WEBVTT - Play That Funky Music, Android 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.400 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:15.280 Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.520 podcast that looks at the future and says, say, who's 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:22.079 that playing the guitar. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren Vokeman, 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:24.599 and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we were going to 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:27.920 talk about the future of music, specifically when it comes 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:32.479 to musical performance, and kind of talk all about how 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:35.720 how sometimes the instruments that we have at our disposal 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:38.879 can actually shape the way we create music, and the 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:44.440 sound of the music can actually create entire revolutions in music. 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:48.120 I got an interesting trivia question for y'all. All right, 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:55.880 what's older music or farming. I'm gonna go with music music. Yeah, yeah, 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:58.280 because agriculture. I mean, I sit there and think about that. Like, 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:00.360 I'm sure when we were hunters and gathers were still 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:04.440 bashing a little ewoks skulls to make the music because 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.000 we had walks before we had it was a long 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:09.560 time ago, Lauren, but it wasn't in a galaxy far 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:15.640 okay anyway, So yep, numb. So that's for the old 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:19.280 school fans who like the pre uh messed with version 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:23.000 of the original trilogy. Well, yeah, actually, uh so the 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:25.880 even the e Walks had music, and they were a 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.920 fairly primitive society. Yeah that they didn't have a lot 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:32.840 of advanced technology, but they still had a fairly robust 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:36.680 music scene. Is it fair to I honestly don't know 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:38.840 the answer to this, and maybe you you do, Joe, 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:42.880 because you were looking into some of the earliest musical instruments, right, Uh, 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:44.839 is it fair to say that some of the earliest 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:49.160 musical instruments were percussion instruments? Well, they could be. Uh 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:51.520 if we're part of the problem is we just don't 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:56.040 know how old because so few things survived. We know, Um, 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:59.160 we know music is older than say, agriculture, because we 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:01.880 have a pretty good idea that agriculture began about ten 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:05.600 to twelve thousand years ago, and when the rolling stones 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:09.720 are older than that. We have musical instruments that are 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:16.520 we now believe about forty years old. Yeah, not percussion instruments, 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:20.160 but the percussion may have preceded them because obviously, what 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:23.360 were the first musical instruments, Well, they were our bodies, 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:27.160 right before people were building things with their bodies and 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:31.160 were building you know, making tools. Yeah, they were. They 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.760 could clap and they could sing. And there's actually some 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:41.040 really interesting research about why singing started. Yeah, well, I 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:43.639 mean think about it. Why did we start making music 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:49.200 instead of just comun talking or grunting or etcetera. Gesticulating. Yeah, 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:54.720 One interesting theory is that music performance started um as 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:59.000 sort of an organizing principle for tribes of apex predators. 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.359 So it was staying Yeah, and so you listen to 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:07.239 the way wolves howl, Well, wolves howl for lots of reasons. 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:09.560 We think some of the main reasons they do it 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:14.560 are to establish like a a social dominance hierarchy, to 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.840 establish the borders of their territory, and to sort of 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:24.280 create a defense alertness network within their territory UM and 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:28.960 to sort of coordinate during hunt's interest. And those are 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:33.239 all characteristics that would be displayed by predators, actually predators, 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.040 which are the same kind of role that early hominids 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:41.839 would have played, like Neanderthals and our direct dominid ancestors um. 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:45.000 And so there's a pretty good there's a pretty good 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:48.800 basis there for thinking, wow, well, maybe our ancestors had 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:53.160 organized systems of vocal calls the same way that wolves 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:58.600 have howling systems, but obviously we have um more versatile 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:04.080 vocal cords than wolves do, and so we have even 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:07.680 more ability to you know, maybe we could kind of 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:11.720 create an even more intricate and and well thought out 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:15.520 system of vocal signals, and from there you have the 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:18.680 idea that well, maybe that's how the first songs came about. 