Electronics have helped facilitate musical expression since 1876.

Musical innovation has been aided by the addition of electronic methods to the field of music. Instruments have evolved out of developments in the field of electronics such as the musical telegraph created in 1876. Other important instruments in the field include the Thelharmonium created in 1897, and the Theremin created in 1917. Many musical instruments have been created by the manipulation and conversion of electronic signals into sound.

The gramophone represents an important concept of mechanical representation. The ability to represent analogue signals mechanically is a theme that runs throughout the field of computing, such as the modulation and demodulation of analogue phone signals in modems. The gramophone provides us with a particularly relevant example – an electronic pulse can represent the raised points within the grooves. No pulse can represent the trough. This forms the basis for the representation of music digitally.

Once it was possible to recreate sound digitally we could begin to record actual music. Today this presents a dilemma where music recorded through digital methods without owning the copyright is illegal. This has always been the state of affairs, however digital techniques facilitate the distribution and sharing of such music. The distribution and sharing of music makes it more likely that those with the digital recordings do not own the copyright for the original track.

Apple I-Tunes provides a legal way to download electronic tracks. Apple sells single tracks, with a license to re-create the same file four times. Once this number of times has been exceeded the user can no longer copy the music. Apple I-Tunes does not have effective methods of stopping these files from being shared by the person purchasing the tune and sharing it with other individuals. Some would see I-Tunes as facilitating the distribution of better quality, higher quality recordings of copied music. A legal dilemma has occurred here, and needs to be solved.

Everyone who owns an apple computer with its most recent operating system Mac OS is capable of being their own music producer. Similarly using simple methods of combining portable CD players, MP3 players, and other tools anyone can be their own personal DJ.