Music and Technology From Edison to the Present
Examines the changing relationships between music and technology from the late Romantic era to the present, covering instrument design, media, and recording.
Summary
What you’ll be able to do
Describe what you hear in music using basic technical terminology.
Recognize and contextualize several genres of music.
Discuss musical meaning in relation to its social, political, and cultural contexts.
Examine your relationship to music and sound in general.
Express understanding of and appreciation for the ways that music, sound, and technology interact in our daily lives.
Source: UW Guide
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Prerequisites
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Student experience
the class
How has modern technology shaped the composition, performance, and reception of music? In turn, how has music influenced technology? And what sorts of anxieties arose from these cultural currents? Evaluate the changing relationships between music and technology from the late Romantic era to the present day. Considering broader political, cultural, and aesthetic contexts, explore both popular and art music alongside important developments in instrument design, compositional techniques, media, and recording. Consider what it means for something to be considered a "technology" and the social, cultural, and environmental ramifications therein. Musicians to be studied include Bela Bartok, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Gyorgy Ligeti, Donna Summer, Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, Beyonce, and more. Gain a better understanding of the cultural and social constructions of technologies like the wax cylinder, radio, gramophone, microphone, synthesizer, and internet.
difficulty & workload
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Topics
- Popular and art music, instrument design, compositional techniques, media, and recording
- Wax cylinder, radio, gramophone, microphone, synthesizer, and internet technologies
- Works by Bela Bartok, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Gyorgy Ligeti, Donna Summer, Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, and Beyonce
Skills
- Describing music using basic technical terminology
- Discussing musical meaning in social, political, and cultural contexts
- Understanding interactions between music, sound, and technology
Grades
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Explore recorded gradesRecorded 2026-10-14
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Model & dataset provenance
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