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:22.279 And of course, I mean, this whole topic ties in 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:25.400 very closely with the one we looked at earlier, the 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:29.760 storytelling topic and the idea of how music has become 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:33.839 part of our way of sharing stories and h and 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:36.920 culture to a point where you know, you could imagine 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:41.560 a lore teller someone who is in charge of gathering 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:45.800 information about the people and passing that on also communicating 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:48.119 that in the form of song, which can make things 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:51.599 easier to remember and can also have a very very 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:55.880 deep emotional impact, as anyone who enjoys music can tell you. 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:58.120 I mean, I know there are people out there who 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.040 just don't get music. It's just doesn't speak to them 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:04.440 in any way. But for others, like I include myself 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:08.120 in this, certain types of music can get a huge 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:12.480 emotional response from me. Kenny g makes me really angry, 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:16.760 it's it's obviously not my favorite form of artistic expression. 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:19.480 It's harder for me to consume it than other forms 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.640 of art, so I I tend to consume less music 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:24.720 than other things. But it, but it definitely has a 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:29.120 huge um I think a mnemonic impression on our brains. 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:32.000 That the patterns and the mathematics and it are something 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.240 that the bits of your brain that you're not using 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:36.080 to listen to the words of a story you are 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:38.640 going to kick in well. And it's hard to deny 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:43.440 that it's deeply social's singing together with people really helps. 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.599 It creates a sense of oneness and harmony, a kind 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:52.200 of you know, a spiritual bond. I've even seen each 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:56.400 other some recent some recent scientific studies that have suggested 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.560 that singing with a group of people can help improve 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:03.480 your mood drastically, Like it can be a true psychological 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:07.640 aid for for people who are suffering from a depression 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:11.200 or they're just they have anxiety issues. Um, assuming that 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:13.320 you don't have an anxiety issue with singing with a group. 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:15.720 But but but it is it's more like kind of 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:18.159 choral singing. It's not that it's not like you know 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:22.320 you're gonna get singled out to do a crazy Yeah, 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:25.800 so all of that obviously speculation. I mean, there's just 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:28.719 there's no physical evidence for that. It's just we we 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:31.440 can look at how other animals behave and we can 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:34.080 sort of guess how things like that came about, but 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:38.200 there's no way to really know. What we do know UM, 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.520 and that can be tested by radiocarbon dating and stuff. 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.320 Is that at the at the very latest thirty five 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:47.960 thousand years ago, and some new tests reveal probably more 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:51.800 like forty to forty two or forty three thousand years ago. 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:56.800 We had bone flutes um found in caves in Germany. 0:06:56.839 --> 0:07:00.599 There are these uh flutes made from the birds of 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:04.320 bones and and they're just little hollow bird bones, but 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:08.880 they've they've clearly been carved, so they're carved holes along 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:12.280 the length of the flute um where you would place 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:14.720 your fingers to cover them up and create notes. And 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:19.640 researchers who found these have created wooden replicas that they 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.320 say are are pretty solid, like you can play them 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:27.680 and create some pleasing harmonic frequency. So the other thing 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:29.320 we wanted to talk about before we get into some 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:33.440 of the crazy instruments that we've seen UH that are 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:38.440 are trying to either reshape music or just create new 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:40.320 ways of playing music. We wanted to talk a little 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:42.800 bit about some of the instruments that were really familiar 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:47.720 with today that had uh through their creation and and 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:51.640 people playing them, have really transformed music in big ways. Now, 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:54.760 there are way too many to name. I mean, obviously 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:56.400 if we were to go and and even if we 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:59.880 were to just focus on just the the Western Hemist 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:04.480 fear musical traditions, because obviously music is very different in 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.200 different parts of the world. We all have different rules 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:09.200 for the way we make music, We have different instruments 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.680 that we play, there are different techniques, but there are 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.840 certain ones in the Western traditions that have had an 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:18.200 enormous impact, particularly on modern music, the music that we 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:21.560 listened to today. Um. You know, clearly we could talk 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:25.520 about even the invention of just the guitar itself, and 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:27.960 not the electric guitar, but just the guitar, which came 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:31.520 in pretty late in the Renaissance. But I think the 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.000 one we really wanted to start with it was a 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:38.000 different musical instrument, one that is featured still quite heavily 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:40.840 in music today, the piano, right right, Yeah, Um, well, 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:44.840 stringed instruments appear in basically every culture across the globe. 