E10: Music and Technology | Frederick Bianchi, Professor and Director of Music Technology

Colleen: What would a car ride be without a radio? What would a concert be without an amplifier? And let's be honest, what would eighties pop be without the synthesizer? Music and technology have long, advanced and enhanced each other, evolving side by side to shape the way we create, perform, and experience sounds. At WPI known globally for its focus on stem, we give students the chance to explore the harmony between artistic expression and technical innovation. Whether it's composing with code, designing immersive audio environments, or pushing the boundaries of live. Performance WPIs approach to music is deeply rooted in experimentation, exploration, and impact. In this episode, we'll speak with a renowned professor and dive into how music and technology interact from the history of music tech, the sound industry, and where AI might take us next. Joining us today is Professor Frederick Bianchi, a pioneering force in music technology, and a longtime faculty member at WPI. Over the past three decades, he has made global waves as a composer, scholar, and innovator, best known for developing the groundbreaking virtual orchestra now used in nearly 300,000 performances worldwide. His work has reshaped musical theater and opera, earning him international accolades, and has led to collaborations with Get This Icons like Andrew Lloyd Weber, Sir Paul McCartney, and Cirque de Soleil. At WPI, he helped launch the interactive media and game development program and continues to inspire students through his dynamic teaching and deep understanding of how media and technology shape our world. So, I am delighted that he is here with us today. And Professor, how about that for an intro?

Prof. Bianchi: I'm sorry, I didn't hear it. I wasn't, I was daydreaming, but no, that was fantastic. Thank you. Well, thank you. Thank you very much for having me. Uh, actually, yes, I, I really am honored that you said yes to this invitation, and I'm excited for this conversation. 

Colleen: One of the things that my intro talked about is your tenure here at WPI. You've been here for nearly 30 years. I'm going to jump into history now. How has the relationship between music and technology evolved over these past three decades? 

Prof. Bianchi: Evolve is the right word to use. It evolves. Things emerge. Things change and that change is slow usually, but a lot has happened in the 30 uh, years that I've been here and that I've been working professionally in the field. And I could go on for hours and hours about things that are impactful and different turning points, but I could condense it down to the short answer. And I would say back in the mid-1980s, I came to WPI in the early 1990s, but around the mid-1980s there was a lot of change going on, and one of the big changes was the MP three file, which I think everybody knows to some extent, the word is part of our vocabulary nowadays, but all, it was a engineering software to compress audio files. Now that seems simple in and of itself. But what it did was start a free fall in the music industry and in our culture as a society. Why did that happen? Once you were able to stream and get these things up to the world, things like Napster began. Napster disconnected reality, our musical reality. From what we thought it was back in the 1980s, early 1990s, the music industry was stable. You had LPs, you had CDs, you had cassettes. The union controls prices. You had ticket sales; you had mechanical rights royalties. It was very clear what was recorded and what was live. All of that has changed. It no longer exists. So how we listen to music has completely changed. I put on a Beethoven Symphony. I don't like the first movement. I scroll to the second movement. When I'm done with that, I jump to the As symphony, do the fourth movement. Then I go listen to Genesis for yeah, that it has changed how we pay attention to music or don't pay attention. And it's really opened up a, a situation where it's background, it's art for convenience. What that means is a lot of the rituals in what music have disappeared. You don't go by an album anymore. You don't think about larger structures of music. It is, and again, I'm going to go back to the MP three, which was the catalyst for all this. So, this has changed in a 20-year period. Absolutely. Everything. Revenue streams, how recording studios are organized or unorganized. Everything has possibly changed. Now you throw into that the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Cold War symbolically ending the end of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, 1989, 1990. These impacts were tremendous, and they changed everything. So here we are now in 2025. Everything we do, whether we realize it on a daily basis or not, is some reaction to that whole period we just lived through. 

Colleen: This is fascinating and I'm already excited about this conversation because when you say music technology, I really thought, and maybe many of our listeners thought too, is you'd get into the actual music technology, the synthesizer, the advancements in audio equipment, et cetera, not so much the technology that has shaped the way we listen and the business of music. And so, yeah, it's something that you're right, we can just say, we like this one song, not listen to the rest of the album. We didn't waste money on spending $20 or whatever it is, and I know even the charts have completely changed. Now, what's the top album? What's the top song? How do you measure that in this new world of technology, downloadable music? So that, again, you've already blown my mind on where we're going with this conversation, but. That is so mission accomplished there. We can talk a little bit more about that and then I did want to get into some of the technologies that are used nowadays or have evolved. Music itself, what it sounds like, not just how we get music.

