Music in Society - Development of Music Technology

Since the early 1900’s the technological advances made popular by our society have changed music forever. (Hanes, 2011) Some of these advances include the train, radio, television and personal computers; we can easily look back and see that each one of these inventions has had a lasing influence on the way music is heard and seen. (Hanes, 2011) During the 1800s, music was basically listened to by people who were in direct contact with musicians in bars, pubs, theatres etc. but the invention of the train and railroads made printed music more available as they could easily transport things such as printed piano rolls to other markets. (Katz, 2005)   Even in today music technology, piano rolls are still used in all software’s as they the simplistic form of note formations and it is what musicians have used for decades.
Around 1926, the radio was invented. Radio gave music boundaries that stretched across the country as still stretch to this day. People in far off places could listen to music from a DJ many miles away. (Gronow, 1999) Radio was one of the many devices that allowed music to stretch and reach markets that it couldn’t before, which is still true to this day with there being many different radio stations; some stations are genre specific which allows different people in society to hone in on their particular interest and focus it. (Nolan, 2002) This made way for any talented artists to come through and make music and it would be aired on the radio as it didn’t matter what you looked like or where you were from, the audience would just appreciate the sounds of the compositions.
However, the invention of the television in the 1940s gave the general public the ability to actually see what they could not on the radio (Nolan, 2002). This ‘image’ of music had a major influence on the music itself as the consumers would start to see the fashions of the artists and could then copy this style to represent the music they liked and from which part within society they...