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.400 Everyone has versions of these, But the piano itself was 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:52.160 not invented until about seventeen hundred, or maybe innovated as 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:54.640 a better word, because before the piano, we had the 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:58.160 harpsichord and the clavichord, and these were two, um, two 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:02.360 stringed instruments, the clavichord being a having these bi chord 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:05.000 strings that were struck by tangents at the end of 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:07.360 the keys that you would press down. Um, just a 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:11.240 really simple lever motion. Um. It allowed for dynamic expression 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:13.640 the way that we get in a in a modern piano. 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:17.200 But it was very quiet, but beyond about you know, 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:20.640 the length of a room, a good few feet beyond 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:23.320 the actual instrument, you couldn't hear it very well. So 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:25.960 it wasn't a concert piece at all. UM, And the 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:29.480 harps harpsichord was a little bit louder Um. That's a 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:31.439 that's a set of strings that are plucked by quills 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:33.719 moved by jack's when you press the keys. So it's 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:36.640 an extra layer added on to that basic lever motion. 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:39.959 But uh, it was it wasn't as dynamic. It was 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:45.240 a pretty um uh steady level of sound. You can 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:47.720 get the emotion that you can that people talk about 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:50.000 getting from piano out of a harpsichord, right like with 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:52.120 a piano where you can you can press the different 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:55.280 pedals to to allow a string to be somewhat muffled 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:58.160 or make it louder with a With a harpsichord, you 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:00.960 you push a key, and that sound that you get 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:02.520 as the same sound you're going to get no matter 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:04.960 how you push that key right exactly. And you know, 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:08.160 but beyond the pedals, what's really innovative about the piano 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:10.920 is that um, you can you can press a key 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.120 at a different um, different hardness or softness, and get 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:16.680 a different sound out of that string. Um. And and 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:22.240 those innovations were all due to um. Bartolomeo Cristoforio maybe 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:24.520 that might be how you say it, who worked for 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.760 the Royal court. He was Italian, an Italian craftsman of harpsichords. 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.200 He worked for the Royal Court of Italy at the time, 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:35.800 repairing their their machines, music machines. And yeah, he created 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.959 a whole bunch of innovations that a lot of them 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:41.360 were so complicated that they didn't actually come into common 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:44.280 use until a century later because they were so expensive 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:48.120 to to create. I mean really really interesting things like 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.160 a like an escapement mechanism that let the hammer fall 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:53.160 away from the string instantly after the hit, so that, um, 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:55.400 you know, it would it would let the string vibrate freely, 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:59.000 or a stopper to prevent the hammer from coming back 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:01.240 and hitting the key, all kinds of all kinds of 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.360 stuff that that sounds really simple when you say it 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:07.200 out loud like that, but it was was really completely 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:11.120 revolutionary for the instrument. And at first they were so 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.600 so individual and expensive to make that they really were 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:19.319 only used by royalty and extremely famous concert players. But 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:23.679 but innovations eventually let them be smaller, added more keys, 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.560 added greater expressions of sound, and um, they wound up 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:32.840 being in basically every affluent home and eventually every home period, 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:36.480 allowing people to learn how to play music on a 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:38.680 very you know, the keys are laid out in this 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:40.880 very obvious way on like a guitar where you have 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:43.120 to kind of play with the frets and figure out 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:45.600 how to how to do these complex hand motions. You 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.920 can just look at a keyboard and see where your 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:51.240 sounds are going to be coming from. Oh yeah, there's 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:54.559 a very obvious visual correspondence between the keys and the 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:57.839 musical scale itself. Sure, sure, although of course you can 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.120 play with such great complexity that for some of us 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:04.800 that obviousness is obvious skated by the deft fingers of 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:09.000 a talented pianist. Well, it is interesting just to think 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:11.959 about everything that the piano allows you to do. I mean, 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:17.119 it's sort of the one stop shop for the single composer. 