“I’m so thankful I was a DJ before technology took over”
Reflections on the Relationship between Music and Technology.
Time: Fri 2020-02-07 12.15 - 13.00
Location: Sydöstra galleriet, huvudbiblioteket/Main Library
Participating: Mark Katz, Professor of Music at UNC
In this lecture I argue that technology does not stand apart from music, influencing it from the outside, but is a part of music, integral to every aspect of musical activity and musical life. Technology has been a part of human music-making since at least the Paleolithic Age. In fact, history has no record of a pre-technological age of music. Humans are, and have always been, creatures of technology and of music. If we want to understand how music is made and experienced, if we want to know how music travels and how it gains meaning in human societies, we must investigate its relationship—ancient and inextricable—with technology.
Mark Katz holds degrees from the College of William and Mary (B.A. in philosophy) and the University of Michigan (M.A., Ph.D. in musicology). His scholarship focuses on music and technology, hip hop, cultural diplomacy, and the violin. He has written four books, Capturing Sound: How Technology has Changed Music (2004, rev. ed. 2010), The Violin: A Research and Information Guide (2006), Groove Music: The Art and Culture of the Hip-Hop DJ (2012), and Build: The Power of Hip Hop Diplomacy in a Divided World (2019). Professor Katz speaks frequently on music, cultural diplomacy, conflict transformation, and entrepreneurship to academic and non-academic audiences.