TONE COLOR The marks between natural and artificial sound are changed.
There was a time (till about 1980) you really could record your music band in front of ONE microphone.
Not that questions of tone color didn't exist before the invention of the synthesizer. For instance, there are the timbres of Debussy's chord buildings (La Cathédrale engloutie); the mystic sonorities of Alexander Scriabin; the research of Pierre Schaeffer ("les objets sonores") and there is the invention of John Cage's tone color in his "prepared piano". These efforts occured in the first half of the twenteeth century. The classical art of orchestration goes back at least to the eighteenth century. The desire to get the most pleasing sounds possible out of wooden hollows and lengths of tubing goes back to prehistory.
In last years we've seen a wholesale shift in emphasis.
The musical message is overwelmed by the presentation of the tone in his best color and has become a prime ingredient in any succesful recording, sometimes dominating the musical content itself.
In an effort for the most ultimate tone color, today's digital effect processors are used in all records to add more sparkle, depth, space and timbre, from vocal and guitar to drum machines and synthesizer.
The recent evolution of recording and appreciating music on tape and disc is the story to cover the primeval sound in an ambient context. No common music today would be released capturing only the natural reverberation of the environment.
The marks between natural and artificial sound have changed.
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