Music & Technology

Take a look behind the scenes, and let us know your thoughts, at the Weekend Edition blog:

Archived blog postings:

Kanye West, Auto-Crooner

Tod Machover's New Opera

Violin Envy

A Lesson In Equalization

Introduction: Music & Technology

November 2:

• Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music: Liane Hansen visits NYU to speak with the department's artistic director, Jason King, and sit in on classes to see what the next generation of music professionals might expect as they work with a vast new array of tools.
• Evan Eisenberg's The Recording Angel: Eisenberg's series of essays on the change of aesthetics with the dawn of the recording age are even more relevant today with the advance of virtual technologies.

November 9:

Violin Convention: At the Violin Society of America's annual gathering, luthiers across the country presented their ultralight, experimental string instruments. Sadie Babits sends us an audio postcard from the conference in Portland, Ore.

Old Music, New Technology: Is the state-of-the-art for classical players still rooted in 17th century Italian instruments? Liane Hansen visits with Brooklyn violin-maker Sam Zygmuntowicz, who is using new technologies to study old instruments and build new ones.

November 16:

• IRCAM: NPR's Frank Browning profiles the institute for music and acoustic research in Paris founded in 1969 by composer Pierre Boulez.
• Tod Machover: Composer of the Brain Opera, Machover was once head of musical research at IRCAM, has had a longtime association with the MIT Media Lab, and is co-director of the Opera of the Future group. Machover has helped develop some crazy tools for serious composers and amateurs alike. But how many of these tools are gimmicks, and what will really last?

November 23:

• Auto-Tune: It's a well-kept secret that almost all singers use pitch-correction software such as Auto-Tune in the studio (and sometimes on stage) to fix sour notes. Liane Hansen visits Avatar Studios in Manhattan to try pitch correcting her own voice, and discusses what this means to the concept of virtuosity.
• The Producers: Three Grammy Award-winning record producers sit down with Liane Hansen to discuss advances in recording technology and the boundaries of studio ethics.

November 30:

• Technology And The New Business Model: Self-distribution via new MySpace tools, lobbying for placement on iTunes and streaming concerts are just a few areas where today's artists are trying to hammer out a new music business model. NPR's Laura Sydell surveys the new landscape with an up-and-coming artist who goes by City and Colour.
• Online Collaboration: New software allows for all sorts of musical collaborations over the internet. In a recent concert at Washington, D.C.'s 9:30 Club, Bob Boilen had a "reunion" of his band — with one of the players piped in long-distance. A few musicians demonstrate (and discuss) from NPR's performance Studio 4A.