For the musically daring, it's hard to beat the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, which takes place later this month at Georgia Institute of Technology. One previous winning entry turned whisks and garlic presses into music makers. Another, the Double Slide Controller, borrowed the trombone's slide mechanism—a 15th-century innovation—to shape digitally produced tones into an otherworldly drone.
Events like these would seem to signal a golden age for the adventurous musician. New instruments have come to market at a steady clip in recent years, offering novel and occasionally fanciful ways to perform music. Maybe you've heard of the the Eigenharp, the Tenori-on, or the Harpejji?Or maybe not. Good luck hearing any of these contraptions on the recordings of prominent modern artists. You're more likely to come across Tibetan singing bowls (Fleet Foxes), 17th-century Indonesian angklung (Okkervil River), or the zither (P.J. Harvey). In other words, established pop and rock musicians seem more inclined to try just about any instrument other than a new one. The turntable might be the last new implement to break into pop music; there's even debate over whether that qualifies as an instrument, despite having its own form of notation and a course at Berklee College of Music. According to hip-hop lore, Grand Wizzard Theodore invented scratching 36 years ago. Suddenly, the turntable became a device used not just for listening to music, but performing it. And like the guitar, it turned into a focal point in live performances.
Now consider some of the instrumental developments in the 36 years prior: the solid-body electric guitar, the pedal-steel guitar, the steel drum, the electric bass, the synthesizer, and the drum machine.
Music technology in general has charged forward, and computers, digital sampling and MIDI have dramatically shaped music. But no one mimes to music on the "air sampler" and the idea of a "Software Hero" video game, with its own simulated laptop, is a little glum. Will a brand-new instrument ever capture hearts, minds, and speaker systems again?
THE PROBLEM WITH NEWNESS
It's hard to overstate the importance of new musical instruments in history. The piano's dynamic range allowed for a subtlety in composition previously unimagined. The modern drum set paved the way for jazz. Rock and roll would not have happened without the electric guitar. As composer Edgard Varese put it in 1936, "It is because new instruments have been constantly added to the old ones that Western music has such a rich and varied patrimony."
So what happened? Why has there been such a drought of new instruments—especially in rock and pop, which thrive on novelty?
by William Weir, The Atlantic | Read more:
Photo: AP