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:21.000 You know, you can use a piano to compose much 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:24.040 more complex pieces of music. Sure, sure, yeah, you can. 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:25.840 You can hold a note with a single key the 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:27.760 way that you can't on a lot of on on 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:30.520 a lot of the predecessors. And um and yeah, and 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:33.840 and dynamic is the word that people always apply to 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.600 it in this kind of literature. And it's it's fascinating that, 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:40.160 um yeah, I mean, you know, so solo piano concerts 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:42.959 didn't happen until like the eighteen hundreds, and and it's 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:47.360 such a such a major part of musical existence these days. 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:49.680 But you know, it's it's they couldn't be incorporated into 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:55.679 concerts until Christopheros. Um. Yeah, the fourte piano or piano forte, 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:59.720 which of course means uh. Well, if it's fo four 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:04.000 to forte, piano means loud soft and pianoforte means soft loud, 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:08.679 meaning that this instrument was capable of of producing both 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:12.120 types of sound, either the very soft, subtle sounds or 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.720 it could be quite loud and dramatic. But the interesting 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:17.800 thing to look at here is not just how this is. Well, 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:19.840 it's a cool instrument. It makes a new sound. It 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:24.080 actually changed music. Sure, it changed the whole music scene, 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:27.079 and it changed what people would do and the kinds 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:30.239 of songs they would write. Yes, yes, And it eventually, 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:32.360 like you were saying, Lauren, I mean, the fact that 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.480 pianos became more affordable ad meant that it was a 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:40.560 more accessible instrument for a larger potential audience. So you 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:44.640 started seeing pianos being that that sort of became the 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:47.760 entrigue musical instrument for a lot of people. Now Ever, 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:50.040 since most since a lot of households had them, um 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:53.120 and since especially women were expected to know how to 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:56.000 play to entertain their families, but we're not expected to 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:58.400 appear on stage. In fact, it women were banned from 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:01.280 the stage for playing pianos for a long time, ragtime 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:04.559 and jazz. In fact, we're partially originated on pianos due 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.920 to due to different different ways of playing uh using 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:11.040 the instrument to play right, I was going to pick 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:14.760 up with another musical instrument that truly revolutionized music, although 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:17.960 uh when it was being worked on it was being 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:20.880 during the invention of it, that wasn't necessarily the intent. 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:26.160 That's the electric guitar. Now, the electric guitar, the first 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.600 one really that we can point to, was designed by 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:33.440 Lloyd lore in N who was an engineer with Gibson 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:37.440 Guitar Company, and he had created was called an electric pickup. Now, 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:40.240 this pickup is essentially it's an electro magnet that is 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.240 part of the guitar and um and it's hooked up 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:45.760 to a pre amplifier. And what happens is when the 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:49.320 string vibrates, it creates a fluctuation in the magnetic field. 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:53.600 That fluctuation in the magnetic field induces a current through 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:55.800 the pickup, which then goes to the pre amp where 0:14:55.800 --> 0:15:01.040 it can amplify this tiny electrical current and turn into 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:05.320 something that that can then be sent on to other 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:09.160 equipment like speakers, so that you can actually have a 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.120 much louder sound come from a guitar, because one of 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:16.840 the problems was that trying to play something like a guitar, 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:19.760 which does not make like acoustic guitar, does not make 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.000 a very loud sound in the grand scheme of things, 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:23.760 if you want to play for a really large group, 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:26.720 it's very difficult to do. If you're incorporating it into 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:30.400 a larger orchestra or exactly. Uh, you