Technology does not stand apart from music influencing it from the outside--it is a part of
music integral to every aspect of musical activity and musical life. Music technology tends to
evoke images of modernity but all tools used to create store reproduce and transmit
music--new or old acoustic or electronic--are technologies worthy of investigation. This Very
Short Introduction ranges across centuries and continents reveals surprising
connections--between eighteenth century French android musicians and twenty-first century
Japanese singing holograms or Baroque pipe organs and music video game controllers. Humans are
and have always been creatures of technology and of music. If we want to understand how music
is made and experienced Mark Katz argues we must investigate its relationship--ancient and
inextricable--with technology.
