Abstract

Marshall Mcluhan, a media scholar, created the word Gutenberg Gaaxy meaning the new environment formulated by printing technic and he insisted that it changed human life entirely. In the history of human, the media evolved into printing technic through oral and transcription. This evolution of media and the environment created by the media are the most important point of Mcluhan's theory. He sees the world as the result of media evolution. In mcluhan's sight, Gutenberg Galaxy is the first environment composed by the media. Based on the mcluhan's theory, this study focused on the environment created by the media and applied it into the western music history. The link of the Gutenberg Galaxy and the western music, especially in romantic era, will be the main subject of the study. The Book is the most representative media of the printing technic. In the era of oral and transcription, the communication was limited by the spatial restriction. However, the book was free to spatial condition and this character of the book made the knowledge free. The knowledges delivered by the oral and transcription were mostly the matter of mundane world because they are so close to the human life, even though they are narrating about the God's world. The book, free to expanding the knowledge beyond the world, made the knowledge transcendent and expanded the sight of the humans into the transcendent world. The modern western world is the product of the expanded knowledge by the book and so does the music. In the time of printing technic, the music begun to gain the population by the printed sheet music. As delivering the music through the printed sheet, the music received transcendence and mystery as meeting the spirit of the times. This link formed by the time of Gutenberg Galaxy will be the main focus of the study and it will prove the link between the media and the western music.