Why Is It So Hard for New Musical Instruments to Catch On?
It's hard to overstate the importance of new musical instruments in history. The piano's dynamic range allowed for a subtlety in composition previously unimagined. The modern drum set paved the way for jazz. Rock and roll would not have happened without the electric guitar. As composer Edgard Varese put it in 1936, "It is because new instruments have been constantly added to the old ones that Western music has such a rich and varied patrimony."
So what happened? Why has there been such a drought of new instruments—especially in rock and pop, which thrive on novelty?
Inventor Aaron Andrew Hunt blames it in part on the "music industrial complex." He created the Tonal Plexus in 1996 and has since sold, by his count, "not many." With 1,266 keys, the instrument is designed especially for microtonal composition, so it would be a tough sell at just about any time. But Hunt said the deck is particularly stacked against new instruments now that a standard repertoire has been locked in, as has the popular idea of what a proper instrument is.
"The biggest barrier is the institutionalization of Western music and the mass marketing of all the instruments," he says. "The problem is that no one can break though this marketing barrier and this education barrier because it's become this machine."
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