Prof. Biachi: Yeah. I don't know if the sounds per se have changed that much or that we've. Gained any new sounds or any new approaches? I say that in a general way, but I think our access to the technology is what has changed. Everything is smaller, faster, and cheaper. Mm-hmm. It's everywhere. It's, you say you could hold it in the palm of your hand isn't exaggeration. You can hold it with one finger. Everything is everywhere. But because of that. Now we have to start thinking about music differently. What is the value of music? What is the value of creating when everybody has access to the same materials, not only access to the same technology, but the same delivery system. It's everywhere. Back in the eighties that I've already talked about a little bit. If you had an idea, let's say you had an idea for a synthesizer or for some kind of an application that took a long time to propagate around. The country around the world, you had to publish an article. Somebody saw it in England, and then they did something, and before you know it, you've got a head of steam going and you're onto something today. These ideas bounce back and forth around the world instantaneously. What that means is what is the value of that? So, when we're teaching music at WPI and we're exposing people to this technology. Those are the questions that underlie all of this. It's not given me access to some software and I'm going to put out some kind of a tune and maybe that tune will make me some money. It's not about that at all because first of all, everybody, as I said, has access to all of this information and all this technology, whereas in the past they didn't. And that's why even the recording industry, if I could even call it an industry anymore, has completely been turned around. Because of this access. So, over the years at WPI, we've entertained many times about going into some kind of an application like that, recording music production, but we never did because it changes too quickly, it's expensive, and there isn't much of a return on an investment anymore. So, what makes WPI a little bit unique is that we're able to explore. Many different avenues of the technology and of learning and of inventing and innovation that isn't tied to a specific, for lack of a better term, vocational end result. It's just very free thinking then, and that's how we try to keep it.

Colleen: A statistic that has stood out to me over the years that I've been at WPI is more than 60% of our student population is in some way, shape, or form involved in music. And that's from our different jazz ensembles to music technology. So, it really touches on so many different students lives in so many different ways, but yet we don't have a music major. Which in some ways when we're doing all of this doesn't make sense, but in your explanation, it frees you as a professor and our students to study this in ways that feel so real to you. So, can you explain how you're able to get into that and to quench our students’ thirst? 

Prof. Bianchi: Yes. If we did have a degree in music, per se. We do have a degree in humanities, so you could theoretically go in that direction. That 60% number would drop to 5%. The fact we don't have a degree, the fact that you don't have to jump through all these hoops to get into the music program is the essence of the WPI approach to learning. So many students, you said 60%. They've been involved in music making their whole lives. When they're in junior high school, when they're in high school and they come to college, they still want to do that as they're getting their degrees in mechanical engineering, robotics. So, we present that opportunity to them to do that. That's why there are so many people involved in it. Now, when I first came to WPI, one of the charges they gave me was that they wanted to expand access to the music department, meaning. In those days, again, the early 1990s, if you didn't play the trombone, the violin, you're out. You couldn't be in the band; you couldn't be in the jazz bands. You couldn't be in any of that. So, what about all of these other people that even if you played the electric guitar, there was no place for you. But what we've come to discover over the last 30 years, and didn't take us 30 years to discover it, it took us one year. Is that there are lots of students out there that are so bright, have incredible music sensibilities that all we had to do was open the door for them. And that's where music technology comes from. So, you're getting a degree in math. You don't play the violin. You could barely read music, look, come to this lab. Let's talk about things now as those students are in this environment over here. They're learning about music. They're picking up history inadvertently, they don't even know it. But that's the beauty of it. Get in the door, bring your expertise, bring your enthusiasm, and look at all this technology we have and let's sit down and talk about things and let's move forward. I think that's why there are 60% of the students at WPI that are now participating in this. 

Colleen: Speaking of music technology, I said in the intro that you created innovated the virtual orchestra. Explain what that is. 

