Backstage Burrow Ep6-2026: How Humans First Locked Down Their Tunes (Part 1)

Hi everybunny! Welcome back to the Backstage Burrow! 🐰🌾 Today, we are running zoomies through time to uncover the wild, weird, and wonderful roots of how humans first figured out how to lock down their tunes in a tangible way. Long before you could just drop a link or print sheet music, passing down songs meant relying entirely on a high-stakes game of oral tradition and human memory—from intense apprenticeships in India to 1,000-year-old court traditions in Japan. But what happens when ancient civilizations try to "freeze" sound onto Sumerian stone tablets, Chinese bells, or Greek inscriptions? 📜🗿
In this episode, we dive down the rabbit hole to explore the mind-blowing difference between relative and absolute pitch, and we’ll tease the massive Medieval crisis that hit when an empire demanded everyone sing their religious chants the same way. How do you invent a code for something you can only hear? Grab your snacks and tune in to see how we trapped sound waves—and stick around for Part 2 to meet a frustrated Italian monk who helped change human creativity forever! ✨

#musichistory #musictechnology #backstageburrow #rabbithole #ancientartifacts #musicnotation

https://youtu.be/bnpMqJ2_t3g

Magenta RealTime 2: Open and Local Live Music Models

https://magenta.withgoogle.com/magenta-realtime-2

#HackerNews #MagentaRealTime2 #OpenMusic #LocalMusic #AIInnovation #MusicTechnology

Trying to find the downloads site for Behringer’s X32 mixer and stumbled on yet another prime example of enshittification

https://support.empowertribe.com

NB. I’m not looking for help here, I’m ranting!

#enshittification #musictech #musictechnology #sound #audio

#AcademicJob

Lecturer in Music

📍The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

Fixed-term lectureship in Music with teaching across #Ethnomusicology, #MusicAnalysis, and interdisciplinary arts curricula. The role includes distance-learning teaching and curriculum development, with interests in ethnographic and analytical approaches to music especially welcome.

Deadline: 16/06/2026

https://jobs.open.ac.uk/job/Lecturer-in-Music/1562-en_GB/

#Musicology #MusicTechnology #HigherEducation

Asked Amorph to vibe code me an Autechre track (FM drum machine with sequencer seen & glitch effects that are always in time) and this is the result of the many seconds of not-hard work. Obviously far from perfect, but it definitely got what I wanted to do and with no errors or heavy lifting on my end.

There are zero barriers to everyone doing it this quickly.

Really hard to know how to feel about this. It'll be impossible to detect in a final track since there's no spectral signature (that I know of - and which would be nigh on impossible to find if there are any other plugins or processing involved).

To say nothing of someone selling vibe coded stuff they don't know how to improve or fix in the already-packed plugin market.

Brave new world, how do we work with this, well now.

https://artistsindsp.gumroad.com/l/amorph

#AI #AIInMusic #MusicAI #MusicTechnology #MusicSoftware

#CFP

Recent Advances in Music Processing

Special Session at APSIPA ASC 2026 exploring music signal processing, computational musicology, deep learning for music, interactive music systems, MIR, and AI-based music research.

📍 Hanoi, Vietnam
📅 9–12 November 2026

https://www.apsipa2026.org/call_special_session.html

Organizers:
Tetsuro Kitahara ([email protected]) &
Eita Nakamura

Deadline: 15/05/2026

#MusicTechnology #MIR #MusicInformationRetrieval #SignalProcessing #AI #ComputationalMusicology

#AcademicJob | #PhDStudentship

PhD in Music Information Retrieval for Irish Traditional Music

📍Maynooth University, Ireland

Fully funded PhD in MIR, audio signal processing, machine learning, and computational analysis of Irish Traditional Music. Open to applicants from Computer Science, Music Technology, Audio Processing, #AI/ML and related fields.

Deadline: 29/05/2026

https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/sites/default/files/assets/document/MU%20Doctoral%20Scholarship%20Dept%20of%20Computer%20Science%20BF.pdf

#MIR #MusicTechnology #MachineLearning #IrishMusic #ComputationalMusicProcessing

Discovering Electronic Music (1970)
https://youtu.be/5AmatpZZV3E
„This documentary explores the evolution of music in the technological age, focusing on how electronic synthesizers and computers have revolutionized sound creation …“

#electronicmusic, #synthesizers, #oscillators, #computermusic, #waveforms, #soundengineering, #musictechnology, #composition, #filters, #notation