Music and Technology: A Very Short

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Music and Technology: A Very Short Introduction
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Very Short Introductions available now:

ABOLITIONISM Richard S. Newman

THE ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS Charles L. Cohen
ACCOUNTING Christopher Nobes
ADOLESCENCE Peter K. Smith
THEODOR W. ADORNO Andrew Bowie
ADVERTISING Winston Fletcher
AERIAL WARFARE Frank Ledwidge
AESTHETICS Bence Nanay
AFRICAN AMERICAN RELIGION Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
AFRICAN HISTORY John Parker and Richard Rathbone
AFRICAN POLITICS Ian Taylor
AFRICAN RELIGIONS Jacob K. Olupona
AGEING Nancy A. Pachana
AGNOSTICISM Robin Le Poidevin
AGRICULTURE Paul Brassley and Richard Soffe
ALEXANDER THE GREAT Hugh Bowden
ALGEBRA Peter M. Higgins
AMERICAN BUSINESS HISTORY Walter A. Friedman
AMERICAN CULTURAL HISTORY Eric Avila
AMERICAN FOREIGN RELATIONS Andrew Preston
AMERICAN HISTORY Paul S. Boyer
AMERICAN IMMIGRATION David A. Gerber
AMERICAN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen
AMERICAN LEGAL HISTORY G. Edward White
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY Joseph T. Glatthaar
AMERICAN NAVAL HISTORY Craig L. Symonds
AMERICAN POETRY David Caplan
AMERICAN POLITICAL HISTORY Donald Critchlow
AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTIES AND ELECTIONS L. Sandy Maisel
AMERICAN POLITICS Richard M. Valelly
THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY Charles O. Jones
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION Robert J. Allison
AMERICAN SLAVERY Heather Andrea Williams
THE AMERICAN SOUTH Charles Reagan Wilson
THE AMERICAN WEST Stephen Aron
AMERICAN WOMEN’S HISTORY Susan Ware
AMPHIBIANS T. S. Kemp
ANAESTHESIA Aidan O’Donnell
ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY Michael Beaney
ANARCHISM Colin Ward
ANCIENT ASSYRIA Karen Radner
ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ART AND ARCHITECTURE Christina Riggs
ANCIENT GREECE Paul Cartledge
THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST Amanda H. Podany
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY Julia Annas
ANCIENT WARFARE Harry Sidebottom
ANGELS David Albert Jones
ANGLICANISM Mark Chapman
THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE John Blair
ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR Tristram D. Wyatt
THE ANIMAL KINGDOM Peter Holland
ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia
THE ANTARCTIC Klaus Dodds
ANTHROPOCENE Erle C. Ellis
ANTISEMITISM Steven Beller
ANXIETY Daniel Freeman and Jason Freeman
THE APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS Paul Foster
APPLIED MATHEMATICS Alain Goriely
THOMAS AQUINAS Fergus Kerr
ARBITRATION Thomas Schultz and Thomas Grant
ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn
ARCHITECTURE Andrew Ballantyne
THE ARCTIC Klaus Dodds and Jamie Woodward
ARISTOCRACY William Doyle
ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes
ART HISTORY Dana Arnold
ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Margaret A. Boden
ASIAN AMERICAN HISTORY Madeline Y. Hsu
ASTROBIOLOGY David C. Catling
ASTROPHYSICS James Binney
ATHEISM Julian Baggini
THE ATMOSPHERE Paul I. Palmer
AUGUSTINE Henry Chadwick
JANE AUSTEN Tom Keymer
AUSTRALIA Kenneth Morgan
AUTISM Uta Frith
AUTOBIOGRAPHY Laura Marcus
THE AVANT GARDE David Cottington
THE AZTECS Davíd Carrasco
BABYLONIA Trevor Bryce
BACTERIA Sebastian G. B. Amyes
BANKING John Goddard and John O. S. Wilson
BARTHES Jonathan Culler
THE BEATS David Sterritt
BEAUTY Roger Scruton
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Mark Evan Bonds
BEHAVIOURAL ECONOMICS Michelle Baddeley
BESTSELLERS John Sutherland
THE BIBLE John Riches
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY Eric H. Cline
BIG DATA Dawn E. Holmes
BIOCHEMISTRY Mark Lorch
BIOGEOGRAPHY Mark V. Lomolino
BIOGRAPHY Hermione Lee
BIOMETRICS Michael Fairhurst
ELIZABETH BISHOP Jonathan F. S. Post
BLACK HOLES Katherine Blundell
BLASPHEMY Yvonne Sherwood
BLOOD Chris Cooper
THE BLUES Elijah Wald
THE BODY Chris Shilling
NIELS BOHR J. L. Heilbron
THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER Brian Cummings
THE BOOK OF MORMON Terryl Givens
BORDERS Alexander C. Diener and Joshua Hagen
THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea
BRANDING Robert Jones
THE BRICS Andrew F. Cooper
THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION Martin Loughlin
THE BRITISH EMPIRE Ashley Jackson
BRITISH POLITICS Tony Wright
BUDDHA Michael Carrithers
BUDDHISM Damien Keown
BUDDHIST ETHICS Damien Keown
BYZANTIUM Peter Sarris
CALVINISM Jon Balserak
ALBERT CAMUS Oliver Gloag
CANADA Donald Wright
CANCER Nicholas James
CAPITALISM James Fulcher
CATHOLICISM Gerald O’Collins
CAUSATION Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum
THE CELL Terence Allen and Graham Cowling
THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe
CHAOS Leonard Smith
GEOFFREY CHAUCER David Wallace
CHEMISTRY Peter Atkins
CHILD PSYCHOLOGY Usha Goswami
CHILDREN’S LITERATURE Kimberley Reynolds
CHINESE LITERATURE Sabina Knight
CHOICE THEORY Michael Allingham
CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson
CHRISTIAN ETHICS D. Stephen Long
CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead
CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS Russell Foster and Leon Kreitzman
CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy
CITY PLANNING Carl Abbott
CIVIL ENGINEERING David Muir Wood
CLASSICAL LITERATURE William Allan
CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY Helen Morales
CLASSICS Mary Beard and John Henderson
CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard
CLIMATE Mark Maslin
CLIMATE CHANGE Mark Maslin
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY Susan Llewelyn and Katie Aafjes-van Doorn
COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY Freda McManus
COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE Richard Passingham
THE COLD WAR Robert J. McMahon
COLONIAL AMERICA Alan Taylor
COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE Rolena Adorno
COMBINATORICS Robin Wilson
COMEDY Matthew Bevis
COMMUNISM Leslie Holmes
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE Ben Hutchinson
COMPETITION AND ANTITRUST LAW Ariel Ezrachi
COMPLEXITY John H. Holland
THE COMPUTER Darrel Ince
COMPUTER SCIENCE Subrata Dasgupta
CONCENTRATION CAMPS Dan Stone
CONFUCIANISM Daniel K. Gardner
THE CONQUISTADORS Matthew Restall and Felipe Fernández-Armesto
CONSCIENCE Paul Strohm
CONSCIOUSNESS Susan Blackmore
CONTEMPORARY ART Julian Stallabrass
CONTEMPORARY FICTION Robert Eaglestone
CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY Simon Critchley
COPERNICUS Owen Gingerich
CORAL REEFS Charles Sheppard
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY Jeremy Moon
CORRUPTION Leslie Holmes
COSMOLOGY Peter Coles
COUNTRY MUSIC Richard Carlin
CREATIVITY Vlad Glăveanu
CRIME FICTION Richard Bradford
CRIMINAL JUSTICE Julian V. Roberts
CRIMINOLOGY Tim Newburn
CRITICAL THEORY Stephen Eric Bronner
THE CRUSADES Christopher Tyerman
CRYPTOGRAPHY Fred Piper and Sean Murphy
CRYSTALLOGRAPHY A. M. Glazer
THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION Richard Curt Kraus
DADA AND SURREALISM David Hopkins
DANTE Peter Hainsworth and David Robey
DARWIN Jonathan Howard
THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS Timothy H. Lim
DECADENCE David Weir
DECOLONIZATION Dane Kennedy
DEMENTIA Kathleen Taylor
DEMOCRACY Bernard Crick
DEMOGRAPHY Sarah Harper
DEPRESSION Jan Scott and Mary Jane Tacchi
DERRIDA Simon Glendinning
DESCARTES Tom Sorell
DESERTS Nick Middleton
DESIGN John Heskett
DEVELOPMENT Ian Goldin
DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY Lewis Wolpert
THE DEVIL Darren Oldridge
DIASPORA Kevin Kenny
CHARLES DICKENS Jenny Hartley
DICTIONARIES Lynda Mugglestone
DINOSAURS David Norman
DIPLOMATIC HISTORY Joseph M. Siracusa
DOCUMENTARY FILM Patricia Aufderheide
DREAMING J. Allan Hobson
DRUGS Les Iversen
DRUIDS Barry Cunliffe
DYNASTY Jeroen Duindam
DYSLEXIA Margaret J. Snowling
EARLY MUSIC Thomas Forrest Kelly
THE EARTH Martin Redfern
EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE Tim Lenton
ECOLOGY Jaboury Ghazoul
ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta
EDUCATION Gary Thomas
EGYPTIAN MYTH Geraldine Pinch
EIGHTEENTH‑CENTURY BRITAIN Paul Langford
THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball
EMOTION Dylan Evans
EMPIRE Stephen Howe
EMPLOYMENT LAW David Cabrelli
ENERGY SYSTEMS Nick Jenkins
ENGELS Terrell Carver
ENGINEERING David Blockley
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE Simon Horobin
ENGLISH LITERATURE Jonathan Bate
THE ENLIGHTENMENT John Robertson
ENTREPRENEURSHIP Paul Westhead and Mike Wright
ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS Stephen Smith
ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Robin Attfield
ENVIRONMENTAL LAW Elizabeth Fisher
ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS Andrew Dobson
ENZYMES Paul Engel
EPICUREANISM Catherine Wilson
EPIDEMIOLOGY Rodolfo Saracci
ETHICS Simon Blackburn
ETHNOMUSICOLOGY Timothy Rice
THE ETRUSCANS Christopher Smith
EUGENICS Philippa Levine
THE EUROPEAN UNION Simon Usherwood and John Pinder
EUROPEAN UNION LAW Anthony Arnull
EVANGELICALISM John Stackhouse
EVOLUTION Brian and Deborah Charlesworth
EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn
EXPLORATION Stewart A. Weaver
EXTINCTION Paul B. Wignall
THE EYE Michael Land
FAIRY TALE Marina Warner
FAMILY LAW Jonathan Herring
MICHAEL FARADAY Frank A. J. L. James
FASCISM Kevin Passmore
FASHION Rebecca Arnold
FEDERALISM Mark J. Rozell and Clyde Wilcox
FEMINISM Margaret Walters
FILM Michael Wood
FILM MUSIC Kathryn Kalinak
FILM NOIR James Naremore
FIRE Andrew C. Scott
THE FIRST WORLD WAR Michael Howard
FLUID MECHANICS Eric Lauga
FOLK MUSIC Mark Slobin
FOOD John Krebs
FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY David Canter
FORENSIC SCIENCE Jim Fraser
FORESTS Jaboury Ghazoul
FOSSILS Keith Thomson
FOUCAULT Gary Gutting
THE FOUNDING FATHERS R. B. Bernstein
FRACTALS Kenneth Falconer
FREE SPEECH Nigel Warburton
FREE WILL Thomas Pink
FREEMASONRY Andreas Önnerfors
FRENCH LITERATURE John D. Lyons
FRENCH PHILOSOPHY Stephen Gaukroger and Knox Peden
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION William Doyle
FREUD Anthony Storr
FUNDAMENTALISM Malise Ruthven
FUNGI Nicholas P. Money
THE FUTURE Jennifer M. Gidley
GALAXIES John Gribbin
GALILEO Stillman Drake
GAME THEORY Ken Binmore
GANDHI Bhikhu Parekh
GARDEN HISTORY Gordon Campbell
GENES Jonathan Slack
GENIUS Andrew Robinson
GENOMICS John Archibald
GEOGRAPHY John Matthews and David Herbert
GEOLOGY Jan Zalasiewicz
GEOMETRY Maciej Dunajski
GEOPHYSICS William Lowrie
GEOPOLITICS Klaus Dodds
GERMAN LITERATURE Nicholas Boyle
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY Andrew Bowie
THE GHETTO Bryan Cheyette
GLACIATION David J. A. Evans
GLOBAL CATASTROPHES Bill McGuire
GLOBAL ECONOMIC HISTORY Robert C. Allen
GLOBAL ISLAM Nile Green
GLOBALIZATION Manfred B. Steger
GOD John Bowker
GOETHE Ritchie Robertson
THE GOTHIC Nick Groom
GOVERNANCE Mark Bevir
GRAVITY Timothy Clifton
THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE NEW DEAL Eric Rauchway
HABEAS CORPUS Amanda Tyler
HABERMAS James Gordon Finlayson
THE HABSBURG EMPIRE Martyn Rady
HAPPINESS Daniel M. Haybron
THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE Cheryl A. Wall
THE HEBREW BIBLE AS LITERATURE Tod Linafelt
HEGEL Peter Singer
HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood
THE HELLENISTIC AGE Peter Thonemann
HEREDITY John Waller
HERMENEUTICS Jens Zimmermann
HERODOTUS Jennifer T. Roberts
HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson
HINDUISM Kim Knott
HISTORY John H. Arnold
THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY Michael Hoskin
THE HISTORY OF CHEMISTRY William H. Brock
THE HISTORY OF CHILDHOOD James Marten
THE HISTORY OF CINEMA Geoffrey Nowell-Smith
THE HISTORY OF LIFE Michael Benton
THE HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS Jacqueline Stedall
THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE William Bynum
THE HISTORY OF PHYSICS J. L. Heilbron
THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT Richard Whatmore
THE HISTORY OF TIME Leofranc Holford‑Strevens
HIV AND AIDS Alan Whiteside
HOBBES Richard Tuck
HOLLYWOOD Peter Decherney
THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE Joachim Whaley
HOME Michael Allen Fox
HOMER Barbara Graziosi
HORMONES Martin Luck
HORROR Darryl Jones
HUMAN ANATOMY Leslie Klenerman
HUMAN EVOLUTION Bernard Wood
HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY Jamie A. Davies
