Gadgetory

for as long as humans have made music we have been dissatisfied for hundreds of years musicians have searched for the next sound the next evolution that could change everything and more often than not the solutions and foibles have been basically technological in nature technological advancement in music has always been a fraught process sometimes it's an overt success with lasting impact like when Beethoven decided to add trombones to the orchestra for his fifth symphony and sometimes the influence of technology and music leads to mixed results just ask any rush van about the 1982 album signals I've been privileged to perform in some of the world's most famous concert halls but it's always just been me and my clarinet and anywhere from a few to a hundred or so colleagues traditional classical music and I do mean the stuff written by dead white guys is by definition unplugged I've always been interested in the interplay between technology and music electronics found their way into the Symphony Orchestra as early as the 1920s and after all you can't put on a great rock show without a backline and the support crew of techs and engineers it requires the great jazz drummer Freddy Gruber once said you can have a beautiful body and look marvelous but if you're not breathing it's not alive so what happens when circuits replace physics and musical performance is it still alive martigny is a drum tech based in New York City without people like him rock shows simply don't happen Martin's been on the road with some of the biggest acts in the world including my personal favorite rush his job is to bridge the gap between technology and talent so you've been doing this for a long time you've worked with rush you've worked with rush you've worked with rush sting seal all kinds of people how is technology different when you first started helping people with their drums and now right after the 90s with this whole thing of like sampling and triggering check one two in the house right on we're ready to go it's how you embrace it just like anything else can you use technology to make a drum kit simpler oh yeah absolutely twenty Royster for example he shows how to incorporate in the basic like five piece kit all the sounds you need just by changing samples so do you ever worry about the long-term impact of technology on drumming or music in general because it's sort of the responsibility of players and musicians to keep to keep the humanity in the music making I feel as always humans playing instruments as always this is kind of like the whole matrix thing you let the machines take over or you or the humans take over I spoke with Kenny Aronoff about it you know he's one of the top session players ever and I asked him a sec so do you think because everything changed like I don't think it's ever gonna change if they want me to play I'm still gonna play technology and music advances because it has two musicians demanded Jordan Rudess the keyboard player from prog rock mainstay Dream Theater has always been interested in what the future holds he even develops his own music making apps and has worked with Rowley on an instrument called the Seaboard grant I spent my whole life learning how to play the piano I went to Julliard when I was nine years old my upbringing was very very serious matter of fact I was in closet improviser I would go and I play my visual songs in my jazz music I'd bring the kids into like a practice room they don't tell anybody but here we are right but really my focus was to be a classical pianist and learning the piano was everything but as I got older I started to become more interested in sound and synthesizers and different possibilities eventually I ended up leaving Julliard and looking for other ways to express music when you first started using technology to augment or enhance or to evolve what you were doing with acoustic instruments did you were there new skills did you ready to learn did you have to make sacrifices or was it a whole new world I can remember vividly when my high school friends brought over a mug sonic six keyboard to my house and also my mother's face when she saw my friends carrying this because she was like what is that it was looking for the devil it's arrived at her house but we brought it into my room and I plugged in headphones at the time and it's a you know a traditional kind of keyboard but it has a pitch wheel on it and the pitch wheel discovery was major I started to move the pitch wheel I went oh my god I think my brain like literally exploded and I realized then and over the years how important pitch is an amplitude the two very basic things controlling amplitude in real time and controlling pitch is a major part of expression growing up with a piano which is you know you play the note and you're not changing the pitch it is what you play is what you get which is so different than so many other instruments like a guitar where you play a string and you can add vibrato or a wind instrument like a clarinet again or a saxophone or anything like that yeah pitch is such an important part of music making you think about like you know a guitar player is like you know you look at Jeff Beck Steve Vai you think about their vibrato the speed of their vibrato the way they attack the note the amplitude it's everything it creates the style so here we are with the C board and as a keyboard player I'm able to do that we sit here today in front of a Steinway piano and this seaboard is really pretty amazing although I've been involved in the exploration of sound and all different kinds of ways to make sound since starting out as a classical pianist this is really the first time that all that exploration has come to a point where I can really use my piano skill and take it to another level musical expression wise so tell me at a technical level how this instrument works the Seaboard is basically poured silicone and underneath the silicone are these sensors so when your finger lands on the surface it's actually triggering the sensor that's below it and the sensor will recognize position and will also recognize pressure so as I press into it it knows that and what's really cool and very different than traditional synthesizers these days is it every note that I play is an independent message that goes out you can bend one note not the other you can play a three note chord here and then just slide down with this one this enables keyboard players or anybody who is familiar with the keyboard as a concept to add the kind of expression that would we would want from the musical instrument technology's had a point right now where we can really measure touch and the experience and make it so sensitive really as sensitive as we want it keeps on getting better it's important for people to realize that you know technology is no longer this kind of distant robotic type of thing where it were at lacks expression we're actually becoming closer to the organic physical real human experience with instruments like this than ever before and that's the whole point instruments exist because the human voice alone has never been enough to create the sounds musicians hear in their heads that's really the beginning and the end of the lifelong struggle that is music and no matter what technology can't replace collaboration music has always been a conversation that happens among human beings it's as true now as it was 300 years ago artistic genius alone cannot overcome physics but genius is often the impetus for technological breakthroughs the keyboards that Jordan Rudess plays today exist because composers like Mozart and Beethoven needed more from their instruments and their aspirations and achievements motivated craftsmen to push the envelope technology isn't a substitute for musicianship it's a tool electronic instruments have potential maybe even great potential and who knows what the next truly Great Canadian power trio will come up with but in the end technology makes noise musicians turn it into music