Technology in context

Part 1
There are many artists that use technology in their own way in their original material, however, there are fewer artists who use technology inventively and interestingly in live performances and professional recordings. One of these artists is Imogen Heap, this is because she is known for using Musical Gloves in her performances, the gloves allow her to control what she wants to do in her live shows and even in her recorded songs. She uses this technology really well as she uses unusual body movements to control the music. When she performs live, she uses her hands to act like she's playing drums or bongos and does the movements as if she was playing it live, but since there are no instruments, she uses the drum playing movements to create the sound of drums in her music. This is a really interesting thing as she can introduce any instrument at any of time of the song whenever she feels like there is space to bring in another instrument. She can also introduce any harmonies when she wants. In one of her performances when the song was just about to begin, she was singing harmonies which she then introduced later on in the song and the impress thing about this is that she does this live so none of the vocals are pre recorded which makes it very interesting as an audience to witness it.


 Another artist that uses technology in his music is Ed Sheeran, he was one of the first artists to use a loop station live in his whole live set. The impressive thing about his use of technology is that he can use it in any song that he does live which is how most of songs are played live. He introduces harmonies which he can use later on in the song and can also play different guitar melodies on top of his lead guitar which makes the sound fuller and richer. In one of his songs live, in the chorus he asks the audience to sing along which also gets recorded into the loop. Also, in the song Shape Of You, halfway in the chorus he stops the whole song by pressing the left pedal with his foot and sings in that space which is a good way of using the loop station as he can do whatever he wants in that short amount of time.


Part 2
In my own practice I have been using technology to make my music sound more interesting and so it can vary in terms of style. In the band I am working with I use the octave pedal in one of our original songs to make the guitar sound clean and have a richer sound. However, I only use it with single notes because with full chords and especially bar chords, it sound really bad because there are too many tones and it sounds slightly overdriven. Even though I don't use the octave pedal all the time, I have figured out that the octave pedal has a great effect when being used for guitar solos and in the beginning of a song because at a beginning of a song and a solo are both related to the attention being all on the guitarist and by using the guitar pedal it helps to make the guitar sound really pleasant to hear. One artist that has inspired me is Neil Young, he is one of the best well known artists and he has also used an octave pedal live in his music. Even though his music isn't particularly my style of music, he inspired me to use this type of technology and to improve my guitar playing.