could put a 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:34.880 microphone directly in front of the the the instrument, but 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:37.360 that usually meant that you had some distortion of what 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.080 the sound was like, and you wouldn't get a true 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:42.960 representation of what a guitar sounded like. You would get 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.480 some something that would be musical, but you would have 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:49.040 some artifacts in that a little bit. Yeah, there's more 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:53.480 for feedback also, that's also true. Yeah, So so doing 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:55.920 this was kind of getting around that, and in fact, 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:58.560 for the longest time, electric guitars were really just meant 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:01.920 to be a representation of what an acoustic guitar sounds like, 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.440 just louder. Now, I've seen a lot of arguing about 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:09.080 when the actual first what we should call an electric 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:13.480 guitar was put together. So there's some people say that 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:17.760 It wasn't really until the Rickenbacker frying Pan uh and 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:22.600 other people would say that the other models around nineteen thirties, say, 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:26.400 late twenties, early thirties. Yeah, there was a Hawaiian guitar 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:28.920 that was played. It was like a lap guitar you 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:30.840 played in your lap and it had that sort of 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:34.080 kind of twanky sound that you would associate with Hawaiian music. 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.120 That was one of the earliest electric guitars. But I mean, 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:39.360 it's is one of those things where it all depends 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:43.280 upon whose definition you you, uh, you pay attention to 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.280 when you're talking about the modern electric guitars. Something that 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:50.480 really shaped the music in a in an interesting way. 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:53.800 You gotta get all the way into really the nineteen fifties. 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:55.960 That's where you start seeing the electric guitars that really 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:58.360 had a big impact. And that's where you see the 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:01.800 guitars from uh Leo Fender. You know, he created the 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:04.720 first mass produced solid body electric guitar in nineteen fifty 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:07.880 and then you had less Paul. Of course, everybody thinks 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:11.159 he invented the electric guitar. Now he certainly, he certainly 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:13.080 had played a huge part in and of course he 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:16.520 built his own electric guitar called the log that looked 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.040 like just a big solid piece of wood that fit 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:21.720 into another body. So that but he was it was 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:25.200 sort of a his own little hobby, but it was 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:28.520 never meant to be sold as an actual guitar. UM 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:31.600 but his models started hitting the market in nineteen fifty two, 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:35.920 and uh, this was when you started seeing musicians play 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:38.800 with the fact that they could create different sounds with 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:42.240 an electric guitar by messing with different settings and creating 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:46.080 distortion and echo effects, this sort of thing where they 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:51.240 weren't trying to accurately recreate the sound of an acoustic guitar. 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:53.320 They were trying to make new sounds. And there was 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:56.119 a little bit of um, not a little bit, there was. 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:58.199 There was quite a bit of resistance in some in 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:03.360 some genres of music when the electric guitar became prominent, 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:07.280 So rhythm and blues and rock and roll, obviously they 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:11.400 they adopted the electric guitar pretty quickly. Other genres were slower. 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:14.399 In fact, when Bob Dylan showed up with electric guitar, 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:16.920 that was that was a controversy in the folk music world. 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.000 I can't believe you've betrayed us. Country music also, I 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:22.920 mean there was there were certain types of country music 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:27.000 that that adopted it quickly, but um, these these were 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:30.639 instruments that eventually became the backbone of a lot of 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:35.880 popular music today. Obviously, not every genre of music relies 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:39.200 heavily on on electric guitars, but a lot of it does. 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:41.680 If you listen to your typical radio station in America, 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:44.640 for example, you're gonna get a lot of electric guitar. Well, 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:48.600 it's not as uh as central in every genre as 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.399 it is in in say, your standard rock and roll band, 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:55.639 but you'll find it featured even as a background or 0:18:55.640 --> 0:19:00.240 textual instrument in tons of music. Sure, yeah, most. And 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:04.560 that also brings us to another musical instrument that has 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:09.160 become pretty heavily featured in a lot of music, the synthesizer. 