Prof. Bianchi: Okay. The quick overview is it's a highly complex computer system network that can simulate not only the sounds of an orchestra. But the behavior of an orchestra, and what I mean by that is it can follow a conductor. Conducting it can adjust to nuance; it can interpret what a conductor wants. It has lots of interpretations of the music all in real time. This is really what made it different. Then traditional use of synthetic sounds in the film industry. They've been using convincing orchestral sounds since the late 1970s. You don't even know it, but working in a studio is a completely different thing than being live. So, when you've got 18 computers live in a pit with 45 speakers and lots of data, you can't crash that computer. If you crash that computer, you've got 2000 people that are disappointed, and the first person you call is your attorney to figure out how you're going to deal with this problem. Now, when you're in a recording studio or production studio, your system crashes or glitches or hangs up. Everybody goes out for a coffee break for 10 minutes. You come back, you reboot, you're ready to go. So, the pressures of live performance are really where the problem solving was with the virtual orchestra. Not necessarily the sounds, even though those are problematic and they take a lot of development, but it was, how do you put a system together like this? A virtual orchestra. You could put it on the back of a semi that semi drives to Calgary, Canada, it sits in a loading dock for three days. At 10 below zero, you pull that equipment off, you put it into the pit, and it works. So, all of these issues are tied up in the virtual orchestra. But to back up just a little bit, the virtual orchestra wasn't necessarily, and this, I'm going to tie it back into a little bit of the history we, we've been talking about, the virtual orchestra. I didn't hit the ground running as a virtual orchestra. It emerged gradually. Being influenced by the pressure. These conditions I discussed earlier about the MP three file about the music being ubiquitous, technology taking over. In many ways, it's only with 30 years of looking back that now you start to see, okay, the virtual orchestra did this. Oh, it was important here. It wasn't important over here. So, as it was happening. It was just evolving and that's a word you used in the very beginning to, to introduce me and technology. It evolves. If you would've asked me that question 30 years ago, if we had this podcast happening, which we didn't because the MP three file didn't exist back to that, I would've had a completely different answer to you because I don't have the perspective that I do now on it. And the look at the broader implications, is that part of. 

Colleen: How you teach the students through the virtual orchestra, is that a course? Is it more about the love of music? How do the offerings at WPI span that range from pure technology to pure love, sound of music and it's not one or the other. It seems like it's, again, that whole spectrum. That's a great question and that's something you deal with all the time. What is relevant? So, do we have a course in virtual technology? Virtual orchestra? No, and I do not teach it, even though I've done many research projects and even graduate thesis on the virtual orchestra in particular. But as a general thing, uh, walking into a classroom teaching, usually not. But there are many components of the virtual orchestra that creep into it when you're dealing with live performance and those kinds of things, but. No, there isn't a particular course, because I'm probably saying here to you that it may not be as relevant as it used to be. It still is relevant, but things are changing, and I think to be able to evolve with music is to admit those things and understand those things and see 'em with some objectivity. So, what's happening today? Again, it's hard to say because we're so close to it, but. We try to present a lot of things at WPI in our classrooms. Scott Barton, who's in charge of the robotics music and robotics labs. Lots of innovation is going on there. VJ Manzo, the Electric Guitar Innovation Lab. Lots and lots of things are going on there. So, a typical sort of, not class, but environment in music technology. At WPI one day I'll go into my lab. And I'll do some things. I'll hook some things together. I'll have a couple of students. I'll jot some notes down on paper and the next day or next week, I'll come back and that whole studio's gone. I was like, where did this equipment go? We're doing something else down the hall. Somebody else has a different idea. We're now restructuring this. It isn't as crazy as I just made it out. There are some heads up on this stuff, but we can turn on a dime. I think I said to you once before that if I go out to do something on the weekend somewhere, I'm involved in some kind of a show, some kind of a production, and something really interesting happening next week. I'm bringing that back directly into the classroom. It's not in my syllabus, but there's flexibility that I'm talking to students. Hey, do you realize what's going on in London this week? I was there and here's what they're doing and here's the code they're using, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So, I think aside from the structure that we do have in the music department, I think we pride ourselves on the fact that this is a flexible operation. It’s flexible because we're dealing with a fluid and flexible. Industry and we have to be absolutely. It's not just real-world problems that our students are solving. It's real-world experiences that are being brought into the classroom, the labs, the musical halls at so many different levels. 