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Adrian Wilkinson
HUMAN RIGHTS Andrew Clapham
HUMANISM Stephen Law
HUME James A. Harris
HUMOUR Noël Carroll
THE ICE AGE Jamie Woodward
IDENTITY Florian Coulmas
IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden
THE IMMUNE SYSTEM Paul Klenerman
INDIAN CINEMA Ashish Rajadhyaksha
INDIAN PHILOSOPHY Sue Hamilton
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION Robert C. Allen
INFECTIOUS DISEASE Marta L. Wayne and Benjamin M. Bolker
INFINITY Ian Stewart
INFORMATION Luciano Floridi
INNOVATION Mark Dodgson and David Gann
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY Siva Vaidhyanathan
INTELLIGENCE Ian J. Deary
INTERNATIONAL LAW Vaughan Lowe
INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION Khalid Koser
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Christian Reus-Smit
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY Christopher S. Browning
INSECTS Simon Leather
IRAN Ali M. Ansari
ISLAM Malise Ruthven
ISLAMIC HISTORY Adam Silverstein
ISLAMIC LAW Mashood A. Baderin
ISOTOPES Rob Ellam
ITALIAN LITERATURE Peter Hainsworth and David Robey
HENRY JAMES Susan L. Mizruchi
JESUS Richard Bauckham
JEWISH HISTORY David N. Myers
JEWISH LITERATURE Ilan Stavans
JOURNALISM Ian Hargreaves
JAMES JOYCE Colin MacCabe
JUDAISM Norman Solomon
JUNG Anthony Stevens
KABBALAH Joseph Dan
KAFKA Ritchie Robertson
KANT Roger Scruton
KEYNES Robert Skidelsky
KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner
KNOWLEDGE Jennifer Nagel
THE KORAN Michael Cook
KOREA Michael J. Seth
LAKES Warwick F. Vincent
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE Ian H. Thompson
LANDSCAPES AND GEOMORPHOLOGY Andrew Goudie and Heather Viles
LANGUAGES Stephen R. Anderson
LATE ANTIQUITY Gillian Clark
LAW Raymond Wacks
THE LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS Peter Atkins
LEADERSHIP Keith Grint
LEARNING Mark Haselgrove
LEIBNIZ Maria Rosa Antognazza
C. S. LEWIS James Como
LIBERALISM Michael Freeden
LIGHT Ian Walmsley
LINCOLN Allen C. Guelzo
LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews
LITERARY THEORY Jonathan Culler
LOCKE John Dunn
LOGIC Graham Priest
LOVE Ronald de Sousa
MARTIN LUTHER Scott H. Hendrix
MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner
MADNESS Andrew Scull
MAGIC Owen Davies
MAGNA CARTA Nicholas Vincent
MAGNETISM Stephen Blundell
MALTHUS Donald Winch
MAMMALS T. S. Kemp
MANAGEMENT John Hendry
NELSON MANDELA Elleke Boehmer
MAO Delia Davin
MARINE BIOLOGY Philip V. Mladenov
MARKETING Kenneth Le Meunier-FitzHugh
THE MARQUIS DE SADE John Phillips
MARTYRDOM Jolyon Mitchell
MARX Peter Singer
MATERIALS Christopher Hall
MATHEMATICAL FINANCE Mark H. A. Davis
MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers
MATTER Geoff Cottrell
THE MAYA Matthew Restall and Amara Solari
THE MEANING OF LIFE Terry Eagleton
MEASUREMENT David Hand
MEDICAL ETHICS Michael Dunn and Tony Hope
MEDICAL LAW Charles Foster
MEDIEVAL BRITAIN John Gillingham and Ralph A. Griffiths
MEDIEVAL LITERATURE Elaine Treharne
MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY John Marenbon
MEMORY Jonathan K. Foster
METAPHYSICS Stephen Mumford
METHODISM William J. Abraham
THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION Alan Knight
MICROBIOLOGY Nicholas P. Money
MICROECONOMICS Avinash Dixit
MICROSCOPY Terence Allen
THE MIDDLE AGES Miri Rubin
MILITARY JUSTICE Eugene R. Fidell
MILITARY STRATEGY Antulio J. Echevarria II
JOHN STUART MILL Gregory Claeys
MINERALS David Vaughan
MIRACLES Yujin Nagasawa
MODERN ARCHITECTURE Adam Sharr
MODERN ART David Cottington
MODERN BRAZIL Anthony W. Pereira
MODERN CHINA Rana Mitter
MODERN DRAMA Kirsten E. Shepherd-Barr
MODERN FRANCE Vanessa R. Schwartz
MODERN INDIA Craig Jeffrey
MODERN IRELAND Senia Pašeta
MODERN ITALY Anna Cento Bull
MODERN JAPAN Christopher Goto-Jones
MODERN LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE Roberto González Echevarría
MODERN WAR Richard English
MODERNISM Christopher Butler
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY Aysha Divan and Janice A. Royds
MOLECULES Philip Ball
MONASTICISM Stephen J. Davis
THE MONGOLS Morris Rossabi
MONTAIGNE William M. Hamlin
MOONS David A. Rothery
MORMONISM Richard Lyman Bushman
MOUNTAINS Martin F. Price
MUHAMMAD Jonathan A. C. Brown
MULTICULTURALISM Ali Rattansi
MULTILINGUALISM John C. Maher
MUSIC Nicholas Cook
MUSIC AND TECHNOLOGY Mark Katz
MYTH Robert A. Segal
NAPOLEON David Bell
THE NAPOLEONIC WARS Mike Rapport
NATIONALISM Steven Grosby
NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE Sean Teuton
NAVIGATION Jim Bennett
NAZI GERMANY Jane Caplan
NEOLIBERALISM Manfred B. Steger and Ravi K. Roy
NETWORKS Guido Caldarelli and Michele Catanzaro
THE NEW TESTAMENT Luke Timothy Johnson
THE NEW TESTAMENT AS LITERATURE Kyle Keefer
NEWTON Robert Iliffe
NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner
NINETEENTH‑CENTURY BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and H. C. G. Matthew
THE NORMAN CONQUEST George Garnett
NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green
NORTHERN IRELAND Marc Mulholland
NOTHING Frank Close
NUCLEAR PHYSICS Frank Close
NUCLEAR POWER Maxwell Irvine
NUCLEAR WEAPONS Joseph M. Siracusa
NUMBER THEORY Robin Wilson
NUMBERS Peter M. Higgins
NUTRITION David A. Bender
OBJECTIVITY Stephen Gaukroger
OCEANS Dorrik Stow
THE OLD TESTAMENT Michael D. Coogan
THE ORCHESTRA D. Kern Holoman
ORGANIC CHEMISTRY Graham Patrick
ORGANIZATIONS Mary Jo Hatch
ORGANIZED CRIME Georgios A. Antonopoulos and Georgios Papanicolaou
ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY A. Edward Siecienski
OVID Llewelyn Morgan
PAGANISM Owen Davies
PAKISTAN Pippa Virdee
THE PALESTINIAN–ISRAELI CONFLICT Martin Bunton
PANDEMICS Christian W. McMillen
PARTICLE PHYSICS Frank Close
PAUL E. P. Sanders
PEACE Oliver P. Richmond
PENTECOSTALISM William K. Kay
PERCEPTION Brian Rogers
THE PERIODIC TABLE Eric R. Scerri
PHILOSOPHICAL METHOD Timothy Williamson
PHILOSOPHY Edward Craig
PHILOSOPHY IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD Peter Adamson
PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY Samir Okasha
PHILOSOPHY OF LAW Raymond Wacks
PHILOSOPHY OF MIND Barbara Gail Montero
PHILOSOPHY OF PHYSICS David Wallace
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Samir Okasha
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION Tim Bayne
PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Edwards
PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY Peter Atkins
PHYSICS Sidney Perkowitz
PILGRIMAGE Ian Reader
PLAGUE Paul Slack
PLANETARY SYSTEMS Raymond T. Pierrehumbert
PLANETS David A. Rothery
PLANTS Timothy Walker
PLATE TECTONICS Peter Molnar
PLATO Julia Annas
POETRY Bernard O’Donoghue
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY David Miller
POLITICS Kenneth Minogue
POLYGAMY Sarah M. S. Pearsall
POPULISM Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser
POSTCOLONIALISM Robert Young
POSTMODERNISM Christopher Butler
POSTSTRUCTURALISM Catherine Belsey
POVERTY Philip N. Jefferson
PREHISTORY Chris Gosden
PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY Catherine Osborne
PRIVACY Raymond Wacks
PROBABILITY John Haigh
PROGRESSIVISM Walter Nugent
PROHIBITION W. J. Rorabaugh
PROJECTS Andrew Davies
PROTESTANTISM Mark A. Noll
PSYCHIATRY Tom Burns
PSYCHOANALYSIS Daniel Pick
PSYCHOLOGY Gillian Butler and Freda McManus
PSYCHOLOGY OF MUSIC Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis
PSYCHOPATHY Essi Viding
PSYCHOTHERAPY Tom Burns and Eva Burns-Lundgren
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION Stella Z. Theodoulou and Ravi K. Roy
PUBLIC HEALTH Virginia Berridge
PURITANISM Francis J. Bremer
THE QUAKERS Pink Dandelion
QUANTUM THEORY John Polkinghorne
RACISM Ali Rattansi
RADIOACTIVITY Claudio Tuniz
RASTAFARI Ennis B. Edmonds
READING Belinda Jack
THE REAGAN REVOLUTION Gil Troy
REALITY Jan Westerhoff
RECONSTRUCTION Allen C. Guelzo
THE REFORMATION Peter Marshall
REFUGEES Gil Loescher
RELATIVITY Russell Stannard
RELIGION Thomas A. Tweed
RELIGION IN AMERICA Timothy Beal
THE RENAISSANCE Jerry Brotton
RENAISSANCE ART Geraldine A. Johnson
RENEWABLE ENERGY Nick Jelley
REPTILES T. S. Kemp
REVOLUTIONS Jack A. Goldstone
RHETORIC Richard Toye
RISK Baruch Fischhoff and John Kadvany
RITUAL Barry Stephenson
RIVERS Nick Middleton
ROBOTICS Alan Winfield
ROCKS Jan Zalasiewicz
ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway
THE ROMAN EMPIRE Christopher Kelly
THE ROMAN REPUBLIC David M. Gwynn
ROMANTICISM Michael Ferber
ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler
RUSSELL A. C. Grayling
THE RUSSIAN ECONOMY Richard Connolly
RUSSIAN HISTORY Geoffrey Hosking
RUSSIAN LITERATURE Catriona Kelly
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION S. A. Smith
SAINTS Simon Yarrow
SAMURAI Michael Wert
SAVANNAS Peter A. Furley
SCEPTICISM Duncan Pritchard
SCHIZOPHRENIA Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone
SCHOPENHAUER Christopher Janaway
SCIENCE AND RELIGION Thomas Dixon and Adam R. Shapiro
SCIENCE FICTION David Seed
THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION Lawrence M. Principe
SCOTLAND Rab Houston
SECULARISM Andrew Copson
SEXUAL SELECTION Marlene Zuk and Leigh W. Simmons
SEXUALITY Véronique Mottier
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Stanley Wells
SHAKESPEARE’S COMEDIES Bart van Es
SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS AND POEMS Jonathan F. S. Post
SHAKESPEARE’S TRAGEDIES Stanley Wells
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW Christopher Wixson
MARY SHELLEY Charlotte Gordon
THE SHORT STORY Andrew Kahn
SIKHISM Eleanor Nesbitt
SILENT FILM Donna Kornhaber
THE SILK ROAD James A. Millward
SLANG Jonathon Green
SLEEP Steven W. Lockley and Russell G. Foster
SMELL Matthew Cobb
ADAM SMITH Christopher J. Berry
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY John Monaghan and Peter Just
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Richard J. Crisp
SOCIAL WORK Sally Holland and Jonathan Scourfield
SOCIALISM Michael Newman
SOCIOLINGUISTICS John Edwards
SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce
SOCRATES C. C. W. Taylor
SOFT MATTER Tom McLeish
SOUND Mike Goldsmith
SOUTHEAST ASIA James R. Rush
THE SOVIET UNION Stephen Lovell
THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR Helen Graham
SPANISH LITERATURE Jo Labanyi
THE SPARTANS Andrew Bayliss
SPINOZA Roger Scruton
SPIRITUALITY Philip Sheldrake
SPORT Mike Cronin
STARS Andrew King
STATISTICS David J. Hand
STEM CELLS Jonathan Slack
STOICISM Brad Inwood
STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING David Blockley
STUART BRITAIN John Morrill
THE SUN Philip Judge
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY Stephen Blundell
SUPERSTITION Stuart Vyse
SYMMETRY Ian Stewart
SYNAESTHESIA Julia Simner
SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY Jamie A. Davies
SYSTEMS BIOLOGY Eberhard O. Voit
TAXATION Stephen Smith
TEETH Peter S. Ungar
TELESCOPES Geoff Cottrell
TERRORISM Charles Townshend
THEATRE Marvin Carlson
THEOLOGY David F. Ford
THINKING AND REASONING Jonathan St B. T. Evans
THOUGHT Tim Bayne
TIBETAN BUDDHISM Matthew T. Kapstein
TIDES David George Bowers and Emyr Martyn Roberts
TIME Jenann Ismael
TOCQUEVILLE Harvey C. Mansfield
LEO TOLSTOY Liza Knapp
TOPOLOGY Richard Earl
TRAGEDY Adrian Poole
TRANSLATION Matthew Reynolds
THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES Michael S. Neiberg
TRIGONOMETRY Glen Van Brummelen
THE TROJAN WAR Eric H. Cline
TRUST Katherine Hawley
THE TUDORS John Guy
TWENTIETH‑CENTURY BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan
TYPOGRAPHY Paul Luna
THE UNITED NATIONS Jussi M. Hanhimäki
UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES David Palfreyman and Paul Temple
THE U.S. CIVIL WAR Louis P. Masur
THE U.S. CONGRESS Donald A. Ritchie
THE U.S. CONSTITUTION David J. Bodenhamer
THE U.S. SUPREME COURT Linda Greenhouse
UTILITARIANISM Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer
UTOPIANISM Lyman Tower Sargent
VETERINARY SCIENCE James Yeates
THE VIKINGS Julian D. Richards
VIOLENCE Philip Dwyer
THE VIRGIN MARY Mary Joan Winn Leith
THE VIRTUES Craig A. Boyd and Kevin Timpe
VIRUSES Dorothy H. Crawford
VOLCANOES Michael J. Branney and Jan Zalasiewicz
VOLTAIRE Nicholas Cronk
WAR AND RELIGION Jolyon Mitchell and Joshua Rey
WAR AND TECHNOLOGY Alex Roland
WATER John Finney
WAVES Mike Goldsmith
WEATHER Storm Dunlop
THE WELFARE STATE David Garland
WITCHCRAFT Malcolm Gaskill
WITTGENSTEIN A. C. Grayling
WORK Stephen Fineman
WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman
THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION Amrita Narlikar
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 Mark Katz

