Does Form Still Follow Function? Technology & Art

I've read various posts lately with sometimes conflicting but valid opinions regarding the importance or even the need for technology in an art such as music and singing.

Edited by SteveG - January 06 2015 at 13:50

^Correct, but still no music could be made without the piano. Is being inventive also being artistic?

^Agreed. But I'm going to play devil's advocate here and say that once man realized he could make a line in the sand straighter, easier and deeper with a stick, technology quickly took over.

Edited by SteveG - January 06 2015 at 10:58

^A good post with strong points worth contemplating. Thanks for your feedback, King Only.

"Technology" is really just another word for anything that is created for a functional purpose (edit: a similar, yet distinct point from that being made by King Only above - whose post I did not see until after my orig post) - like the stick you mentioned drawing a line in the sand, that was one of the first "tools" ever conceived by our species.  So really, practically anything can be described as technology, and with that view, then of course music making cannot precede it.  But that's not a particularly useful piece of information by itself.

Maybe the question, then, is whether one could CONCEIVE of music (i.e. the cognitive "dreaming up" of music) without necessarily having the tools (yet) to play it.  Let's say I sat down and tried to dream up a piece of music using timbres and tones that have NEVER been used before - because no instrument yet exists that can make those exact sounds.  Would I be able to do it?  Of course I would, because I'm a genius.  But seriously, could I?  I'm going to fix a tall glass of water and ponder this for a bit.

Edited by HolyMoly - January 06 2015 at 11:21

I see the two as symbiotic, the desire to create and advance art has resulted in new technology to create new sounds and the desire to advance the technology to do things better has opened the door to an ever more diverse aray of art. For millenia the two have been feeding off each other and will likely continue to do so.

HolyMoly wrote: "Technology" is really just another word for anything that is created for a functional purpose (edit: a similar, yet distinct point from that being made by King Only above - whose post I did not see until after my orig post) - like the stick you mentioned drawing a line in the sand, that was one of the first "tools" ever conceived by our species.  So really, practically anything can be described as technology, and with that view, then of course music making cannot precede it.  But that's not a particularly useful piece of information by itself. Maybe the question, then, is whether one could CONCEIVE of music (i.e. the cognitive "dreaming up" of music) without necessarily having the tools (yet) to play it.  Let's say I sat down and tried to dream up a piece of music using timbres and tones that have NEVER been used before - because no instrument yet exists that can make those exact sounds.  Would I be able to do it?  Of course I would, because I'm a genius.  But seriously, could I?  I'm going to fix a tall glass of water and ponder this for a bit.

Good point Steve, but I have  the feeling, and it's only a feeling, that tones and pitch and the like were discovered by accident and not thought of in advance. There's no proof to this but it seems sensible to me.

Edited by SteveG - January 06 2015 at 11:28

^Yes, Luca. It was only my point to emphasize the importance of technology in art and that it may have even proceeded it. But yes, they are intertwined to me.

^Good point but I believe that humans or, more correctly proto humans, may have used tools before they could speak, so tech still seems to come first.

^Yes, Rick. Da Vinci does appear as appear as one who fully integrated both fields equally. Great point.