Upon publishing the work Mikrophonie I in 1964, the German avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) declared, “The microphone has, up to now, been treated as a lifeless, passive recording instrument for the purpose of obtaining a sound playback that is a faithful as possible.”1 In this chapter, I examine how the microphone has been used as a musical instrument as part of the microphonic process long before, and independently of, the composer’s work. Rather than focus on the microphone itself, as Mikrophonie or the anglicized microphony suggests, the microphonic process places the microphone within an instrumentarium – a collection of tools or equipment expressly gathered to carry out a task. The task for those artists who engage in the microphonic process is to support, expand, and innovate musical practice.
My investigation into the microphonic process begins by defining it using Cathy van Eck’s four categories of how microphones and loudspeakers are used as musical instruments.2 Following this, I introduce the principles behind the most important pre-electrical music technology, the phonograph, as well as the dominant style of singing that it accompanied. Having established pre-electrical music technology and vocal performance, I then detail the advent of the microphone, amplifier, and loudspeaker, and explain how these devices were used by the true pioneers of the microphonic process, early microphone singers. Early microphone singing was exemplified by the seminal American “crooner” Bing Crosby (1903-1977), whose soft, conversational singing technique popularized the microphone and forever changed vocal performance. I describe how Crosby’s success ultimately led his revolutionary singing style, and microphone technology, to be assimilated into popular vocal performance. I conclude by arguing that the ubiquity of the microphone influences how it is perceived as an instrument, and that, despite this, it should still be analyzed within the context of a microphonic instrumentarium.