MUSIC AND TECHNOLOGY

A Very Short Introduction
 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the
University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing
worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and
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Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Katz, Mark, 1970– author.
Title: Music and technology : a very short introduction / Mark Katz.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2022. |
Series: Very short introductions
Identifiers: LCCN 2022006327 | ISBN 9780199946983 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780199947003 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Music and technology. | Music—Social aspects. | Sound
recordings—Social aspects. | Musical instruments.
Classification: LCC ML3916 .K38 2022 | DDC 780.285—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006327

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the UK by Ashford Colour Press Ltd, Gosport, Hampshire.,
on acid-free paper
Contents

List of illustrations

Acknowledgments

1 Music as technology

2 Bodies and senses

3 Time

4 Space

5 Community

6 Noise

7 Five theses about music and technology

References

Further reading

Index
List of illustrations

1 Lucie Bigelow Rosen playing a theremin, 1936

Library of Congress, 2001701695

2 Vidyadhar Oke playing a harmonium, 2010

Photograph by Amod Oke, http://www.22shruti.com/

3 Henri-Louis Jaquet-Droz (with Pierre Jaquet-Droz and Henri-Louis Leschot)

The Musician, 1768–1774
Musée d’art et d’histoire de Neuchâtel (Switzerland). Photograph by Stefano Iori

4 Image from Disney patent, “Method and Apparatus for Synchronizing

Photoplays”
United States Patent Office, Application April 2, 1931. Serial No. 527,170

5 Daphne Oram drawing on the Oramics machine

Photograph by Fred Wood. Image courtesy of the Daphne Oram Trust and Special
Collections & Archives, Goldsmiths University of London

6 Boom box used in Do the Right Thing (1989)

Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and
Culture

7 Victrola advertisement, 1926

8 Rajio taisō pamphlet

9 Mbira with bottle caps

Image courtesy of Erica Azim
10 Woody Guthrie, “This Machine Kills Fascists” on guitar
World Telegram photo by Al Aumuller, 1943. New York World-Telegram and the Sun
Newspaper Photograph Collection (Library of Congress), 2002709330
Acknowledgments

This book has been in progress much longer than I expected. My

first thanks, then, must go to my wonderful and patient editor at
Oxford University Press, Nancy Toff. Over the years that this book
has been gestating, many others have provided support, whether by
offering feedback, providing research assistance, serving as an
accountability partner, sharing their work, inviting me to present
lectures on the subject of the book, or simply talking with me about
music and technology. These generous and thoughtful people
include Tuomas Auvinen, Paul Berliner, Andrea Bohlman, Mark Evan
Bonds, John Caldwell, Melissa Camp, Will Cheng, Allison DiBianca,
ken tianyuan Ge, Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen, Joanna Helms, Aldwyn
Hogg Jr., Eri Kakoki, Jj Kidder, Stella Li, Sarah Lindmark, Michael
Levine, Áine Mangaoang, Alex Marsden, John Richardson, Eduardo
Sato, Kelli Smith-Biwer, Jason Stanyek, Tim Sterner Miller, Matthew
Thibeault, David VanderHamm, and the two sets of anonymous
readers who wrote helpful reports on the manuscript (ten years
apart!). Dozens of students in a variety of classes at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill have also read parts of this book.
Moreover, several graduate students (all named above) introduced
me to some of the technologies and topics I discuss in this book. I
cannot emphasize enough how valuable it is to have had so many
smart students respond to my ideas and my writing; they have
helped me make this a clearer, more interesting book, and I am
deeply grateful. Above all, I owe my thanks to my wife, Beth Jakub,
and my daughter, Anna Katz, who support me in every possible way
and make everything better. This book is for them.
Chapter 1
Music as technology

“I’m so thankful I was a DJ before technology took over.” Making the

rounds on social media in early 2015, this wistful remark elicited the
knowing approval of those who had witnessed wave after wave of
technological change in the previous decade. The DJs who resented
this apparent takeover had started their careers in the analog days
of yore, mastering less user-friendly equipment and lugging heavy
crates of vinyl discs from gig to gig. Since then, however, it had
become markedly easier and cheaper to acquire, arrange, store, mix,
edit, and reproduce recorded music—that is, to do the work of the
DJ, or what used to be called a disc jockey. For many veteran DJs,
these changes exposed technology’s dark side: in simplifying their
craft, it had also devalued their hard-won skill, labor, and experience.

The statement “I’m so thankful I was a DJ before technology took

over” might seem nonsensical. After all, the DJ as we know it could
not exist without electronic technologies. But this declaration is not
so much a rejection of technology as it is an expression of
ambivalence and anxiety, revealing a widely held concern that
technology can be an intrusive, corrupting force. This is not a new
sentiment. Consider the piano. In the eighteenth century it was an
interloper when the harpsichord—an older keyboard instrument—
ruled the concert halls and salons of Europe. In 1774, the French
philosopher Voltaire dismissed the new keyboard as an instrument
du chaudronnier—a metalworker’s tool, hardly suitable for the art of
music. A century later many cultures embraced the piano, and it was
regarded as a traditional musical instrument. In 1906, the US
bandleader and composer John Philip Sousa likened the now
venerable piano to a native songbird menaced by an invasive
species, here represented by the player piano, a new mechanical
keyboard instrument in which scrolling rolls of perforated paper
activated each note. What had changed since Voltaire’s time? The
piano had only become more complex, now an iron-encased marvel
of keys, hammers, strings, pedals, dampers, jacks, and dozens of
other moving parts. And yet, having become assimilated into musical
and domestic life, it was no longer regarded as a form of technology.
The piano had become as natural as a songbird. As it turns out,
complaints about the takeover of technology are never about the
tainting of some pretechnological state. Rather, they typically voice
concerns about a new form of technology disrupting or threatening
an established practice that employs older, familiar technologies.

