2.1 Microphones and Loudspeakers as Musical Instruments
Using the microphone as a musical instrument may be a foreign concept to those accustomed to the device’s ubiquity in musical acts. The microphone is not typically thought of as playing an active role in musical performance and is instead considered a passive tool that simply brings sound to audiences’ ears – much in the same way a window displays what is on the other side of a wall, or a clean mirror reflects an image. Close inspection reveals however, that microphones, loudspeakers, and related media have been used as musical instruments since their inception. Discussing how these media are used for explicit musical ends, that is, how they facilitate the microphonic process, is the aim of this section.
Of immense importance to this analysis is Between Air and Electricity – Microphones and Loudspeakers as Musical Instruments by Cathy van Eck. In her book, van Eck places the ways microphones and loudspeakers are used as musical instruments in four categories: reproducing, supporting, generating, and interacting.1 While the principles underlying each category are distinct, in practice they are not always easily distinguishable, and they often overlap. In her study, van Eck does not analyze related media such as amplifiers or mixing boards, which I later argue are vital to the microphonic process. Nevertheless, her categories are useful and are easily adapted to discuss the microphonic process, which considers a wider variety of media.
At the core of these four categories is the degree to which the microphonic process can be perceived or considered to be playing an active role in music performance. To begin then, is the least active of van Eck’s categories: reproducing. When the microphonic process is used for reproducing, the involved media are capturing and subsequently mimicking the original sound. Here, the process is intended to be sonically “transparent” in that it is not colouring or altering the sound in any meaningful way. This is the underlying principle of early music recording and contemporary music consumption. In reproduction, pre-recorded material is meant to be played through such transparent loudspeakers, whether in a TV, mobile device, or set of headphones, which are perceived as passive actors that faithfully project this material to the listeners’ ears. In performance, the reproducing approach is employed whenever the event features playback of previously recorded material, such as in acousmatic classical music or when “backing tracks” are used in popular music.
Supporting sound (or amplifying sound, as it is commonly understood) was not possible before the invention of the vacuum tube amplifier, as explained below. Once this technology was adopted, electronic amplification allowed sounds from any source to be made louder and heard clearly in large venues or in recordings. Sound reproduction devices used for supporting share a perceived transparency with those used in reproducing, in that they are intended to not colour the sound but simply make it louder. In many instances, performers who use microphones or other amplification, such as with electric guitars, are seen as employing them in a passive, supporting fashion, regardless of the artists’ intentions.
For the generating approach, the source of the sound begins in an electronic medium rather than as air pressure waves, and consequently cannot be heard without the amplifying assistance of the microphonic process. Perhaps the most common example of this approach is in the case of solely electronic musical instruments, such as synthesizers. Synthesizers generate sound through electronic oscillators without producing acoustic sound on their own. These electronic signals are only manifested as air pressure waves once they are sent to an amplified loudspeaker, whether in recording or live performance settings. This perspective could also apply to less “instrumental” devices such as effects pedals, devices which modulate a sound source or generate sound based on an incoming signal. While effects pedals are typically dormant without a sound source, like synthesizers, they do not generate their own acoustic sound and must be amplified via the microphonic process.
An important similarity between these first three categories is that the sound reproduction media used in each may be viewed as passive, transparent actors in the performance of music. At first glance, the microphonic process may be assumed to create an exact reproduction of the source sounds, whether in a different time and space (reproducing), at a greater volume (supporting), or when they manifest electronically generated frequencies as air pressure waves (generating). In these apparent passive roles, it is difficult to consider microphones, loudspeakers, and related media as active components within a musical instrumentarium, but the following example may help illustrate the active role that these media play. Consider the sonic differences between amplifying a synthesizer using the inexpensive headphones purchased on an airplane, versus amplifying the same synthesizer through an expensive PA system meant for a concert hall. The vast difference in both size and quality of the loudspeakers in each setting would greatly affect the generated sound, influencing the synthesizer’s timbre, dynamic range, and emotional impact. The same loudspeaker comparison could be applied in examples of reproducing (e.g., a club DJ), or supporting (e.g., in miking a vocalist). Recognizing the active role that the microphonic process plays in music performance, regardless of the degree, can shift the understanding of microphones and related media away from that of passive reproducers of sound.
Even after recognizing the active contributions of the microphonic process when used in reproducing, supporting, or generating, van Eck’s most important instrumental category is interacting. Here, musicians explicitly use, and are perceived as using, the microphonic process in ways that clearly relate to musical events and outcomes. Van Eck states: “By treating these devices as instruments, new aspects of music can be discovered…musician, microphone and loudspeaker can start a complex relationship in which sounds are created from characteristics of the devices themselves.”2 A common example of the interacting approach is when electric guitarists intentionally induce feedback3 between their guitar and amplified loudspeaker. By interacting with their guitar, loudspeaker, and the space they are in, guitarists transform the loudspeaker from a device that may be perceived as passively amplifying the manipulation of strings, into an active component of their instrumentarium that expands what the guitar is capable of.