Colleen: It really is just such a treat for our students to be able to experience that, especially when you bring the street cred that you've worked with Sir Paul McCartney and Andrew Lloyd Weber. I had to drop those names again for you. Was that through the virtual orchestra or other technology? 

Prof. Bianchi: They were all with the virtual orchestra. I want to play that down a little bit too. I assume if I passed Paul McCartney on the street, he wouldn't remember or recognize me or even know that I existed. 

Colleen: But it's still nice to be able to say. Alright, we'll get back to our students. Enough of the stargazing here. What are some of the interdisciplinary collaborations or student projects that you've helped out with over the years that are memorable to you? 

Prof. Bianchi: Oh, lots and lots. The word interdisciplinary. I can't think of a project that wasn't interdisciplinary just from the nature of, of what we do at WPI and how we fit in. There have been some good ones. We did some very groundbreaking projects several years ago in the Sonification, and that was with the math department, and I had some really brilliant doctoral students whose sonification is where you take data that. Usually is not related in any way to music or musical structures, and somehow you map it, you reconfigure it and you're able to sonify it. You are able to realize it orally through all kinds of interesting methods. Another one was, and this kind of goes back to the virtual orchestra, another a master's thesis where a student was figuring out how to track. Hand movement with digital cameras today. That sounds a little, yeah, big deal. But this was back in 1995 maybe, where you had all kinds of compression issues with real time data and just all the mathematics involved. But that was a really rewarding project and I could probably go on and on, but just to put it in perspective, those are two. And I've probably advised five or 600 of these projects. Wow. So, I would have to get my Rolodex out or something. I'd have to, I'd have to, I'd have to consult your mental file od file, I think to give you more of an answer.

Colleen: I know I, I caught you flat footed on that one and it's hard to, to pick your favorites or most memorable when you're talking hundreds. Another area of research of your research and you've collaborated with others that I just find absolutely fascinating is neuroscience, the intersection of music and the brain. So, I know the background of this, but our listeners certainly don't. Can you talk about the work that you've done in that sector? 

Prof. Bianchi: Yes. And I will also bring in Rich Falco who was on the faculty during this period. Wonderful. Former faculty member. Yes. Head of all the jazz programs, A fantastic musician and an innovative thinker. And he and I had conversations in the hallway for probably 20 years. From everything from meditation to being in the zone. All these things related to, to being a musician. And we also had a colleague at the Harvard Medical School, Carl Helmer, who was doing a lot of work in FMRI research at the Martino Center in Boston. One thing led to another; we set up some experiments under the premise of what goes on in the brain. Of a musician when they're improvising. Okay. Again, I'm being a little bit general. Mm-hmm. But the idea was let's take some jazz pianists, put 'em into an FMRI tube and record them improvising. Now, easier said than done because of the noise level in those things. The fact you're squeezed in there and nothing can be magnetic, or they had headphones on. We were playing a jazz tune. They're improvising too. It was very well organized. Here's the result of that. I. And you would think, okay, somebody is improvising jazz. That is a pretty select activity, and I bet the brain is going crazy when you're doing that. It must be all over the place communicating with this and that. FMRI tells you what's going on with your brain, or at least where the activity is. So, we've discovered that. I wouldn't say we're the only ones to discover it. There are other researchers. There was a guy called Li. Who was at Johns Hopkins who probably broke this egg first, but the end result is when jazz musicians are really, I'll say in the zone, in the flow, whatever you want to call it. I think you know what I'm talking about. Yep. They're, which happens if they're experienced players and they're improvising, they go into the zone and the brain technically shuts down. It turns off in certain places, the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex to throw out some scientific verbiage to you. Good for you. D-L-P-F-C, which is part of our executive functions, that's the part of the brain that I'm using right now. I'm thinking, am I speaking loud enough? Is the microphone close to me? Are you hearing what I'm saying? Am I afraid I'm analyzing myself continuously as anyone would do. That's your executive functions. So, what a musician does when they're in the zone is they shut that part of the brain off, which means they're not questioning themselves, they're not aware of these issues, and you can only get there, first of all, by being a good musician. But it opens up a certain freedom, a certain flow, where they can really improvise. In a nutshell, the brain doesn't over activate it Deactivates. And Rich and I, rich Falco, were interested in some things with meditation. Is there a form of meditation we could use to train students to get into this zone a little bit faster, et cetera, et cetera. But that was the eye-opening thing to us. Now, I also have to say that being in the zone is not just musicians. If you're out jogging, you get into this, sometimes you're driving in a car, you forget you are even in the car for the last 20 minutes until your exit comes up. How can you do that? Because you know how to drive well, you're good at it. You don't have to think about it, but your mind went into the zone. That's what good musicians do, and it's not jazz musicians only, its classical musicians, but that's where the real heavy lifting comes musically. 

