Musical Instruments Of The Future. . . what Are Your Predictions?
Over the centuries, musical instruments have undergone substantial structural and functional changes.
Ever-increasing size of orchestras and concert venues – development of key-mechanisms to facilitate increasing technical demands – rising pitch – these have driven the evolution of many simple ancient instruments into virtual hi-tech machines.
Some instruments – eg. the strings and percussion – have remained relatively unchanged – violins and harps bear more similarities to their Baroque counterparts than, say, oboe, horn or piano – though no instrument is immune to change.
And instruments continue to evolve – each decade sees substantial advances in development – today’s top-of-the-range flute, for example, with its “high-wave lip-plate” and “improved” key-work make 50 year old flutes seem almost primitive!
What are YOUR predictions for the musical instruments of the twenty-third century – and why?
Look into your crystal ball and share your thoughts. . .
Hafwen x
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October 5th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
the instruments won’t change significantly (except for going electronic) but how we hear them . . . . each member of the orchestra will be electronic and attached to a mixing board where an engineer will mix them, fix the pitches and make them homogeneous until they sound as canned, as predictable, as uninvolved, as a Brittney Spears’ song
BUT by the 23rd century . . . . we will revert to 19th century standards of performance with truly live performance on real instruments that don’t require electronics . . . . mistakes and all . . . . where the conductor (an actual musician) will determine the balances and highs and lows (fortes and pianos) and the musical climaxes
October 5th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
In my crystal ball the instruments will be very light weight and compact, and there will be lots of electronical stuff.
Although I hope that the simple ancient instruments will remain too. Like the conga’s, the djembe, the acoustic guitar, the wooden xylophone, the didgeridoo, the saxophone, the ukelele, the balalaika, the harp, . . .
October 5th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
By the 23rd Century, the ascendancy of Western culture will only be a memory. Predictions of this nature are awfully hard to make, even without the uncertainty of the world’s political and commercial state to further complicate matters!.
Will nationalism have shrunk, and will there be a ‘world music’ by then?
Thirty years ago, I was one of a growing band of composers that were almost ready to articulate the prediction that the synthesiser, as developing in France, Germany, Britain, USA, and Japan (!) would be the vehicle of the new music.
How wrong we were!
Who could have predicted the massive wave of conservatism, of reactionary fear, almost, that swept over most of the world.
I refer not only to music, of course, but to all of the arts, to Spiritual aspirations, as well as to our political sentiments. The fundamentalist hysteria (e. g. Iran, as well as the USA), the rejection of much of socialism, the collapse of the Soviet Union, etc.
Now there is a formidable group of music lovers who really believe they need know nothing of music written less than 100 years ago. “I am a Baroque specialist!”, “I recommend the works of Chopin” etc. , are not the utterings of some lunatic fringe! They represent the typical lover of Western Art Music in 2008.
Is this an indication of the actual death of this expressive, creative music? This music, unique in the history of the world, music that depends on continuous creative evolution.
It well could be.
(’They’ tend to call it ‘Classical’ Music these days, maybe ignorant of what ‘Classical’ Music really is; or are they, perhaps, unconsciously prophesying the fall of European Art Music?)
Electronics, in the immediate future, will have to do for much of the grand civic investments in music. (The Organ, predominantly)
Will electronics infiltrate the orchestra? While this is possible,I doubt it.
The “Classical” Music Lovers are not a very ‘avant guarde’ group, and (I hope) that ‘they’ will save the acoustic instruments, if only because of their conservatism!
( I think the Orchestra, as a vehicle for the performance of music, is under threat of extinction. Composers have almost stopped writing music in any ‘new’ style for quite a while now! The widespread availability of fine recordings of orchestral works must also be a threat?)
In Commercial Music (USA, Britain, France, Japan) electronic music (it is – brashly – called ‘techno’, I believe) has ceased growing. (To my horror, I find myself joyful!)
This is a most long-winded method of saying : “I have no idea!”
It is a confronting question, one of the most interesting I have encountered in a long while!
October 5th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
I predict that we’ll grow tired of the electronic crap that producers are spitting out now and revert to more vibrant and musical tonalities like a concert grand piano or a deep cello or double bass. You just can’t beat quality.
October 5th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Were gonna go back to primitive instruments such as the wooden block, the trash can, and the washboard. but. . . they will all be. . . . . ELECTRIC!!!
October 5th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Ribs will be added to the insides of string instruments to help them compete in volume with the electric instruments.
an oboe with two mouthpieces will be made so that a player can quickly make extreme jumps in register or timbre without having to stop for 20 seconds to change reeds. this will also facilitate performing new multiphonics.
the piano will undergo as much change in the next 200 years as it did in the last 200. 3 more pedals will become standard, one of which makes the instrument sound like a bassoon, the second of which randomizes the pitch of the instrument and the third when depressed turns the performer into a newt.