Van Eck spends most of her book investigating the interacting approach by analyzing classical pieces that employ the microphonic process in interactive ways. As a classical composer herself, she focuses on works that are considered part of the avant-garde or experimental classical music traditions. However, the advent of microphone singing in the 1920s and the discovery of electric guitar feedback in the 1960s make excellent examples of van Eck’s interacting approach within popular music. Van Eck mentions these two historically important performance innovations early in her book, stating that “[amplification] technology had much more impact than solely that of increasing the volume of already existing musical instruments.”4 Furthermore, she poses a question regarding the inclusion of popular microphone singing technique within her interacting category, “Should it be said that the use of microphones in Mikrophonie I is more instrumental or interactive than, for example when used for the amplification of singers? Why could a singer such as Ella Fitzgerald not being [sic] seen as ‘playing’ the microphone, as she also changes the distance between her mouth and the microphone to change the quality of the vocal sound.”5
An important similarity between these first three categories is that the sound reproduction media used in each may be viewed as passive, transparent actors in the performance of music. At first glance, the microphonic process may be assumed to create an exact reproduction of the source sounds, whether in a different time and space (reproducing), at a greater volume (supporting), or when they manifest electronically generated frequencies as air pressure waves (generating). In these apparent passive roles, it is difficult to consider microphones, loudspeakers, and related media as active components within a musical instrumentarium, but the following example may help illustrate the active role that these media play. Consider the sonic differences between amplifying a synthesizer using the inexpensive headphones purchased on an airplane, versus amplifying the same synthesizer through an expensive PA system meant for a concert hall. The vast difference in both size and quality of the loudspeakers in each setting would greatly affect the generated sound, influencing the synthesizer’s timbre, dynamic range, and emotional impact. The same loudspeaker comparison could be applied in examples of reproducing (e.g., a club DJ), or supporting (e.g., in miking a vocalist). Recognizing the active role that the microphonic process plays in music performance, regardless of the degree, can shift the understanding of microphones and related media away from that of passive reproducers of sound.
Even after recognizing the active contributions of the microphonic process when used in reproducing, supporting, or generating, van Eck’s most important instrumental category is interacting. Here, musicians explicitly use, and are perceived as using, the microphonic process in ways that clearly relate to musical events and outcomes. Van Eck states: “By treating these devices as instruments, new aspects of music can be discovered…musician, microphone and loudspeaker can start a complex relationship in which sounds are created from characteristics of the devices themselves.”6 A common example of the interacting approach is when electric guitarists intentionally induce feedback7 between their guitar and amplified loudspeaker. By interacting with their guitar, loudspeaker, and the space they are in, guitarists transform the loudspeaker from a device that may be perceived as passively amplifying the manipulation of strings, into an active component of their instrumentarium that expands what the guitar is capable of.
Van Eck spends most of her book investigating the interacting approach by analyzing classical pieces that employ the microphonic process in interactive ways. As a classical composer herself, she focuses on works that are considered part of the avant-garde or experimental classical music traditions. However, the advent of microphone singing in the 1920s and the discovery of electric guitar feedback in the 1960s make excellent examples of van Eck’s interacting approach within popular music. Van Eck mentions these two historically important performance innovations early in her book, stating that “[amplification] technology had much more impact than solely that of increasing the volume of already existing musical instruments.”8 Furthermore, she poses a question regarding the inclusion of popular microphone singing technique within her interacting category, “Should it be said that the use of microphones in Mikrophonie I is more instrumental or interactive than, for example when used for the amplification of singers? Why could a singer such as Ella Fitzgerald not being [sic] seen as ‘playing’ the microphone, as she also changes the distance between her mouth and the microphone to change the quality of the vocal sound.”9
Focusing on the work of classical artists, van Eck only briefly addresses these important performance innovations in popular music,10 inviting further inquiry. Rather than debate whether popular microphone singing should be considered interactive when compared to Mikrophonie I, I instead view these as manifestations of the microphonic process in different genres, and therefore use van Eck’s categories as a framework to discuss how popular and classical artists have variously employed microphonic instrumentaria. By comparing the musical-technological innovations of these disparate artists, my aim is to address the questions raised by van Eck and show that the differences in the microphonic process across genres are much more in degree than in kind. To set the stage for this argument, I turn to pre-electrical singing, acoustical recording, and the advent of the microphonic process.