Recording Technology

Over the past 50 years, as jazz artists have risen to prominence and then slowly declined, recording technology has changed the way we hear and remember those artists. When Monk first became popular, layering technology was not really around. On many of Monk's and Ellington's pieces, one can hear the flatness of the music - there is no depth to the sound and the quality is very poor. This is obviously because the technology to make the music crisper and layer was not around back then. With more recent songs, the sound is much clearer and one can tell that the individual insturments were recorded seperately and then put together. They are easier to pick out and seperate from one another.

One pecularity we discussed in class was why certain bands today choose to go for the "garage band" sound. That is, despite the plethora of technology available, they choose to record at a low quality. I don't completely agree with the conclusion the class came too - that artists do it to make their music sound more authentic and "real." I think this is only partially the answer, and that in reality the artists don't have much choice. Since their chord progressions and general sound is so pedestrian and average that recording it in high quality would not be interesting. Most "garage bands" don't have a lot of originality and complexity in their songs and stick to the same rock chord progressions. Thus, recording low quality blends the various instruments together better and allows for an unoriginal piece to sound more interesting. I don't know if they do this conciously, but I think this is a fairly big reason.