BEST IELTS General Reading Test 36

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GENERAL READING TEST 36 – PASSAGE – 3

GENERAL READING TEST 36

READING PASSAGE – 3

Mary had a little gramophone

Edison’s ‘talking machine’ turned music from a performing art into a recording industry Gramophone

Music has always existed but until the late 19th century it could not be caught. It could not be tamed or owned. It belonged to the air. Then on December 6 1877, Thomas Edison finished the first prototype of his talking machine, a device that could record the human voice onto a tin foil roll and play it back in scratchy low fidelity. Edison chose as his test material the words of a nursery rhyme Mary had a tittle lamb, speaking them into the horn of his memory machine. What the inventor thought he had created was a tool, which would allow us access to the past, to make and listen to ‘records’ of past events and achievements in the archival sense of the word.

But inventions are rarely used as they are intended, and Edison’s would, within decades, leave its spoken word intentions behind and fundamentally alter the role of music in society. Edison’s phonograph would turn sound into an artefact, as well as an experience. Though its effects would be far-reaching, it took decades for the phonograph to transcend its beginning as an electrical curiosity. This has partly because the reproduction quality of early machines was so low and partly because Edison, being a little deaf; was not very interested in using it for musical purposes.

But others began to sense the phonograph’s true value. The first piece of music composed specifically for recording was in 1904 and within two decades, composers as famous as Stravinsky were writing Cor recording rather than for performance. By the middle of the century, in popular music at least, the record had become the object, and the performance a secondary reproduction of it.

The most significant turning point, however, came not on the creative side, but on the consumer one. In 1906, the Victor company released the first phonograph designed as a piece of household furniture, in ‘piano-finished’ mahogany. It retailed for $US 200. Until this point, record players had existed mostly in public places, in the cafes of Europe and the saloons of America. The spread of the record player would have an effect on music similar to that of the Gutenberg printing press on the written word. It would democratise music, making it intersect with the everyday lives of ordinary people.

The previous two centuries had already seen a move away from the dominance of ceremonial and ritual music (written for public events or religious needs) towards the realm of pure art, music for its own sake as expressed by the likes of Mozart and Beethoven. The record player would force music to go further, to answer the needs of daily life, to become entertainer, informer and friend, to provide joy, calm and energy, to furnish everything from ambience for airport lounges to identity for teenagers. In doing this, it would reverse a power relationship that had existed since music’s first note. In the post-phonograph world, the listener has the power to decide what to listen to, when to listen to it and where to listen. Until the record, the ways in which music could be approached were prescribed by others. But the phonograph changed all this.

Recorded music was also boosted by the spread of radio in the first half of the 20th century which brought music into the homes of ordinary people. The next significant milestone was the introduction of magnetic tape in the late 1940s which changed the concept of how music could be made. Until this point, records had been based on the notion of `bottled’ live performance. Magnetic tape allowed disparate pieces to be edited together.

About the same time, the vinyl record replaced the breakable shellac, with the 78 rpm giving way to the 33(1/3) rpm record for classical works and popular albums, and a smaller version for singles. These formats, which coincided with the rock explosion, lasted only three decades, phased out after the arrival of the CD in the mid-1980s. Multi-track recording popularised in the 1960s continued music’s move away from ‘performance’ and allowed instruments and vocals to be recorded separately and spliced together, creating room for overdubs of musical and vocal parts, and making it easy to fix bad notes or piece together elements to create an illusion of the whale.

More recently, an even greater leap has been brought about by the invention of digital recording tools. Today’s music is recorded on equipment that did not even exist a generation ago. Computers mean that ‘recordings’ can now be made without a microphone, without tape and without anything recognisable as an instrument to anyone over the age of 35. A significant amount of popular music is no longer written, but constructed. This technique, often referred to as sampling, has allowed composition to become a process of appropriation and re-contextualisation.

The recording methods of the early 20th century, as revolutionary as they were, now seem imbued with simple, traditional, almost rustic virtue. It is no longer necessary to be able to read music or play any kind of instrument to put together a sang. Anyone can push a button on a drum machine. Anyone can recycle a great guitar Tiff or flute loop from an old 45. Some see this as desecration. Others see it as a triumph. It may well be both. More likely it’s just the opening notes of a symphony we can’t even imagine yet.

Questions 28-32

Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3.

In boxes 28-32 on your answer sheet, write

YES – if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer

NO – if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer

NOT GIVEN – if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

28. Edison created his talking machine to record history.
29. The invention of the phonograph immediately changed the way in which society related to music.
30. Stravinsky disliked having to perform his compositions in public.
31. The record player influenced music more than the printing press influenced the written word.
32. In the 17th and 18th centuries, music became an art form in its own right.

Questions 33-37

Complete each sentence with the correct ending A-H below.

Write the correct letter A-H in boxes 33-37 on your answer sheet.

A. the growth of cafes in Europe.
B. the creation of magnetic tape.
C. the widespread introduction of the record player.
D. the introduction of vinyl records.
E. the democratisation of music.
F. the innovation of multi-track recording techniques.
G. the expansion of radio.
H. the arrival of the compact disc.

33. People were able to control what they listened to with.
34. Early 20th century recorded music grew in popularity with.
35. By the 1940s the emphasis on recording live performances had become outdated thanks to.
36. The enormous growth in rock music occurred at the same time as.
37. By the 1960s recording errors could be repaired due to.

Questions 38-40

Complete the summary below.

Choose ONE WORD from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.

Digital Recording

Many contemporary recordings today are created using computers and it is no longer necessary to use a microphone or a conventional 38……………….. Music is constructed using material from previous recordings.
This is known as 39……………….. Some people disapprove of this approach, while others consider it to be a 40……………….. or possibly a combination of the two.

ANSWERS ARE BELOW

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