Part 9.  The Next Step In Automatic Music..

This episode we’re going to look at what is basically the beginning of recorded music. Last episode we looked at the beginnings of recording music as notation, this time we’re going to look at the invention of recording a musical performance or song for automatic instruments.

This is important as an evolutionary step, for a few reasons.

1. It was another change in the way people could relate to music, for the first time music could be accessed without the necessity of being in the presence of a musician in order to enjoy said music.
2. IT was a significant step in technology, suddenly we could freeze a moment sonically. As long as the player was in good working order it would play back the same piece as precisely as the first time it was created.

Right.

First things first, let me get one thing clear.

Today we’re going to tread into some historically murky territory, that is to say the dates suggested are exactly that, suggestions, it’s not because the dates and names have chaged to protect the innocent, it’s simply a one of the problems with of ancient histrory, a lack of supportable evidence… so please bare this in mind as we proceed..

The Banu Musa Brothers are a perfectly murky place to start.

We met the Banu Musa Bros back in part 5.

We know that the three brothers worked together on their Book Ingenious devices, which was published in 850 AD. We know that it was a collection of Ancient Greek knowledge both mechanical and scientific that they were able to find preserved by monasteries and scholars.

Here we can find the earliest surviving records of Hero’s Wind Powered Organ and Ktesilbios’ Hydraulis.

But also contained in these incredible pages are the descriptions and plans for a Hydraulis which had interchangeable cylinders, these cylinders had raised pins on the surface that triggered the the pipe stops to open and close. They also detailed an automatic flute player, which as far as anyone can tell was one of the first programmable machines and the first programmable musical instrument.

What’s murky about all this is historians cannot seem to agree on whether the Brothers should be credited as being the inventors of these technological wonders or as just as important preservers of this ancient wisdom.

What is certain is that without this book, modern day organs wouldn’t have had the evolution that we have today.

It was through this text that enterprising Arabs started to recreate and modify the Hydraulis and export them to Europe.

There were many other incredible inventions in the book of wisdom, such as;

• Valve and plug valve
• Float valve
• Feedback controller
• Hurricane lamp
• Self-trimming lamp and a Self-feeding lamp
• Gas mask
• Fail-safe system
• Differential pressure

It should also be noted that one of the Brothers, Muhammad Ibn Musa, was also a pioneer in celestial mechanics and astrophysics.

He published The Book On The Motion Of The Orbs, which contained the first discoveries that the celestial spheres as well as the heavenly bodies were subject to the very same laws of physics as Earth.

Back to the subject at hand..

Consider this for a moment, Hero invented the first programmable machine, for the theater, and the second programmable machine which was found in the book of ingenious devices was for a musical instrument!

This shows that music and entertainment played an important role in our technological evolution, it actually drove the creation of technology that we take for granted every day.

Just as the need for portable entertainment (and the space rece)  helped to drive miniaturization from the 1980’s on, man’s need for music, for access to the emotional realm of sound should never be underestimated… just look at the success of the iPod/iPhone!

I believe that this evolution of music is not a one way street, in fact I think it’s tied inseparably together with mankind’s need to experiment and evolve. In further posts you’ll discover that as human needs drove the invention of technology, the technology changed our relationship with music, which in turn drove further changes in our technology.

Thus technology is both our artist tools, our paint brushes and also our filter or canvas that we paint on to, as the tools and the canvas evolves so too does our art form.

One other point to consider.

Just as it might seem unusual that the Pen was invented before the Pencil, this all goes to show that programmed music, was invented before a sophisticated universal version of musical notation!

Why is this strange?

Because doesn’t one have to have a pretty sophisticated form of musical notation in the first place to create automatic music machines?

Teaching machines, getting them to translate and play music was achieved 200 years before Guido of Arezzo codified musical notation!

In the next installment we continue the evolution of programmable music devices.  We promise not to get so philosophical, but we do look at the power marketing, and see if our next invention rings any bells for you!
click here for part 10.

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CLICK HERE for the INDEX of History Of Electronic Music