Research Essay Ciara de Rosa
Research Essay Ciara de Rosa
Research Essay Ciara de Rosa
Ciara De Rosa
Ms. Hoogewerf
Writing for College Success
16 December 2015
Song Searching
Since the dawn of this era and precedent to it, music has lived within all forms of life.
Songs have been sung by birds in the way that they chirp, and by rubber boots in the way that
they squeak. Humans can find melody in nearly anything they come in contact with, and through
this, mankind has created the everlasting and ever-maximizing media of music. Music, over time,
has continually developed into what it is today, and a major constituent part is its correlation to
technology. Technological advancements have brought this artistic medium into the future
through innovative concepts including recording systems, production speakers, and its
publication process and accessibility.
In theory, music is comprised only of a variety of notes and derives a set outcome of
patterns. There are two direct definitions of music that are often considered, one is the science
or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to
produce a composition having unity and continuity (Merriam-Webster) and the other is blatantly
that of sounds corresponding in such a way to create some degree of melody and rhythm.
Through amelioration of the technology pertaining to musical manufacturing, humankind has
developed advanced recording systems. For example, analogue audio equipment designed and
built during the 1950s to 1970s . . . had a straightforward design edict Wilson of Engineering
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and Technology Magazine elaborates upon the use of quality components in the past of musical
recording. The Fairchild 670 variable mu dynamic-ratio stereo compressor/limiter, for example,
is iconic in promising its true golden glow: the sound that collectors find so enticing. Today,
this type of equipment would cost upwards of $20,000. A major concept of music that has
changed over the course of modernization is that one is not obligated to play an instrument to
create music. GarageBand, an Apple computer-system application, allows one to create and loop
beats by the tapping of keys. This particular software has been in use since 2004, when Apple
purchased Emagic, a German software company. It became more vastly known and popular with
its lack of charge, and consequently one of the most infamous ways to edit and construct ones
own music whether it is from premade audio clips or directly produced (Music Radar).
Processing and computing audio by hand thus became easier with the innovation of certain
software and appliances; thereon, music became easier to spawn. It came easily and it came
deafening.
Conceptually, music is to be felt more than it is to be heard. As Marcel Cobussen from
Leiden University once put it, there is a musical dimension that is much more difficult to
capture in words. This dimension might be indicated as the sensual, something which can and
should (at least according to Sren Kierkegaard) only be expressed in its immediacy. Music is
frequently misheard and not felt an ounce, but with the proper recording systems, music can
shake ones bones. Amplifiers are used in almost all crowd-consisting performances. An amp is
am electromagnetic or electronic component that boosts an electric current. A hearing aid works
the same way: the piece uses a microphone that when detecting the sounds surrounding a person
will convert them into a fluctuating electric current. The amp, in which case, will take the input
signal and boost it to whatever scale one might want and it will then be fed into a tiny
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loudspeaker placed inside ones ear canal so one hear the original sounds but to a much louder
extent (Woodford). Prominent voice, distinguishable volume and range of proximity are what
define a good performance in the music industry; the proper equipment helps one in constructing
their music with vibrancy, and defining their musical dimension through song. The process of
publicizing ones work will receive no recognition unless it is first published.
Publishing ones personal thoughts as well as creations has never been easier than it is in
the modern day. 56 percent of Americans have a profile on a social-networking site, meaning that
56 percent of Americans have the availability to post on their own whim 100 percent of the time.
Social media websites like Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and particularly Youtube have
assisted in the broadcasting of self-made music because they are the simplest way to share with
others all one might ever wish to. Once one is equipped with the proper machinery and editing
software, distributing work is then easy. Over nine million people visited Facebook in the month
of October this year, and that is only one example of the widespread usage of social media and
how it can contain a specific advantage (National Archives). A crippling yet paradoxically
propitious aspect of online medias is that someone can spread word of everything or anything in
a matter of milliseconds. Music is to be shared, though, and thus the auspiciousness of the
advantageous aspects in publishing protrude.
Music, in a philosophical sense, is like playing God. One has the world at his or her
fingertips as they grace someone with the melody of music. Words devalue the sense of
palpability that its aura fills the air with. Once language attempts to pinpoint the thing that music
has effortlessly created, the creation immediately dissipates. Many years ago, the only way to
share and attain the beauty within a song, was to gather with ones friends and listen to whoever
might have been able to play an instrument and just so happened to have it with them. But today,
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with continual progression by the means of modernization and technological asset, humankind is
growing. Man is growing and music is growing with him. Through the building of new
equipment, the understanding of new softwares, and the simplistic access to sharing for success,
music has become something more than just a palpable feeling. It is something legitimate: it can
be felt just as much as it can be expressed, and man has found its origin and cultivated its
creation and made it newer, as well as greater.
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Works Cited
Cobussen, Marcel. "What Is Music?" Thinking Sounds. N.p., 25 Oct. 2011. Web. 16 Dec. 2015.
Music. Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 12 December 2015.
"Social Media Statistics." National Archives and Records Administration. National Archives and
Records Administration, n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2015.
Tech, Future. "A Brief History of GarageBand." MusicRadar. N.p., 17 Mar. 2011. Web. 11 Dec.
2015.
Wilson, Jonathan. The Song Remains the Same Engineering and Technology, Institution of
Engineering and Technology, Jan. 2015. Web. 12 December 2015.
Woodford, Chris. "Amplifiers." How Does an Amplifier Work? N.p., 8 May 2011. Web. 13 Dec.
2015.