Colleen: I think you've heard, or the public has probably heard that from interviews with professional athletes. Broadcasters are saying, boy so and so is really in the zone tonight, hitting all the three shots or making all the connections. Yeah, I can see how that is across the board, but it really is fascinating. And what I'm picking up on, you can't be in amateur here. 

Prof. Bianchi: That's exactly it. And of course, it's more complex than I'm making it. I'm giving you the succinct overview, but we actually did some scans of less experienced musicians also to see exactly the point that you're talking about. And yes, they didn't shut down as much. They were always reactivated at different points because. They were too into what they were doing, and they couldn't remove themselves from it. Yeah, so you're exactly right with it. 

Colleen: We could go on and on about this. 'cause it really is interesting to say the very least. I don't want to take up the whole podcast on this, but I invite listeners that want to learn more to an article that the WPI Journal did with you and Rich Falco years ago on that intersection of neuroscience and the brain with jazz musicians. So, with a link up to that article. In this podcast and that allows you to move on to other answers to my questions. We've talked a lot about the technology and music, how the brain works, how our students get involved. Where do you think music technology is going next?

Prof. Bianchi: It's always hard to say. If you would've asked that question in 1987, I don't think I would've nailed it. I would've been all over the place. But this throws AI into the recipe as well. You read my mind. Yeah, yeah. Where is all that going? 'cause that will certainly be part of it. Of course. I suppose back in the 1960s when they came out with whiteout for typewriters. Maybe it was the 1950s or maybe the 1920s. I don't know when that was invented way back when, but that must have blown the minds of many people now just go through the last 40 years of development. I don't even need to state it. Everybody knows it through word processors, everything else. Now we find ourselves in this new state. I think the onset of it, of ai. The onset, I should say that it was back in the 1950s is when it really got going back at Dartmouth and all these other historic places. Mm-hmm. But the onset of what we know it to be today was so fast, and I think it caught people by surprise, and it was pretty amazing in many respects. Of course, the first knee jerk reaction is everybody, what am I going to do with my syllabus? What am I going to change? How am I going to trap this? How am I going to control this? Is to put up a front to prevent it from happening. And if anybody has any understanding of history, you're not going to stop it. You're not going to prevent it. I don't think there's any example in history, I could be wrong on this, but where you've been able to stop the movement of technology or complexity. Even in music, what excites me is that it now allows, uh, other problems to be looked at that were difficult to look at in the past. So, when you ask me like, what excites me, it's, it's not a new thing, it's just a new tool that's going to open up or shed some light on some new problems. So, somebody would say, well, how are you going to incorporate AI into your classroom? How's it going to work? I've been teaching algorithmic composition for 30 years, so my response is, wow. Finally, we now have a good tool here that we can use in many different ways. I'm different than a lot of people that are teaching at WPI because they have different objectives and they're teaching different kind of courses. So, if somebody's complaining and saying people are writing their papers using ai, or they're doing this or doing that, my solution would be don't have 'em write the papers. There's got to be another problem to solve. So, in music, I think that's easier to deal with. Yes. And this even can fold itself a little bit into quantum computing, which is still several years down the road. But you can simulate a lot of quantum computing algorithms with classical computers and algorithms much slower and with a lot of hassle maybe. But you start to look at computers being able to really emulate. Human behavior in terms of creating music. So that's what algorithmic music is all about. Was there a way to bring this kind of technology right into the music making level? That's what excites me, because these are, and it, this is with the virtual orchestra too. Back in the day, we were trying to figure out how to make it more passionate, how to do this. We couldn't store that much data. We couldn't store terabytes and terabytes of data that we can then go back and look at over a 30-year period and then come up with these assumptions and generalizations. We now, with AI and quantum computing on the horizon, these things are possible. So, my interest in the new technology and where it might be going is for these reasons. Now, someone could criticize that not. Because of the technology, but why would I want to do that? So, I accept that it is the same with the virtual orchestra for 30 years. Why do you want to do that? Why are you doing that? It's in the virtual orchestras. It'll be easier to explain away. From financial points of view and everything else. Anyhow, where I really danced around that question a little bit that you just asked me about, where's technology going? I started off by saying, who knows? And then I gave some convoluted answer for the next three minutes. But I like it when new technological developments come along, and I like to see how they could be used in the pursuit of music performance and just music thinking. 

