The Identification and Transposition of Authentic Instruments: Musical Practice and Technology

This article explores the idea of “authenticity” in musical practice as a function of its situatedness in technology. Two recent developments of the trumpet are discussed—the reinvention of the baroque trumpet and the author’s design and use of a computer-extended trumpet (the meta-trumpet)—to highlight issues of historical, personal and cultural authenticity. It is suggested that an appropriate understanding of the technology of a given culture is necessary for the “authentic” expression of that culture. Texts by Lyotard and Adorno illuminate an exploration of the nature and practice of contemporary music technology. The integration of subject and material, and the redefinition of the relationship between “composed” and “performed” time in music, are identified as essential and relevant properties of this technology.