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:11.800 And this sort of ties into where we're going to 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:14.520 be going with this in the future. But I want 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:17.639 to talk about first the one of the earliest h 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:20.960 This is not truly a synthesizer in in the respect 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:23.399 that it was never called that, but it was a 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:26.960 musical instrument that I had to talk about, the tell harmonium, 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:31.639 also known as the dynamo phone, dynamo phone Dynamo phone. 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:36.560 It was the saxomaphone and the Dynamo phone. It was 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:41.199 invented by Thaddeus Hill or K. Hill. And uh, it 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:48.679 was a steam powered synthesizer with it had steam powered steamer, 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:55.240 a steamer you might want to steam powered instrument. It 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:59.320 had electromagnetic generators, and it had a It had velocity 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:01.760 sensitive key is like a piano, meaning that if you 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:05.040 played the keys gently, it would make a softer sounds. 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:07.639 So this is something that tries to kill you in BioShock. 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:11.600 It could create different sounds simultaneously, so you could actually 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:15.119 have it make different quality sounds. And uh, and it 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:20.160 weighed a mirror two hundred tons. Two hundred tons steam 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:26.520 powered synthesizer. I want this what I could play heart 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:29.760 and soul on that for defeating your enemies and driving 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:35.120 them before you. You don't even have the missical ax 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:38.840 in your hand. So now the first synthesizer that was 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:42.400 actually called a synthesizer was made by Harry f Olsen 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:46.520 and Herbert Blair for our c A in nineteen sixty three. 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:50.040 Are a quote unquote Bob Moag, Thank you Noel for 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:53.000 the correction, Thank you Joe for letting me let Noel 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:55.959 know that he was thanked for the correction. UH created 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:58.760 a voltage controlled oscillator and amplifier module with a keyboard. 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:01.720 Would we now call the move synthesizer, despite the fact 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:05.040 that his last name apparently was pronounced Mog. So here's 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:07.240 the cool thing is that Noel's actually gathered a little 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:09.800 bit of a Moog synthesizer. So you can hear what 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:11.840 it sounds like, a SUSI hear it. You're going to 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:21.800 recognize that sound. I guarantee it, alright. So, and of 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:24.920 course synthesizers became another one of those things that that 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:27.919 went beyond what the intent was. The intent originally was 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:31.639 to try and create a musical instrument that could recreate 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:36.080 certain sounds, that could synthesize the sounds of other instruments 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:38.720 and do it in a way where you could, you know, 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:42.040 have have at your your disposal and entire orchestra, even 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:44.919 if you just had one instrument. However, they the sounds 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:48.440 of synthesizers were pretty distinct, or another way of saying 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:52.080 that is, they didn't sound anything like the actual instruments 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:56.720 they were trying to to emulate at that time. In fact, 0:21:56.840 --> 0:21:59.760 they were kind of hilarious. It certainly was. I mean, 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:03.040 those early synthesizers were hilarious. If you wanted to listen to, like, 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:05.600 this is what a piano sounds like. It doesn't sound 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:10.800 anything like any piano you've ever actually, yeah, or or 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:13.480 banjo or whatever. It just be this weird kind of 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:17.880 electronic sound that sounds almost but not quite exactly, not 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:20.639 like what it was supposed to sound like. But the 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:23.479 cool things that musicians found ways of making music with 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:26.760 this where that was that was the the draw of 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:29.000 the music. It wasn't that they were trying to make 0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:31.880 the synthesizer be some other musical instrument. They were using 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:34.119 the synthesizer for what it was, right. They realized that 0:22:34.160 --> 0:22:36.040 it had its own unique sound that that could be 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:40.639 incorporated into questionably pleasing music. I'm not gonna go with 0:22:40.720 --> 0:22:43.000 questionably pleasing you, or you get to go sit in 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:46.159 the corner of shame. Because new wave new wave music 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:48.760 I'm I'm I'm mostly I'm mostly the roots that our 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:53.160 theme we new wave music. That I loved the new 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:56.360 wave era. So we're talking about the early eighties when 0:22:56.480 --> 0:22:58.880 we had all this music here in the United States. 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:01.280 We had all this music come over from the UK, 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:05.639 where it was a lot of bands experimenting with different 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:09.320 sounds and different instruments, including synthesizers. There were a lot 0:23:09.400 --> 0:23:12.439 of sythen I'm giving it crap, but I would give 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:14.280