Colleen: Your answer was a good one because there isn't a straight answer, especially when it comes to AI in the future and the ethics and the opportunities and the concerns. You gave a lot of insight there and I appreciate that. Is talent always going to foster talent? I guess what I'm getting at is people have said he, she, they were born a musician born with musical talent. Is that still in your opinion? Able to be fostered and to grow and to be celebrated. Most importantly, with these new technologies.

Prof. Bianchi: Yes, I think it always will be a big part of it. And with so many people involved in music now, talent and understanding are something that does flow to the top, and you can see it. You can see it even if somebody's working with technology or they're performing, but without getting too deeply into it, there are some people that are just very musical, and they have musical brains and they can do it. Meaning they could sit down and they can memorize a list Concerto. The Composer List, or Beethoven Concerto. That's musical talent. That's a musical brain. That's a musical mind, and that's related to performance. Now when you come into the area of, let's say you're a composer, those techniques still are important musical memory and understanding, but you start to bring other variables into the process. Now, I have a lot of students, let's say in mathematics or electrical engineering or chemistry. They don't have strong music backgrounds. Some of them none, but they've been working with a symbolic language their entire life. They understand the manipulation of symbols, they understand patterns, relationships. That's what music is all about. They may sit at a piano and not get it at all, not be able to remember a five-note tune, but they're bringing a different level of talent to the musical experience. And I think that's what technology has opened up, that there are so many ways to integrate with music. To be involved in musical activity. It's just not, there's a person on stage playing a violin. There are other things that lead to it, and I think technology has revealed some of those connections. But to answer your question directly, I've been around musicians my whole life. I know real ones. Not that there are unreal ones, but maybe just not yet to that level. And that goes back to the word you used, talent. 

Colleen: What would your words of advice be? 

Prof. Bianchi: My advice to people would be to pursue these passions but pursue them in a very well-rounded way. And again, we go back to the WPI method approach, or I should say the approach at many universities, especially technical colleges. We're dealing with students who, in my experience, from when I used to teach in a conservatory to where I teach now, I'm finding much more well-rounded. Students, they know a lot more. They know about technology, they know about music, they know about lots of different things. So, I think to develop sensibilities in so many different aspects of life can only improve your interaction with music technology. It's going to help drive you. We're not graduating experts. If we graduate experts, they'll be unemployed another three years because there's a new level of expertise. We didn't train them for it. We're training them just to be very well-rounded human scientists and artists. 

Colleen: I think it goes without saying, you are very well-rounded when you mentioned passion for more than 30 years. You have been finding your passion and sharing it with others here at WPI and I want to thank you for that. I know so many students. Sing your praises and want to come back and talk to you and see you decades later. Kudos to you and thank you so much for spending the time with us today. I really appreciate your insight.

Prof. Bianchi: It's been a pleasure, Colleen. Thank you. I enjoyed it. And whenever I have a chance to have the floor, I take advantage of it. 

Colleen: A Kindred spirit again, Professor Bianchi, thank you so much. 

Colleen: This has been the WPI podcast. You can hear more episodes at wpi.edu/listen. There you can also find audio versions of stories about our students, faculty and staff, everything from events to research. You can also check out the latest WPI News on Spotify, apple podcasts and YouTube podcasts. You can also ask Alexa to open WPI. This podcast was produced at the WPI Global Lab in the Innovation Studio with audio engineering help from PhD candidate Varun Baugh. Tune in next time for another episode of the WPI Podcast. I'm Colleen Wamback.