A new brass/woodwind hybrid instrument called the Zyzrinxicaphone (named after its inventor) will be invented that uses sewer pipes as it’s resonating chamber, and the variation in flow to change pitch.
added to the already massive battery of percussion instruments will be a new keyboard percussion made up of pitched overcoats. (to my knowledge percussion has not yet explored the sonic possibilities of winter clothing)
Even with all the innovation that is bound to come in the next few centuries let’s remember how slowly the bigger institutions of classical music move:
150 years after the invention of the saxophone and it’s still not a standard orchestral instrument, and rarely called upon by classical composers.
I think that by the 23rd century most of our often excluded and auxiliary instruments will become standard members of the orchestra while chamber music as always takes advantage of innovation as soon as it happens.
not until the 25th century will our orchestras have as a standard member a performer for the alto overcoats.
October 5th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Hmm, this is a very interesting question. I like it. Already, there are some normally-wooden instruments that are being made out of carbon fiber, making them very light and very durable, able to be played in the rain even, with no adverse effects. I image these will become much more common, and their sound qualities will be able to match those of the best wooden instruments available.
Almost all electronic instruments will no longer require cords to be hooked up to amplifiers, it will all be done through bluetooth communications or a similar method.
All music stands will have very thin LCD screens on which can be displayed any sheet music. Pages can be ‘turned’ by either a foot pedal or by some other discerete means, one not requiring any wires leading to the stand.
I can see a version of the harp that has no strings, but beams of light that when interrupted, produce sound. This would be odd though; like typing on a touch screen keyboard. You’d have no actual feeling of the ’strings’. I think itd be pretty sick though.
As mind-computer interface technology grows in ease of use and popularity, the ability to make music with a synthesizer just by thinking about it also becomes a possiblity. Just think – a human MIDI controller? Sweet.
I personally would love to see a musical invasion of the west by certain traditional Chinese instruments, particularly the Er-hu (the sound this instrument makes is just amazing) and their version of the hammer dulcimer, along with a few others. Imagine some of those instruments in your favorite modern band. . .
Just a few thoughts.
October 5th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Unfortunately, I dropped my crystal ball quite a few years ago, and cracked it; wrapped it up in a soft cloth, and stored in a trunk in the basement: wait a minute, and I’ll go dig it out and see if it’s still in a revelatory state of being.
————————————–…
Sorry, it seems to have forsaken this earthly realm, and has spirited away elsewhere: would not even acknowledge my inquiry. Guess I’ll have to use my imagination.
Synthesizers are for the birds in my opinion; don’t care whether they evolve further or not; and electronic instruments don’t interest me in the least.
So, what’s left? The glorious string instruments that were developed so many centuries ago, are incomparable in their quality. The liklihood of their ever being imitated successfully, and/or improved is most improbable.
The organ: with today’s techniological advance, there’s no end in sight with respect to its evolutionary sound capability: something possibly quite interesting and valuable could emerge.
The percussion: possibilities, “open ended”: no telling what will evolve in this arena of sound production. Imagine combining a gong with a pair of cymbals, or kettle-drums; chimes with celesta; snare drums with castanets, etc.
Woodwinds: as you pointed out in your question, the improvement of their sound quality and ease of playability opens up vast vistas of possibilities: we might wind up with full choirs of any of the particular types – soprano, alto, tenor and bass flutes, oboes, bassoons.
Brass: a choir of French Horns has been standard for a long time now; but the suggestion of possibilites I made in regard to the wood-winds, could very well occur with the brass.
The human voice: not much chance of further development here; I think it has evolved to its optimum; I for one, am totally satisfied with what we already have.
Alberich
October 5th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Oy.
I fear for music. Large traditional instruments will become a thing of the past. There will be some fantastic high-end pianos built by very few companies, almost all home pianos will be plug-ins. Even orchestras will adopt digital electronic instruments for rare pieces; instruments that get very limited use.
There is very little left of the organ industry. . . . Yeah, they’re being built (look at the McDonald’s French Fry instrument at LA’s Disney symphony hall. But their bread-and-butter church counterparts are becoming obsolete, poorly maintained, and the (few) churches that still purchase organs have viable options with digital instruments.
I think that baroque instruments will make a resurgence made by small manufacturers producing high-quality instruments on a very small scale.
The current fixation on Celtic music is certainly keeping the harp makers busy, but they aren’t building a lot of concert harps as far as I can tell.
As “renewable resources” like wood that really aren’t (like instrument quality Ebony, Ironwood, Walnut, Cherry, etc) composite materials will dominate student instruments, and with research/development high-tech resins, plastics, and other materials will also find their way to professional level instruments.
New-and-improved alloys will be used in the manufacture of silver and brass instruments. Peral flutes has already committed to doing open-hole flutes for their entire line . . . making even student instruments today more like professional instruments of five years ago.
Quarter-tone key systems will become more common, not because they are needed, but because they can.
With the digital plug-in instruments, more integration with computer systems and networks will become common. Also more of the one-finger approach to music will become common . . . let the instrument do the hard work while you play a melody (that does not bode well for musical education. )
. . . Music publishers will go out of business and most of the remaining composers will die poverty while people Yahoo! Answers will continue to ask for completely free “sheets” and “notes” that don’t require any downloading.
October 5th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
I hope to be dead before electric guitar loses the most prominent spot & don’t care what comes afterwards (but I do feel sorry for those who grow up without it).