“Obsolescence and Renewal”: (Musical Heritage, Electronictechnology, Education and the Future)

Abstract

This article provides an account of the composer's musical and aesthetic development, from early education to involvement in professional musical life within the specialised field of music for films. It considers subsequent personal experience of the radical changes in the technology of music-making which have taken place during the last fifty years or so; their interaction with - and influence on - the composer's musical philosophy; and the resulting changes to many of the working practices and developments in his thinking as a musician. The process of musical and technical change - obsolescence and subsequent renewal in other ways - is outlined, together with a brief description of the way technological developments have helped shape the music composed for documentary films and television programmes. Comparisons are made between music education then and now. New modes of real-time music/dance/video performance are explored, and. the development of Soundbeam (a new way of playing electronic musical instruments) is described. The article concludes with some thoughts on the future of music in an increasingly technological society.