dramatically changed over time. Instruments in the beginning had to be listened to in a live setting. A musician would perform acoustically for their audience. The advent of recorded sound is really where music took its turn in a whole new direction. You may be wondering, “How does this apply to the evolution of music creation?” Well, it does, more than you may think. Our phonograph players, stereos, cd players, etc… have all been integral parts of how music is reproduced. In fact, I would go as far as to say that every one of these devices, in their own right, are every bit as much of an instrument as a guitar, drum set, or the beloved clarinet. The proof… It’s in the pudding. Not literally. That would be gross. Anyone can play a radio, right? Well I would argue that the same “anyone” can play any instrument. Now, how well someone can play any of the instruments in the world is a different story (and the topic of other posts). One’s first crack at a drum set might come across as a blanket of out-of-time noise, but you don’t know; that could be the musical style that’s just 100 years too early. Imagine if you had told any musician 100 years ago that singers would be replaced with screamers and the people that were still singing would have this amazing machine to alter their voice to make it sort of “wiggle”. Who knew that Edison's phonograph machine would go so far to sculpt the infamous Hip-Hop era.

Anyway, I'm headed to my rehearsal space to drop mad beats on my light wave music sequencer. You can get your LWMS3K from Musicians Friend(100 years from now).

Holla!
I mean...
Holla!(in a robot voice)

Artist of the day- Forever The Sickest Kids.
They're just good. Period.


Crazy right?