Throughout history we see repeated cycles in which technologies are

hypervisible as they are introduced into spheres of human activity
and then become invisible once they are incorporated into regular
use and are no longer noteworthy. Hypervisibility and invisibility both
distort the influence of technology. When technologies are
hypervisible we tend to exaggerate their impact and disregard the
broader contexts that shape their use and give them meaning.
Invisible technologies, however, are overlooked, their influence
unappreciated. They are not even deemed technological.

Most of us encounter hypervisible and invisible technologies daily. If

I stop typing and look at my desk, I notice a computer keyboard,
monitor, and mouse; pens and pencils; some framed photos; a pad
of sticky notes; a selection of books; my smartphone. All these
objects are forms of technology, as are the desk itself and the chair
underneath me. As unremarkable as it may seem, this assemblage
of objects represents an extraordinary convergence of technologies
from across ages and continents. Paper is 2,000 years old; the first
known printed book dates to 868; the pencil was invented in 1795;
the first photograph was taken in 1826; the ballpoint pen was
created in 1938; the computer mouse was born in 1964; sticky notes
came out in 1977; the smartphone was introduced in 1992. These
technologies are as far-flung geographically as they are
chronologically: paper and printed books originated in China; the
pencil and photograph are French; the ballpoint pen is Hungarian;
the mouse, sticky notes, and smartphone were developed in the
United States. Try this yourself. What do you see? When we open
our eyes to the varied origins, ages, contexts, and uses of the tools
and devices around us we begin to understand the rich and complex
ways that we interact with technology.

Defining music technology

This book embraces a broad understanding of technology, one that
includes any tools or systems meant to transform human existence
in some way. Music technology, then, encompasses tools and
systems designed or used to facilitate the creation, preservation,
reception, or dissemination of music. In this view, technologies of
music not only include the usual suspects—devices that are new,
complicated, and electronic—but also all instruments, however old or
simple, as well as music notation and printing. The human body can
also be considered a form of technology. When we make music with
our mouths, lungs, and limbs, we manipulate our bodies as musical
tools to create the sounds we desire. Singers often call their voices
their instruments, and musical traditions around the world—among
them African American Juba dance (or hambone) and the palmas of
flamenco—treat bodies as percussion instruments by stomping,
patting, clapping, and snapping. Musicians modify their bodies to
serve their art as well. Some guitarists and banjo players grow out
the fingernails of their right hand to serve as a plectrum, or pick,
while many players of the sarod, a Hindustani stringed instrument,
do the same with the nails of their left hand. Country music star
Dolly Parton has called her acrylic fingernails musical instruments,
not only treating them as guitar picks but also using them to create
percussive sounds of their own. At times, musicians’ bodily
modifications are more considerable, even irreversible. A castrato,
for example, was a male singer castrated before puberty for the
purpose of cultivating a high, flexible, and powerful voice that was
prized in Europe for more than 300 years, well into the nineteenth
century.

There are two main reasons for embracing such a broad definition of
music technology. First, it allows us to see continuities and
relationships obscured by the tendency to focus on the novel or
disruptive aspects of technology. For example, sampling (the
extraction and musical repurposing of fragments of existing
recordings) and mashups (the combination of two or more
recordings into a single piece) are developments of the digital age
and have been considered both novel and disruptive. But they are
not unprecedented—both are forms of musical quotation, a
centuries-old practice. To see this connection is to understand not
only that sampling and mashups are products of their times but also
that they draw from a common well of creative impulses.

Second, an expansive view of technology can illuminate hidden

cultural contexts and power dynamics. Technology is not an essence
that inheres in some objects and not in others—it is a concept, a
label that reflects values, norms, and biases. To describe something
in technological terms is to recognize it and its creators as worthy of
respect. In Western societies, the esteemed title of “inventor” has
traditionally been reserved for white men. Women and people of
color who have made similar contributions are less frequently
recognized as inventors and are regularly denied access to
technology. In music, this has meant that women composers and
performers as well as nonwhite musicians have been shut out of
recording and electronic music studios and their interests and needs
dismissed by instrument and musical equipment manufacturers. A
narrow definition of technology allows those in power and other self-
appointed gatekeepers to exclude others. Definitions can have real-
world consequences, and there is value in adopting ones that
uncover hidden connections, recognize the cultural embeddedness of
our inventions, and foster an appreciation of the incredible diversity
of human musical ingenuity.

A very, very short history of music technology

The following very, very short history considers three areas of music
technology: instruments, notation and printing, and sound recording
and broadcast. This sketch cites well-known names and inventions
as well as lesser-known developments, some modern technologies,
and some ancient.

The earliest music technologies external to the human body

probably emerged in the Paleolithic era. Sometime about 35,000
years ago one of our ancestors sat down with the wing bone of a
vulture and made it into a flute. That flute, found in 2008 in a dozen
pieces in a cave in southwestern Germany, features five precisely
measured and finely cut finger holes over its approximately 8.5-inch
(21.8-centimeter) length. It is clearly the work of a skilled, tool-using
builder. Given that people at the time were preoccupied with
gathering food, battling rival clans, and dodging cave bears, it is a
testament to the power of music that such care would be lavished
on bringing an instrument to life.

The tradition of instrument building is likely millennia older than this

bone flute—it is merely the earliest known example at this time. We
cannot know when people first made music, but fossil records show
that humans have had the physical ability to sing for more than
500,000 years and have been using tools for at least 3 million years.
Birds, by the way, have been singing for tens of millions of years and
certainly inspired some of the earliest human music making.
Countless instruments still in use in the early twenty-first century
depend on animals for their construction. The shofar, Middle Eastern
in origin and played on Jewish holy days, is a wind instrument made
from a ram’s or goat’s horn; the bowed Chinese stringed instrument,
the erhu, traditionally uses python skin to cover its wooden
soundbox; bagpipes, common in Ireland and Scotland, have long
incorporated cow, goat, or sheep skins. In recent decades,
synthetics have replaced animal sources; as with all technological
practices, instrument building evolves in response to changing values
and aesthetics as well as the availability and development of tools
and techniques. Since prehistoric times and continuing to this day,
animals have served as a benchmark for our musicality and have
given their lives to facilitate much of our music making.

Bone flutes and bagpipes are not usually cited as forms of

technology, perhaps because of their use of natural materials. Classic
examples of music technology tend to be mechanical or electronic
musical instruments, but they are neither fundamentally different
nor particularly new.

The player piano—an uncanny device invented in the nineteenth

century that can perform without a human operator—is a canonic
form of music technology. It is also part of an ancient tradition of
musical automata. The earliest examples were probably flutes or
organs driven by continuously flowing water cited in Greek sources
from the third century BCE. In 850, a trio of scientist brothers
working in Baghdad known as the Banū Mūsà described a water-
powered organ and a hydraulically blown flute in their book, Kitāb al-
Ḥiyal, or the Book of Ingenious Devices. Some sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century water-powered organs in Europe were still
being played in the twenty-first century, such as the 1502 instrument
in Hohensalzburg Castle in Austria and the 1549 organ at the Villa
d’Este in Tivoli, outside Rome. Starting in the fifteenth century, most
automatic instruments were driven by spring-powered mechanisms,
the kind developed out of early clockwork technology. The heyday of
musical automata has long passed, but the technology continues to
delight and discomfit, whether in the form of music boxes gifted on
special occasions or the self-playing digital pianos offering
entertainment in shopping malls, restaurants, and airports.

One of the most profound developments in the history of musical

instruments was the human harnessing of electricity. Early
experiments in the electrification of metal strings date to mid-
eighteenth-century France; the first electric instrument is considered
the musical telegraph, patented by US inventor Elisha Gray in 1876.
Some of the oldest electronic instruments—defined by their
incorporation of circuitry and output of sound through loudspeakers
—date to the early twentieth century. Many are now largely
forgotten, including the telharmonium, introduced in the United
States, the German Sphärophon, and the French ondes Martenot.
One early electronic instrument that remains relatively popular is the
theremin, invented in the Soviet Union in 1920. Distinctive both
because of its operation, which requires the hands to move around
two antennas without touching them, and its characteristic glissando
—often described as “eerie” or otherworldly—the theremin became a
staple of science fiction films starting in the 1950s and maintains a
devoted following of practitioners and fans. The instrument was also
featured in classical music recitals; performers such as Clara
Rockmore and Lucie Bigelow Rosen became noted virtuosi in the
United States.
1. Lucie Bigelow Rosen plays a theremin in a 1936 recital. Her hands
activate an electromagnetic field generated by the two antennas. Her
right hand controls pitch (the closer the hand is to the vertical antenna,
the higher the pitch), while her left controls volume (the closer to the
horizontal loop antenna, the softer the sound).

An influential form of electronic music technologies is the

synthesizer, a class of instruments that generate sound through a
variety of analog and digital means. Synthesizers are commonly
thought of as keyboard instruments, but early examples—such as
the RCA Mark II or the Moog—were massive devices with rows of
knobs and miles of cable, some of them resembling old-fashioned
telephone switchboards. Synthesizers have been deployed by
composers and performers of every stripe but came to be closely
associated with Western pop music. Synthesizers became so
influential in certain genres and subgenres that their sound nearly
defines them, for example, the Moog and 1960s and 1970s
psychedelic and progressive rock or the Yamaha DX7 and 1980s
power ballads. Cousin to the synthesizer is the drum machine, an
electronic instrument that generates percussive sounds and rhythmic
patterns. Drum machines, too, have come to define the sound of
popular music genres, including techno, electro, and hip hop. As
novel, complex, and occasionally otherworldly as electronic
instruments seem, there are more similarities than differences with
their acoustic predecessors. Bongos and drum machines,
harpsichords and digital keyboards are equally technologies of
musical creation.

Notation and printing have been vital music technologies for

centuries, allowing music to travel across space and time. Notation—
the symbolic representation of musical performance—is the oldest
technology used for musical recording and playback. It exists in
diverse forms that come from cultures across the globe. The earliest
discovered example of musical notation dates to about 1400 BCE,
seen in a tablet found in Iraq (then Babylon) inscribed with
cuneiform instructions for performing music on a lyre. For the
twenty-eight centuries after this tablet was created, musical notation
was only written by hand. Printed music appeared in the 1470s,
some two decades after the advent of Johannes Gutenberg’s printing
press. The first substantial body of printed music, however, did not
arrive until 1501, when Venetian printer Ottaviano Petrucci published
Harmonice musices odhecaton A. Better known as the Odhecaton, it
collected ninety-six compositions using moveable type, in which
premade symbols are arranged to produce the desired text, with a
series of three impressions—one for the staff, one for the notes, and
the last for text. Successive innovations in printing led from
moveable type to engraving to lithography. Even in the early twenty-
first century, more than one hundred years after sound recording
and radio made it possible to capture and disseminate musical
performance in sonic form, notation and printing—now facilitated by
specialized software—continue to serve the preservation and
propagation of music.

