Sound Studies

Developments in sound technologies over the last 50 years have dramatically changed the way that music is produced and consumed. In the 19th century most music was experienced as live performance. Today most music is listened to individually through technologically mediated devices, such as a personal stereo or a personal computer that enables the downloading of MP3 files over the Internet, and in the past few decades music has been produced with new electronic instruments such as the Theremin, the Hammond Organ, the electric guitar, the synthesizer, and the digital sampler. Technologies such as the phonograph, tape-recorder, and compact disk have enabled 'sound' to be produced, controlled, and manipulated independently from musicians. In today's recording studios the sound engineers can be as important in the production of 'the sound' as are the musicians themselves. But how can such changes be understood and what do they mean for listeners and for science and technology studies (ST new means of manipulating and controlling sound in the studio, such as microphones, reverberation units, mixing consoles, and new forms of networking software; new forms of technologically mediated listening, such as audiophilia,