Redefining Music Technology in the United States

While its presence in the commercial music world has long been obvious, music professors and school teachers in the United States have largely ignored or retreated from engaging in or creating technological tools for their work. Many had no experience with music technology during their education while others who employ technological resources have had to learn about them on their own. At the same time, there is growing evidence of interdisciplinary research, particularly in music cognition and neuroscience along with creative initiatives in telematics and new instrument development that hold implications for the future of the field. As an academic discipline, music technology is young, with a growing number of tertiary degree programmes that cover a vast territory of specializations related to the field, thus offering no clear identity to it. To address these issues, this article proposes a comprehensive definition of music technology that takes them into account.