Recording and radio are two technologies of sonic preservation and

propagation that have loomed large in our musical lives for well over
a century. The earliest known sound recording device was
constructed by the French printer Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville
and patented in 1857. Although it may seem that any tool for
preserving music should also be designed for playback, the machine,
known as the phonautograph, was never intended to reproduce
sounds; rather, Scott sought a way to analyze sound waves visually.
Although the phonautograph never had a role in musical culture, the
phonograph had an incalculable influence that continues to be felt.
Yet when Thomas Edison and his team constructed the first working
phonograph in December 1877—little more than a hand-cranked
cylinder wrapped in tinfoil—its primary application was considered to
be as a dictation device for businessmen. Music recordings started to
proliferate in the 1890s, but it was not until famed opera singer
Enrico Caruso started making records for the Victor Talking Machine
Company in 1904 that the listening public took the technology
seriously. (The terms phonograph, gramophone, talking machine,
Victrola, and Graphophone, among others, while not technically
synonymous, have come to be used almost interchangeably to refer
to disc- or cylinder-equipped playback devices from the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.)
The history of sound recording includes key developments in modern
music technology: 1877, the year Edison and his lab brought out the
cylinder-playing phonograph; 1923, when microphones started
replacing the megaphone-shaped acoustic recording horn; 1948, the
birth year of the long-playing disc (LP) and the 45 rpm record; 1963,
when the compact cassette tape went public; 1979, the debut of the
Walkman; 1982, when the compact disc, or CD, was introduced;
1999, when Napster’s peer-to-peer file-sharing service went live and
MP3 became a household term; 2001, when the iPod, not the first
but the most influential portable media player, hit the market; or
2008, which marked the launch of the music streaming service
Spotify.

Radio—which disseminates sound via electromagnetic waves

generated by transmitters, radiated across space through antennas,
and collected by receivers—grew up alongside the phonograph.
Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi developed the first practical
transmitters and receivers around 1895, and radio emerged as a
commercial venture around 1900. Radio broadcasting, the
transmission of audio content to the public, began around 1920,
leading to the development of mass audiences for music
programming. A radio receiver was first installed in an automobile in
1924 in Australia, creating a bond between music and cars that
remains unbreakable. After the world started sinking into economic
depression in 1929, it was said that radio, which provided free
entertainment, would replace the phonograph, which required the
purchase of records. But the two technologies came to coexist as
radio programming increasingly moved from the broadcast of live
musical performances to the playing of records. The intertwined
histories of radio and recording can be seen, in microcosm, in the
term commonly given to radio announcers whose programming
features music: disc jockeys. Later milestones in the history of the
technology include the introduction of the transistor radio in 1954,
which greatly expanded the mobility of music, and Internet and
satellite radio, coming out in 1993 and 1999, respectively, which
allow music to be broadcast across a much wider geographical area
than traditional, or what came to be called terrestrial, radio.

This summary is meant to provide context for discussions to come,

but it requires a caveat. In recounting the triumphs of Petrucci,
Marconi, and Edison we may promote what is known as the “great
man theory,” in which history is explained in terms of the impact of
heroic, far-seeing men. Moreover, a narrow focus on objects and
dates risks situating technology as the primary driver of musical
experience and suggests that technology tends toward ever greater
states of perfection. As useful as these chronicles are, we must
understand that although names and dates matter to our
understanding of music technology, culture matters most.

Culture matters
To see how culture matters to our understanding of music
technology, consider the debates about Auto-Tune and the contested
history of the harmonium in India. Not an instrument in itself, Auto-
Tune is a pitch-correction software application. Debuting in 1997, it
was designed as a behind-the-scenes tool to push a singer’s
wayward notes up or down subtly enough so listeners would not
notice. Soon, however, it came to be used to create effects that the
human voice could not otherwise achieve, and that were meant to
be heard. When used in this way the voice moves from pitch to pitch
with inhuman precision. Auto-Tune can also remove or regularize
vibrato, the rapid wavering of pitch and intensity within a note that
lends an emotional impact to a performance. Cher’s 1998 “Believe”
was the first hit song to employ Auto-Tune in such a conspicuous
way, and its popularity encouraged others to adopt it as a musical
feature and not simply as a corrective. R&B and hip hop artists
embraced it wholeheartedly in the mid- and late-2000s; one of the
most notable proponents was rapper T-Pain, who treated all his
vocals with the software. Twenty years after its introduction, Auto-
Tune was a fixture in recording studios worldwide, prominent in
Algerian raï, Bollywood film songs from India, Japanese J-pop and
Korean K-pop, South African kwaito, Tanzanian bongo flava, and
Trinidadian soca.

Despite its popularity, Auto-Tune did not enjoy a seamless

integration into existing musical practices. It initially provoked a
vehement backlash: detractors called it gimmicky and lazy,
describing the sound as inhuman, mechanical, or robotic. Defenders
noted that Auto-Tune was hardly different from long-accepted
technological interventions such as splicing (combining different
parts or takes of a recording) and saw it as a means to express
feelings, identities, and values through music more creatively and
powerfully than would otherwise be possible.

The debates about Auto-Tune illustrate how technology reveals and

refracts broader concerns and values. Within the African American
gospel tradition, for example, both denunciations and defenses of
Auto-Tune extend perennial debates about sacred music. Detractors
say that Auto-Tune glorifies the singer rather than the Almighty; it
makes a mockery of the idea of God-given talent when it is so clearly
the product of human-made technology. Supporters contend that if
Auto-Tuned gospel songs bring people into church and into God,
they should be allowed to spread the Gospel and be celebrated for
it. These arguments expose an old fault line within gospel—and
many other forms of sacred music—between tradition and
innovation, as well as the constant challenge faced by musicians
who are called on to deploy their talents in the service of their deity
without calling unseemly attention to their earthbound virtuosity.

The harmonium—a type of small pump organ and European import

—became improbably popular across the Indian subcontinent in the
twentieth century. Many Indian commentators saw this foreign music
technology as a threat, describing it as a “plague,” calling it the
“bane of Indian music,” or mocking it as the “harm-onium.” All-India
Radio refused to broadcast any music played on a harmonium for
more than three decades. This contempt arose in part because its
keyboard could not play all the notes in Indian scales and did not
allow the smooth sliding between pitches characteristic of certain
musical practices. The instrument also symbolized an unwelcome
intrusion by the colonizing West, seen as an insidious attempt to
pervert traditional practices and values.

Indian musicians and instrument makers, however, did not simply

adopt the harmonium as they had found it. They adapted it to their
traditions, practices, and aesthetics, for example, modifying the
instrument so that it could be played sitting on the floor, as is
traditional. Local culture was a decisive force in shaping the
reception, adoption, and modification of the harmonium, as was the
relationship between India and Europe, between the colonized and
colonizer. Both music and technology are inevitably caught up in
politics and power relations.
2. Vidyadhar Oke of Mumbai plays the harmonium in the customary
Indian way, seated, with his right hand on the keyboard and his left
operating the bellows. The instrument, which he designed, differs from
the traditional European harmonium in that its keyboard has twenty-
two notes per octave rather than twelve, allowing it to play scales used
in Indian classical music.

A twist in the story of the harmonium came when, in 2017, India’s

Goods and Services Tax Council decided to create a class of
exemptions for a recently enacted nationwide 28 percent tax on
musical instruments. The list of 134 exemptions was meant to
encourage the purchase of indigenous instruments including such
national symbols of India as the sitar and tabla. The harmonium also
made it on the list. Why include an instrument of European origin
with a Western keyboard on the list of “indigenous handmade
musical instruments”? A clue comes in the way it is listed, as “Indian
Harmonium.” Having been adapted in appearance and performance
practice over successive generations, it was seen as a distinct and
indigenous instrument, an Indian harmonium that had come to
reflect and represent the culture of its new home. In the relationship
between music and technology, culture always matters.

The lure of technological determinism

To return to the opening story of resentful DJs in the digital age, the
idea that music and musicians were better off “before technology
took over” illustrates a problematic perspective known as
technological determinism. This is the idea that the tools and
systems that humans create have an outsized power to shape our
actions and behavior and serve as a key force in social and historical
change. John Philip Sousa articulated the concept in the first decade
of the 1900s when he complained of the “menace of mechanical
music.” The player piano and phonograph, he claimed, would
discourage amateur music making and generally “reduce the
expression of music to a mathematical system of megaphones,
wheels, cogs, disks, cylinders, and all manner of revolving things.” In
the twenty-first century, the algorithms that streaming platforms use
to recommend songs to listeners are said to be “ruining music.”
These examples espouse a form of technological determinism,
endowing technologies with agency and the power to influence our
lives: they take over DJing, reduce the expression of music, or
simply ruin it.

Deterministic language has an understandable appeal. It offers a

simple explanation for complex phenomena and allows us to place
responsibility for our actions on technology rather than on ourselves.
Our short attention spans and our inclination to multitask, for
example, seem connected to the proliferation of websites, television
series, and computer applications. It is not my fault that I constantly
check my smartphone and cannot focus on important tasks, like
writing this book, when news and social media feeds beckon me. It
is true that our interactions with technology are influenced and
constrained by structures, conditions, and trends over which we
have little control. But technological influence is more complex—and
more interesting—than a simple deterministic view would lead us to
believe. I might feel pressured to use a certain type of streaming
service because I had become accustomed to an earlier version of it,
or because the cost and trouble of switching would be considerable,
or because not adopting it would exclude me from a musical
community. Or I might feel distracted by the endless variety of
informational technologies at my fingertips. But the constraint and
proliferation of choice differ from the stark determinism of the view
that “algorithms are ruining music.”

Technological determinism does not necessarily encourage a

pessimistic worldview. Often, and equally deterministically,
technology is said to be the solution to the world’s problems, great
or small. For example, in the United States at the turn of the
twentieth century, the phonograph was lauded as a cure for
deafness, a way to calm “perturbed” patients during surgery, and the
means to help America “become a more musical nation.” At the turn
of the twenty-first century, digital evangelists argued that peer-to-
peer file-sharing and MP3s (typically in the form of the soon-to-be
defunct Napster platform) portended the coming of the “celestial
jukebox,” a technology that would allow listeners to hear any music
they might want whenever and wherever they desired, and at no
cost.

Whether dystopian or utopian, determinist views of music

technologies share the same problems. Both minimize the role of
human agency and cultural forces. Instead of seeing ourselves as
subject to the ineluctable power of technology, we should
understand our relationship with technology as one shaped by our
own will and creativity as well as by the broader contexts in which
we live. The history of the accordion (a family of handheld
instruments whose colloquial English name, squeezebox, illustrates
its operation) in the African island nation of Madagascar offers an
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"I hope not," he said, brightening. "She is a good woman, an excellent woman.
I know she will watch over Pollie like a mother."

The words struck me as significant, and I could not help thinking that Miss
Cottrell would have liked to hear them. As I turned from the house Dr. Poole's
carriage came in sight driving rapidly towards it, so I had no more of Mr.
Dicks's company at that time.

The morrow brought me a delightful letter from mother. She had been very
sorry, she wrote, to learn of the outbreak of illness at "Gay Bowers." She had
much sympathy for aunt and Mr. Dicks, and still more for the sufferer herself. It
was perhaps wise of aunt to turn me out of the house for a while, but she was
convinced that I had run little risk of taking the malady, and I was not to allow
myself to think of such a thing. So sure was mother of my immunity from
danger, that she told me I might come up to town on Monday and spend a
couple of days at home, thus completing my week of quarantine.

"We all want to see you badly," she said, "and we have surprising news for
you. I cannot do justice to it in a letter, and besides, I believe that Olive would
like to tell you all about it herself."

I was delighted at the thought of going home, and mother's mysterious hint
filled me with the liveliest curiosity. What could this surprising news be?
Evidently it was something in which Olive was greatly interested; but although
I made many surmises, I did not hit upon the truth. But when I spoke of it to
Aunt Patty, she said quietly:

"I expect it means that Olive is engaged."

"Oh, auntie," I exclaimed, and the colour flew into my face, "what can make
you say so? That is a most unlikely thing."

