A Changing World (Musically Speaking)

The world is fast changing, a statement known to many people, especially to those who are involved within the world of technology. But what I find most fascinating is how music has changed and how it is still rapidly changing.

Music has always been reliant on technology, if man had not learned to skin an animal there would be no drums. If man had not learned to cut wood there would be no flutes. Stringed instruments are well crafted and made out of fancy material, and piano’s are highly complicated devices that are forever being modified.To call an instrument other than the human voice natural would be incorrect.

A musical instrument is anything that a person can use to make the sounds of music. Man has been developing musical instruments for thousands of years and it is possible to see continuity between the earliest instruments and the ones made today.Take the harpsichord for instance, it was made in the 14th-15th century, and is the well known ancestor of the piano. The harpsichord was very popular during the renaissance and baroque period, and most famously played by Johann Sebastian Bach.

The piano was invented and the harpsichord forgotten and since then, the idea of the keyboard has been used to evolve into instruments such as the synthesiser, which is a musical instrument that operates using electronics.

An electronic musical instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound via the use of electronics. It operates through outputting audio signal that works the speaker. In contrast with this, an electric musical instrument for example the electric guitar, uses electronics to amplify the volume of the instrument, usually this type of instrument will also have some way of manipulating pitch and note sound duration.

A musical instrument that uses electronics in this way may be inclined to include some sort of user interface to control its sound such as pitch and volume.

It is very common however for the electronic musical instrument to have a user interface completely separate, this is known as a controller and these are generally used with midi or open sound control.

Most common synthesisers are controlled though the aid of a keyboard interface similar to the one found on a piano. Even though the common synthesiser instrument looks like a piano, its function is something very special.

The ReacTable is a modern synthesiser.

With the ReacTable the user interface is something completely different, a tangible glass surface acts as the keyboard would on the common synthesiser. The ReacTable is very fascinating electronic musical instrument, with a touch screen user interface which makes it a truly remarkable electronic musical instrument