Technology and the Composer

Boulez, Pierre

1986

The Language of Electroacoustic Music. London: Macmillan, 5-14.

Language: English

In this essay (originally written in 1977), the author discusses the extent to which technology has affected, and has the potential to affect musical invention in terms of the relationship between the conception of the musical work (the composer's vision) and the realisation in sound of these ideas. He notes that the musical culture's general tendency towards conservative historicism has diminished the progressive potential of musical invention and creativity through the use of technology. He also notes how the inventors of technology have tended to create new processes based solely on science rather than musically determined reasons, this has repelled musicians whose education and culture has not given them the agility to take such technology on board. To address these gaps between developers, musicians, technology and invention he suggests that a greater communication and understanding should be established between musicians and technologists, and how in the end, musical invention will need to learn and appropriate the language of technology and vice versa.