"Is it?" aunt asked with a smile. "You are paying Olive a nice compliment. It
seems to me likely enough."

"But Olive!" I gasped. "Olive! Oh, I don't think it can be that!"

The idea was more startling than agreeable. How could we do without Olive?
She seemed as truly a pillar of the house as either father or mother. Certainly I
had never supposed that she would remain single all her days, but that within
the near future she would marry and leave us was a prospect which appalled
me, and I tried to persuade myself that it could not be as Aunt Patty imagined.
I could see that my aunt thought it rather rash of mother to have me home at
this time, but I troubled little about that. When Jack heard that I was going up
to town on Monday, he insisted that we must travel together; so it was under
his escort that I arrived at Liverpool Street that afternoon, and found Peggy
awaiting me on the platform.

Peggy looked lively as ever. She never was shy—art students seldom are, I
think—and she was soon chattering away to Jack. She appeared shorter than
usual as she stood looking up at him, and she complained to me afterwards
that conversing with him had given her a pain at the back of her neck. He was
in no hurry to reach his destination, and insisted on accompanying us to
Moorgate Street, and seeing us into the train for Clapham.

All this while I was longing to put a certain question to Peggy, but not till we
had reached Clapham and were walking home from the station was I able to
do so.

"Peggy," I said as we reached the edge of the common, and stepped within
the welcome shade of trees, "Olive is not engaged to be married, is she?"

Peggy glanced quickly at me.

"Why, who told you, Nan?" she asked in surprise. "I mean what made you
think of such a thing?"

"Then it is true?" I groaned. "Tell me who he is, Peggy?"

"I was told not to say a word about it," Peggy replied. "Olive was going to tell
you herself, but since you know so much already—"

"Yes, yes," I broke in impatiently, "you must tell me about him. I can hear
Olive's story later. Is he good enough for her?"

"She thinks so," said Peggy significantly. "She puts him on so high a pedestal
that I tell her he must topple off some day. His name is Percival Smythe."

"What!" I exclaimed. "Mrs. Smythe's nephew! Olive wrote me that he had

come back from India, and was staying there. She said they had been cycling
together, but I never thought— He must be a great deal older than she is."

"And why, pray?" Peggy asked with a smile.

"Oh, I see," she added. "Olive probably omitted to explain that he was Mrs.
Smythe's grand-nephew. The old lady always speaks of him as her nephew.
As a matter-of-fact, he is twenty-nine."

"Oh!" I said disconsolately. "And is Olive very fond of him?"

Peggy laughed.

"I shall leave you to find that out for yourself," she said. "You won't have much
difficulty."

"Do you like him, Peggy?" I asked anxiously.

"Oh, yes, we all like him," she said cheerfully, "and not least Master Fred. He
has been making a good deal of Fred. He proposed taking him to the Zoo on
Saturday week, and then with serpentine cunning suggested that Olive and I
should go too. I fell into the snare, like the dear little innocent I am. Soon after
entering the gardens, Mr. Smythe provided Fred with a big bag of buns, and
led us to the bears' den. Fred was soon engaged in exciting endeavours to
induce the big bear to climb his pole, and I was watching lest he should
precipitate himself into the pit, when I became aware that the other two had
vanished. If you will believe it, we saw nothing more of them till it was almost
time to go home, and I had all of taking Fred from house to house, and
helping him to spend the half-crown Mr. Smythe had given him, in rides on
every animal that could possibly be mounted."

"Poor Peggy! They did treat you badly!" I said, unable to keep from laughing,
though I did not feel exactly merry. "I hope they duly apologised."

"They told me they were sorry, but they certainly disguised their feelings well,"
she said, with twinkling eyes, "for I never saw two mortals look so supremely
happy. The hours in which I had been growing hot and weary had passed like
a blissful dream with them, and they could not believe it was so late. Of
course, I guessed what it meant, and the next day he came to see father, and
the thing was settled."

The news did not please me at all. It was selfish of me; but I could not
welcome the shadow of approaching change. I should have liked to find
everything at home going on as usual. Before I could question Peggy further
we were in the old familiar road, and in another minute mother was giving me
her cheery greeting.

Olive had not yet returned from Mrs. Smythe's, so I had a little quiet chat with
mother first. She told me that she and father were satisfied that Olive would
have a good husband and were glad that this happiness had come to her. But
though she spoke so bravely, I could see that mother shrank sorely from the
thought of parting with her eldest child. While we talked Olive came in,
accompanied by her fiancé. I had made up my mind to dislike Percival
Smythe; but his appearance disarmed my prejudice. I saw at once he was a
gentleman, and I soon knew that Olive had not given her heart to one
unworthy of the gift.

As I looked at my sister I marvelled at the change I saw in her. Always bright

and winsome, her face was now radiant with happiness. Olive had always
been remarkable for her unselfishness, and now she loved with the strong,
pure, whole-souled devotion which forgets self in loving.

I shared her room, and we had a long, long talk ere we slept that night.

As I listened to the glowing words in which she described the man she loved, I
found it hard to believe that he was quite the heroic being she painted him; but
I felt that he was a happy man to have won such love and trust, and that he
must be the better for it. I tried to be glad for Olive's sake, but I am afraid that I
still cherished a grudge against him.

"Of course you will not be married for some time yet," I said.

"Not till next year," she said softly, "he has to return to India in the spring."

"To India!" I cried sharply. "Oh, Olive, you don't mean to say that he is going to
take you to India?"

"Why, naturally," she said with a smile, "since he has a post there and is only
home on furlough. What are you thinking of, Nan?"

"I had not thought of that," I said. "Oh, Olive, I cannot bear to think of your
going right away to India."

"Oh, nonsense, Nan," she said smilingly. "India is not such a very great way
off; at any rate people can easily get back."

How lightly she said it! It struck me as strange that Olive, who had always
seemed to be so fond of mother and home and all of us, should now be so
willing to leave us and go to the other side of the world with a man of whom
she had known nothing when I left home.

"So, Olive," I said in a tone of mournful conviction, "he is more to you than any
of us?"
A grave, sweet look came to Olive's face.

"Why, yes, he certainly is," she made reply, "but you must not suppose, dear
old Nan, that I care less for any one because of this new and precious love. It
is quite otherwise. My heart goes out to every one of you, as it never did
before, just because I am so glad—so glad and so thankful to God for this rich
gift of love."

"Yet you are ready to go away with him to the ends of the earth!" I said.

"Yes," she said quietly, and I cannot describe her expression as she said it, "I
am ready to go with him wherever he goes. We belong to each other
henceforth. Ah, Nan, you cannot understand it now; but you will some day."

But it seemed to me that I was beginning to understand it already.

CHAPTER XIV
A PICNIC

"NAN, who do you think I saw in Regent Street?" exclaimed my sister Dora,
more eagerly than grammatically as she came into the little back garden—a
typical London "garden"—consisting of a hawthorn, a rockery, and a grass-plot
hardly bigger than a tablecloth, where mother, Peggy, and I were sitting to
enjoy the cool of the evening. Dora had been with a party of her school-
fellows under the care of their form-mistress to visit a certain interesting
exhibition at the West End.

"I am sure I do not know, and I am not going to guess," I responded lazily, "so
you may as well tell me at once."

"Well, then, it was Cousin Agneta," Dora said.

"You don't mean it?" I said, sitting up with sudden briskness.

"But I do," said Dora. "I tell you I saw her!"

"Was she alone?" I asked.

"No, she was walking with a gentleman—and such a masher too."

"Dora," mother broke in, "I wish you would not use those horrid slang
expressions!"

"Oh, mother, what harm is there in masher? Would you rather I said swell?"

"No, I do not like either word," mother replied. "Cannot you simply say that he
was a smart-looking man! Did you speak to your cousin?"

"No, I was going to; but she took hold of the man's arm and made him turn
sharp round with her into one of the side streets. Yet I feel sure that she saw
me," Dora said.

"Are you sure that you saw her?" Peggy asked. "I mean, did you not mistake
some one else for Cousin Agneta?"

"As if I should!" Dora said with an injured air. "Surely I may be supposed to
know my own cousin, when she was staying here only a few weeks ago."

"How was she dressed?" I asked.

"I don't know what her dress was like," Dora replied, "but she had on a grey
hat with pink roses under the brim."

"Agneta does not possess a grey hat," I said, with a sense of relief, "so you
must have made a mistake."

"If you had said a red hat, now!" suggested Peggy.

"I don't care what you like to say," Dora protested, "I know it was Cousin
Agneta. She may have bought a new hat."

"Since yesterday?" I said.

"Why not?" demanded Dora.

"There I that will do," said mother decisively. "It is not in the least likely that
your cousin would come up to town without letting us know, or that she would
be walking in Regent Street with a gentleman."
"All the same, it was Agneta," Dora muttered perversely under her breath.

I heard her with some uneasiness. More than once I had longed to speak to
mother about Agneta's unhappy love affair; but I had promised her that I
would say nothing about it, unless she gave me permission, and I felt bound
to keep silence.

On the following day I returned to "Gay Bowers," having much enjoyed my

brief sojourn at home. I was touched by the welcome I received from every
one. They said so much about how they had missed me that I was in danger
of fancying myself a very important person. With much satisfaction I learned
that Paulina was going on as well as possible, and was already considered to
have passed the worst stage of her illness. Mr. Dicks appeared to have
recovered his usual equanimity. The least happy looking of the party was
Agneta. It struck me that she had a worn and restless air which marred her
prettiness. When I mentioned it to aunt, she said:

"Agneta is tired; she had a fatiguing day in town yesterday."

"In town!" I exclaimed in surprise. "We saw nothing of her."

"No, she thought she would not have time to get to Clapham," Aunt Patty said.
"She meant to come back by an early train; but she missed it after all. I did not
like her going alone after what Mrs. Redmayne said; but she wanted to get a
new hat to wear at the Canfields' garden party, and she said she was going to
meet an old school-fellow. Really, I did not know what to do, for I could not go
with her myself."

"And she got a new hat?" I said.

"Two new hats, the extravagant girl!" said aunt. "She wore one home, leaving
the old one to be sent back by post."

"Then she appeared in a grey hat with pink roses," I said.

"You are right," said aunt; "but how do you know that?"

Then I told her how Dora had declared that she had seen Agneta in Regent
Street and how we had all tried in vain to convince her that she was mistaken;
but I said not a word about the man Dora had described to us. I was anxious
to avoid the least risk of breaking my word to Agneta, yet I wished that I had
not pledged myself so impulsively, for my discovery of the dissimulation
Agneta was practising made me profoundly uncomfortable.
Agneta had welcomed me with professions of delight which I afterwards
judged to be insincere, since she seemed desirous to avoid being alone with
me. She gave me no opportunity of having a quiet word with her till we went
upstairs for the night, and then she hurried into bed, declaring that she was
very sleepy. But I made her listen to me before she slept. She could not deny
that Dora had seen her in Regent Street.

"Don't be hard on me, Nan," she said. "When Ralph wrote that he would be in
London on Tuesday, and asked me to meet him, I felt that I must go. I had not
seen him for so long, and you know all things are fair in love."

"I don't know it," I said. "It seems to me that all things should be beautiful and
honourable that have to do with love. If this man truly loved you, he would not
tempt you to act in a way that is beneath your dignity. He must know that your
parents have forbidden you to meet him, or even write to him."

"Why, of course he knows," Agneta said impatiently.

"Surely you would not have me submit to such tyranny!"

"I think your parents have a right to some consideration, Agneta," I replied.
"You are their child; you owe everything to them. I know it is very trying for
you, but if you will only wait—"

"Wait, wait! I hate that word!" broke in Agneta, angrily. "I will not wait, so
there!"

