How Has Technology Changed The Style Of Music Being Produced?

Ableton

The economic principle that I am researching is that people generally respond to incentives in predictable ways, and how technology has changed our methods of listening to music.

My research question to help me study this topic is how technology has changed the style of music that producers can create.

First, as I have briefly talked about before, producers can potentially create music without any real instruments.  If they have a computer with a few applications and plugins downloaded, they can play synth leads, make drum beats, create guitar riffs, or essentially play any instrument you could imagine using only the keyboard.  This has made it possible for producers to be able to make music on instruments that they can't really play in real life.  For example, many producers wouldn't be able to sit down and play a song on the drums or piano which are two of the most important instruments in electronic music.  However, using plugins on an audio software, they can turn their computer keyboard into a drum kit or a piano and put together complex melodies much easier.  This has caused electronic dance music (EDM) to become much more complex gain tons of popularity.  

Next, if you buy an audio interface, you can plug in a guitar, or microphone to record music and vocals.  This has made it exponentially easier to record any instrument onto different applications.  Once on these applications, there are millions of different effects that can be added to the recording to make it sound completely different than it originally did.  This can be used to make guitars sound like an instrument you have never even heard in your life, and gives producers more tools to expand their arsenal of creativity.

In my next post, I will discuss how technology has changed the way we experience live music.