Is the Thummer “Music Technology”?

When I show Thumtronics’ innovations to music educators, the word I hear most often is “brilliant” – which is very gratifying! – but what I sometimes hear next is very disconcerting: “You should go talk to Dr. X, he’s our music technology guy.”

If the Thummer were acoustic, they wouldn’t send me to see Dr. X. They are clearly making a simple association between “electronic” and “music technology.”

That seems very strange to me. All musical instruments are pieces of technology. Throughout history, the very latest technologies have always been applied to music making, including Neanderthal bone flutes, ancient Chinese bells, Industrial Era brass instrument valves, the Boehm System flute key plate & lever system of 1847, stringed-instrument strings, the early electrical Telharmonium in the 1870s, continuously-drawn high-carbon steel piano wire in the 1890s, the lap steel guitar in the 1930s, the CSIRAC computer playing tunes in 1951, analog synthesis in the 1970s, FM synthesis in the 1980s, waveguide synthesis in the 1990s, and even polymer chemistry for guitar strings. If you’re making music with anything beyond your skin, you’re using music technology.

Advances in technology are often important to the development of music.

• The harpsichord’s plucked strings produced a very bright sound, in which harmonics that do not fit the 12-tone equally-tempered scale are clearly audible. The piano’s strings, on the other hand, are struck by felted hammers, which dull these higher harmonics into inaudibility, making the piano’s sound spectrum and excellent fit with equal temperament.
• Before the invention of the brass instrument valve in 1814-15, brass instruments were like bugles – they could only play the harmonics of a given note. Many had “crooks” – sorta like little trombone slides, of varying lengths – which you could use to change from one key to another, but within each key you were still confined to that key’s harmonics. Bach, Haydn, & Mozart made little use of the valve-less brass instruments of their day, whereas valved instruments were essential to the music of Wagner of military brass bands in the 1800’s. Indeed, Wikipedia says that “the first modern [brass] bands were developed early in the 19th century in Prussia, when all military and government bands were issued the new technology of rotary valve instruments and instructed to use standard tuning [12-tone equal temperament].”
• Rock and roll would never have happened if guitars had still been strung with sheep-gut. The electric guitar's steel strings are an integral part of its electical circuitry.

The Thummer is no more – or less – appropriately labeled “music technology” than is the piano, trumpet, or electric guitar. It’s just newer. Like felted hammers, brass instrument valves, and electronic music synthesis, Thumtronics' musical innovations are likely to affect the way music is composed and performed -- and not just by Dr. X.