"But what can you do?" I asked.

"Do?" said Agneta, with a toss of the head. "Oh, we know what to do! Mother
will find that I have a will of my own, and am not the weak creature she
imagines."

"Oh, Agneta!" I exclaimed, startled by her words. "You would not think of
getting married without your parents' consent?"

Her face flushed.

"Oh, no, of course not," she said hurriedly. "I did not mean that."

But her manner did not convince me of the truth of her words. I knew
instinctively that some such idea was in her mind.
"It would be a most foolish act, and would bring certain misery," I said. "Don't
listen to him, Agneta, if he tries to persuade you to do anything so wrong."

"Of course I shall not," she returned. "But, oh, how you talk, Nan! It is clear
that you know nothing whatever about love."

I was silent, but I said to myself that I could never have loved Ralph
Marshman, or any man who tried to lead me into crooked ways. The man
must be nobler and wiser and better than myself into whose keeping I gave
my life.

I began to talk to Agneta about Olive and her great happiness, but she
showed little interest in the subject. Thoroughly absorbed in herself, she had
no sympathy to spare for another's joy. Paulina would have listened to the
story with lively interest, and Miss Cottrell would have been ready to discuss it
from every possible point of view; but Agneta heard me with a bored air which
quickly reduced me to silence.

The next morning dawned beautifully bright, and when I came downstairs the
hall door was wide open, and Alan Faulkner stood sunning himself on the step
with Sweep beside him.

"Good-morning, Miss Nan," he said cheerily. "Is not this ever so much better
than Clapham Common?"

I could not but admit that it was, for the garden was now in the perfection of its
beauty. The breeze, which ruffled my hair as I advanced to the door, was
sweet with the breath of flowers. The rose-tree trained against the wall of the
house was full of blossoms, and bees were buzzing noisily as they flitted from
rose to rose. A fine hydrangea growing by the door was a marvel of changeful
colour, and close by a cluster of tall, graceful Madonna lilies, of purest
whiteness, attracted the bees by their heavy perfume. It was a morning to
make one sing for joy. I was feeling happy enough at that moment, and I was
therefore astonished when Mr. Faulkner said, after observing me for a
moment:

"What is the trouble, Miss Nan?"

"The trouble!" I repeated. "What do you mean?"

"There was a shadow on your face last evening, and I fancy that I can still
detect its influence," he said. "You found nothing wrong at home, I trust?"
"Oh, no! They were all well, and things were going happily," I replied. "There
was nothing there to worry me."

"But something did worry you," he said. "Can't you tell me what it is? I might
be able to set it right."

"Oh, no!" I answered, colouring hotly in my confusion and surprise. "You could
not help, and I could not tell you indeed."

His eyes studied me for a moment with a questioning air; then he said quietly:

"Excuse me, Miss Nan, I must seem to you a curious, meddlesome fellow."

"Not at all," I faltered. "It was kind of you to ask; but I cannot tell you about it."

A moment's silence followed; then he said:

"Do you know that Miss Cottrell was working in this garden at seven o'clock?"

"Was she really?" I said. "I cannot see her part of the garden from my window.
How very energetic of her!"

"Was it not? But, of course, she needs fresh air and exercise. I suppose she
does not have to do a great deal of nursing."

"Why, no! There is a trained nurse who takes charge of Paulina at night, and
who is available also for part of the day," I explained. "I was thinking that Miss
Cottrell would feel anxious about her flowers. You did not speak to her, I
suppose?"

"No; I only saw her from my window," he replied. "She was applying the hoe
with much vigour. She is one to do very thoroughly whatever she undertakes."

"That is true," I said. "It is splendid the way she has devoted herself to
Paulina. Mr. Dicks has good cause to feel grateful to her."

The breakfast gong sounded, and we obeyed its summons. Mr. Dicks had
already taken his place at the table, and was talking eagerly to Aunt Patty
when we entered the room.

"Come, Miss Nan," he cried as he saw me, "what do you say to our
celebrating your return, by having a picnic?"

"A splendid idea!" I cried. "By all means let us have it."
"And so say I," said Mr. Faulkner.

"Can you spare the time?" I asked.

"I will spare the time," was his reply.

"We should not go till after luncheon," said my aunt. "Mr. Dicks proposes
taking us all to have tea at the Warren—in proper gipsy fashion, of course. We
will take a kettle and all the necessary paraphernalia, and make a fire on the
common to boil the kettle. We can get milk and water at the farm."

It sounded charming to me. The Warren was a beautiful, high common, about
seven miles away, the haunt of innumerable rabbits, and yielding a rich
harvest of blackberries in their season. Olive and I had loved going there as
children, for its wild, broken ground and clumps of Scotch firs had made a
delightful playground. A full, deep stream ran on one side of it, and,
descending to the valley below, turned the wheel of a picturesque mill which
stood there, and was the delight of artists.

Colonel Hyde had expressed his willingness to join the excursion, and Alan
Faulkner and I had just decided that we would go on our bicycles, when
Agneta entered the room. She apologised for her lateness as she listlessly
took her seat. Mr. Dicks made haste to tell her of his grand project, but her
face evinced no pleasure as she heard of it.

"I will ask you to excuse me," she said, "I am not fond of picnics."

"Oh, but you must go," said Mr. Dicks. "We cannot leave you at home by
yourself. You shall have Paulina's bicycle if you would like to ride."

"Thank you, but I would rather not," she said. "I do not feel at all inclined to
ride in this heat."

"Then you can drive with us elderly people in the sociable—there will be
plenty of room," he said.

"You are very kind," she said coldly; "but I would rather stay at home."

"You shall not go unless you like, Agneta," Aunt Patty said kindly. "If you stay
at home, I will stay too. It will be better for me—I hardly know how to spare the
time."

But Mr. Dicks, the Colonel, and Alan Faulkner protested against this. They
knew that Aunt Patty seldom allowed herself any recreation, and they had set
their hearts on having her company to-day.

Agneta's face flushed as she heard them, and she said in an injured tone:

"There is not the least need for you to remain at home because I do, Mrs.
Lucas. I am not a baby; I think you may trust me to take care of myself."

"Of course you can, dear—I do not doubt it for a moment," aunt said
soothingly. "Still, I should not like to leave you quite alone."

In the end Agneta consented to accompany us, but she did it with a bad
grace, and rather spoiled the enjoyment of some of us by her obstinate
determination not to appear to be enjoying herself. She was cross with me
because, by simple accident, I appeared in a frock remarkably like her own.
My suit of shepherd's plaid had seen two summers' wear, and I wore it simply
because it was light and cool, and so short in the skirt as to be suitable for
cycling and rambling over the common. Hers was a smart, tailor-made
costume, which I should have considered too good for such a day's outing.
The material showed a rather larger check than mine, but they were
sufficiently alike to appear similar at a little distance. If either of us had cause
to feel annoyance it was I, since her dress made mine look poor. I was
considerably annoyed by the disagreeable remarks she choose to make about
the resemblance.

Still, I must confess that I enjoyed that picnic very much, though it was marked
by no adventures, nor any particular excitement. Alan Faulkner and I on our
bicycles reached the Warren long before the party who came in the
wagonette. Resting on the slope of a knoll planted with firs, we awaited the
arrival of the others without impatience. I found myself telling him about my
sister Olive's engagement. He listened with interest, and I learned that he
knew the part of India in which Percival Smythe was stationed, and could tell
me much that I wanted to hear.

When the others arrived I was astonished to see that Miss Cottrell was one of
the party. It was Mr. Dicks's kind thought that the fresh air on the common
would be very good for her. He had consulted the doctor, who had assured
him that if Miss Cottrell observed certain precautions there would not be the
least fear of her conveying infection to any of us. She seemed delighted to be
with us once more, and talked more than ever.

When the time came for us to return home, Alan Faulkner and I soon
distanced aunt's sober horse. It was growing late as we approached "Gay
Bowers." We were spinning down the road at the back of the house, when a
man suddenly dropped from the boundary wall of the kitchen garden into the
lane just in front of my machine, and startled me so that I almost fell off. Trees
overhung the road at that point, and the light was so dim that I could perceive
only that the man wore a white straw hat ere he disappeared, running rapidly
beneath the trees.

"Whoever is he?" I asked, turning to Mr. Faulkner. "What can it mean?"

"That I will soon find out," he said. "You will not mind my leaving you, Miss
Nan, as we are just at home."

And, scarce waiting for my permission, he was off at such speed that there
was little doubt of his overtaking the stranger, however fast he might run.

When the wagonette party drove up they found me standing alone within the
garden.

"Only think, auntie," I said. "We saw a man jump down from your garden wall,
and run off in the most suspicious way. Mr. Faulkner is chasing him under the
idea that he was there for no lawful purpose. Do you think he can be a
burglar?"

"A burglar in this peaceful countryside! Impossible, Miss Nan!" exclaimed the
Colonel; "but I hope Mr. Faulkner will catch him, for, depend on it, he was up
to no good."

"Most likely he was after my fruit," said aunt.

As she spoke my eyes fell on Agneta, and I was startled to see how pale and
fearful she looked. Aunt's eyes had followed the direction of mine, and she
was equally struck by Agneta's look.

"Don't talk so lightly of burglars, Nan," she said. "You have quite frightened
your cousin. Do not be alarmed, dear; you need fear no such visitation at 'Gay
Bowers.'"

"I am not in the least afraid of burglars," she said almost pettishly, but I could
see that her hands were trembling as they toyed with her parasol. I knew that
she spoke the truth, for instinctively I guessed who the man was.

"Here comes Mr. Faulkner!" cried Miss Cottrell eagerly. "Now we shall hear all
about it."

But Alan Faulkner's brief statement hardly sufficed to satisfy her curiosity.
"Oh, no, he is not a burglar," he said. "I believe he considers himself a
gentleman, but he certainly took a most unwarrantable liberty."

I had never heard Alan Faulkner speak in such an angry, scornful tone, nor
seen such a fire in his eyes. What did it all mean? I felt sick of these
mysterious, underhand ways, and quite angry with my cousin, who
disappeared as soon as she had heard what Alan had to say.

CHAPTER XV
AN ACT OF INDISCRETION

WHEN we all met at breakfast the next morning there was a good deal of
laughing and joking about the burglar, as we congratulated each other that he
had not disturbed our rest. Agneta took no part in it. She feigned not to hear
what was going on as she studied the envelopes of the letters which lay
beside her plate; but I saw that her colour had risen, and felt sure that she
was not so indifferent as she appeared.

There was another person at the table who took no part in the talk. Alan
Faulkner was unusually grave that morning. Suddenly glancing up, I became
aware that his eyes were upon me, studying me with an earnest, questioning
glance I could not understand. My eyes fell beneath it and my colour rose. I
fancied there was something reproachful in his look; but, as I had done
nothing to deserve this, I tried to persuade myself that my imagination was
wholly at fault. Yet the mere fancy had a lowering effect upon my spirits. It was
with a sense of flatness and depression that I set about my daily duties.

Ere long Agneta claimed my attention. She had risen with a headache, which
increased in violence as the day wore on. In vain she struggled against it with
all the power of her strong will; she had to succumb at last, and spent the
afternoon lying on her bed, while I kept applying cold bandages to her
forehead. At last she said that she was better and felt inclined to sleep, so I
darkened the room and left her.
When I went downstairs there was no one about. I passed into the garden and
found that, too, deserted. As I walked round to the back of the house I
wondered where the others were. Aunt Patty, I knew, had driven into
Chelmsford to do some shopping, and I believed that Mr. Dicks had
accompanied her. The Colonel probably was at the Vicarage. "Gay Bowers"
wore the quiet, drowsy appearance that had marked it in the days when
paying guests were unknown there.

Somewhat discontentedly I wandered down the long lawns, past the tennis
nets and the croquet hoops, till I reached the part of the garden devoted to
vegetables and fruit. To the right lay the strawberry bed, and, seeing some
ripe berries, I paused to regale myself with them. I was wearing the check skirt
I had worn on the previous day. It was foolish of me, but I liked it the better
because Alan Faulkner had said a word in approval of It. It seemed that he
was particularly fond of that admixture of black and white.

I lingered for some minutes by the strawberry bed, and was still hunting amid
the green leaves when I saw a lad, who sometimes assisted Hobbes in the
garden, coming towards me. Touching his cap awkwardly, he handed me a
folded slip of paper, and as he did so I saw that a shilling lay in the palm of his
hand.

"The gentleman told me to give you this, miss," he said.

"What gentleman?" I asked.

"Don't know," said the boy; "none of them as is here, miss."

I looked at the paper. It appeared to be a leaf torn from a pocket-book and

folded with a corner turned down. There was no address on it. Turning from
the boy's curious gaze, I strolled on, opening the missive as I went. I was
amazed as I read the following words:

"My Darling, I have been waiting so impatiently in the wood

and wondering what had kept you, till at last I was daring
enough to approach the house, and from the one place where
it is possible to look over the garden wall caught a glimpse of
your frock, flitting to and fro amid the bushes. Dearest, why do
you waste the time, when we might be together? I have got
our plans laid now, and I must tell you about them. Let me
assure you that the way is clear. There in not another soul
about the place. Your puritanical cousin seems to have kindly
 taken herself off. I am tempted to scale the wall and join you
where you are; but I dare not risk being caught again, as I was
last night. I will tell you about it when we meet, so make haste
and join me in the wood beyond the common."

"Your devoted"
"RALPH."

I read this extraordinary note in utter bewilderment until I came to the allusion
to the "puritanical cousin," when the truth suddenly flashed on me. Why such
an epithet was applied to myself I could not quite see, but I took it home, and
leaped to the conclusion that the writer was Agneta's unworthy lover, who had
mistaken me for her, owing to the fact of our dresses being similar. How he
came to be in the neighbourhood I could not tell, but the idea that the
supposed "burglar" was none other than he had struck me on the previous
evening. I smiled to think how annoyed he would be, if he knew how his note
had miscarried. Then I made a sudden resolve. He should know what had
happened. I would go to the wood and confront him. I would tell him what I
thought of his conduct, and warn him that if he continued to haunt the place I
would let my aunt know of the discovery I had made. I was self-confident
enough to believe that I could reason with him and persuade him to abandon
a course of action which was so unworthy a true lover and gentleman.

I acted far too impulsively, as I learned to my sorrow. Waiting only to snatch

my sailor hat from the peg in the back lobby where it hung, I hastened off to
the common, and found my way into the wood at the nearest point to "Gay
Bowers." It was the same wood, which ran down to the Wood End Oaks.

Scarcely had I reached the shadow of the trees ere I perceived the young
man I came to meet. He was standing with his back to me, looking down the
green glade which led to the road by which apparently he expected Agneta to
come. No sooner did I see him than I experienced a sense of shame at my
temerity. I might have abandoned my purpose and turned back, but the
cracking of the twigs beneath my feet as I scrambled through the hedge had
reached his ears. He swung round in a moment, and at the first glimpse of me
a cry of delight escaped him; but the expression of his face changed almost
instantly. Had I been less nervous I could have laughed at the unflattering look
of annoyance which darkened his face when he perceived that I was not the
one he expected.

"You did not expect to see me, Mr. Marshman," I said hastily in my
embarrassment.
He lifted his hat with a grace that was Continental. I learned later that he had
passed some years in a German school. He was of tall, lithe form, and bore
himself with grace. His features were so handsome that I did not wonder at
Agneta's infatuation, yet there was something in his face that repelled me.

"I beg your pardon," he said suavely in response to my greeting—"you have

the advantage of me."

"I think not," I said. "I am Agneta's cousin—" it was with difficulty that I kept
back the word "puritanical" which trembled on my tongue—"and I have come
instead of her."

"Oh, really! Miss Darracott then, I presume." He lifted his hat again as he
spoke. "May I ask why you have come?"

"I came to give you this," I said, holding out the slip of paper, "which I am sure
you did not intend for me. You mistook my identity, I suppose."

He looked bewildered for a moment, then flushed as he took the paper.

"That being the case, you, of course, refrained from reading it, Miss
Darracott?" he said in cool, quiet tones that had an edge of irony.

"Excuse me," I said, "you forget that your note bore no address. Your
messenger told me that a gentleman had instructed him to give it to me. Not
till I had read it could I know that it was meant for my cousin."

"Ah," he said, kicking savagely at a clump of nettles, "what an imbecile I was!

But at least you must have known that there was a mistake."

"Oh, certainly," I stammered, growing scarlet as I remembered the tender

epithet with which the note had begun.

"Then may I ask," he continued, "why you did not give it to your cousin when
you found it was intended for her?"

"Because I prefer to return it to you," I said boldly, "and to ask you not to send
such notes to Agneta, nor try to see her, when you know it is her parents' wish
that you should not meet, and no good can come of such underhand ways."

"Agneta did not tell you to say that to me," he replied defiantly.

"She did not," I answered. "Agneta is far from well this afternoon, and she is
lying down in her room at the present moment. She was quite otherwise
occupied, as it happened, but this I could not know. I do not know how you
come to be here," I added, "but I should advise you to leave this
neighbourhood, and be content to wait till you can see Agneta with her
parents' consent."

As I spoke I attempted to pass him, and go on my way; but, with an ironical

laugh, he turned on his heel and walked beside me.

"Excuse my laughing, Miss Darracott; your words struck me as deliciously

naive!" he said. "Don't you know that I might wait till doomsday before I should
win that consent, since I have the misfortune to be poor, and the Redmaynes
love money above all things—a characteristic that by no means renders them
singular."

"You cannot be sure that their minds would not change," I said, "and I am sure
it must be right for you to wait at present. It seems to me that you are bound in
honour to seek no pledge from Agneta until she comes of age. You forget how
young she is."

"Are you so much older, Miss Darracott?" he asked with a disagreeable smile,
as he bent towards me, his dark eyes seeking mine with insolent raillery in
their glance. "'Oh, wise young judge! How much more elder art thou than thy
looks!'"

The blood rushed into my face. The sense of shame and humiliation which I
experienced well-nigh brought the tears to my eyes. I saw how foolish it was
of me to imagine that I could influence such a man as this.

He glanced away for a moment, then drew nearer to me with something so

familiar and repulsive in his air that instinctively I shrank as far from him as the
narrow path would permit. Without heeding the way I took, I had passed into
the track that led to the stile giving access to the road. As I hastily moved
away from Ralph Marshman, I was aware that Alan Faulkner stood on the
other side of the stile, and was looking towards us with an indescribable
expression on his face. I only saw him, and he was gone. Like a blow there
fell on me the conviction that he had utterly misunderstood the state of affairs.

What could he think, indeed, on seeing me wandering along a secluded

woodland path with this man beside me? How could I have been so mad as to
place myself in such a position! For a moment I did not hear the words which
Ralph Marshman was saying. Then he laughed in a way which made me turn
my eyes on him. He was regarding me with a bold, amused glance that was in
itself an insult. It seemed to me that he could read my thoughts, and knew the
pain I was enduring.

"That is the learned and exemplary Professor Faulkner," he said in a mocking

tone. "Do you think he was shocked to see us wandering in this wood alone?
But if he is human at all he would understand—at least the apparent meaning
of it, eh, Miss Darracott? He might not guess how recent is our acquaintance."

"Don't speak so, if you please!" I responded angrily. "You know I only came
here to protest against the way in which you are acting! I warn you that I shall
tell my aunt all that I know!"

"You don't mean that," he said with an impudent laugh. "You say it because
you are angry. Well, I forgive your wrath since it is so becoming. But let me
warn you that if you tell tales I can tell them too. I could tell a pretty story of
how you opened another person's letter, and how you came uninvited to meet
me in the wood. I advise you to keep your own counsel, Miss Darracott. Will
you convey my regrets to Agneta, and tell her that, but for the pleasure of
making your acquaintance, I should have been inconsolable when I heard of
her indisposition? I fear we shall not meet again for a while, Miss Darracott, as
I am about to leave this neighbourhood."

I made no reply as I hurried along the path and climbed the stile. I could feel
that he watched me for a few moments, but when I looked back from the road
I saw that he had turned in the opposite direction, and was pursuing the path
that led towards Chelmsford. I hurried homewards, my cheeks burning, my
pulses throbbing. I could hardly have felt much worse had I been guilty of the
indiscretion which I believed Alan Faulkner had imputed to me.

"Gay Bowers" was close at hand when round a bend of the road I came
suddenly upon Agneta. The colour flew into her face as she saw me. It was
clear that her professed desire to sleep was merely a ruse to get rid of me,
and she was now hurrying to keep her appointment with Ralph Marshman.

"It is too late, Agneta!" I said. "He is gone."

"What do you mean?" she asked nervously, and the flush faded from her face
as quickly as it had risen, till she looked ready to drop. "Where have you
been?"

"In the wood talking with Mr. Ralph Marshman," I replied. "And I wish enough I
had never gone near him. He is a horrid man, Agneta!"
A scene ensued which was to the credit of neither of us. In my sore
mortification I lost control of my temper, and said words that were better
unsaid. I reproached my cousin with deceitful and even unmaidenly conduct. I
told her that the man for whose sake she seemed ready to risk the priceless
pearl of her good name was no gentleman, and that he was not worthy of a
girl's respect, still less her love. I told her that although I had promised to say
nothing to Aunt Patty about the love story she had confided to me, things had
now come to such a pass that I felt I had a right to claim release from that
promise. A higher obligation compelled me to inform aunt of what was going
on, and I gave her warning that I meant to lay the whole matter before Aunt
Patty at the earliest opportunity.

Agneta did not receive my rebukes with meekness. She reproached me in her
turn with considerable bitterness. Very hard were the words she hurled at me.
I was a prude, a mischief-maker, a Pharisee, and a sneak. The last epithet
made me wince. I did so hate all meanness in word or deed, that the injustice
of this last judgment stung me. But I held my ground in spite of it. The issue
was too grave for me lightly to give way. I felt it as incumbent on me to save
Agneta from herself as if I had seen her in a fit of madness about to throw
herself over a precipice. When at last she saw that I would not yield, Agneta,
wholly exhausted by her passionate outburst, sank on a bank by the roadside
and began to cry. I felt very uneasy as I watched her. My attempts to soothe
her met with little success.

"You are so unkind, Nan," she sobbed. "You want to make me miserable, and
it is so horrid of you, just when I was looking forward to the garden party to-
morrow. You might wait till that is over before you tell Mrs. Lucas. You will
upset her as well as me, and spoil everything."

I was amazed to hear Agneta speak so. What a child she was, to be sure!
How could I take her love trouble seriously, when I found her in the midst of
her distress giving a thought to this garden party, to which we were all invited
for the morrow? I knew that Aunt Patty was looking forward to going to the
Canfields' entertainment accompanied by most of her paying guests; but I had
no idea that Agneta was counting on it so much, although I knew she had
bought a new hat for the occasion. While I mused on it, Agneta spoke again.

"Oh, do, Nan!" she said pleadingly, looking up at me with tears in her blue
eyes. "Do promise me that you will say nothing to Mrs. Lucas till the party is
over!"

For a moment I hesitated. Surely the delay could do no harm, since I believed
that Ralph Marshman was leaving Chelmsford this evening. The sound of