From pedal bicycles to ATMs, from telephones to TVs, from fridges to, er, flushable toilets… Scotland has a proud history of invention and innovation. This long and distinguished heritage even extends to music. It was a Scot (John Broadwood) who gave the world the first piano footpedal, you know.

Let’s look at a few new projects that could shape how music in this country and beyond is commercialised for tourism, heard at gigs and purchased.

MUSICAL MYSTERY TOUR THAT PUTS A CITY ON THE MAP

Glasgow’s music pedigree is enviably rich and ceaselessly wonderful, yet the one detail its natives are most reminded about is that Oasis were “discovered” at King Tut’s. Whatever.

Thankfully this piece of neuro-numbing trivia only makes up a teeny-tiny segment of Walking Heads’ Glasgow Music Tour.

The 4½ hour audio walking tour, which is split into 60 chapters, is presented by Jim Gellatly and features interviews with the likes of Vic Galloway, Billy Sloan, Stuart Braithwaite and Emma Pollock to keep you entertained and informed as you navigate the city’s gum-addled streets on a culture-quenching mission.

The venture is the brainchild of Radio Magnetic parent company Inner Ear, who have already produced an Edinburgh Comedy Tour.

The Glasgow Music Tour will be available to download for just £1.99 from January 30 as an audio-only mp3 and as smartphone apps for iPhone and Android. Check out these previews:

Glasgow Music Tour: Teaser Route 1 by Walkingheads

Glasgow Music Tour: Teaser Route 2 by Walkingheads

Glasgow Music Tour: Teaser Route 3 by Walkingheads

Glasgow Music Tour: Teaser Route 4 by Walkingheads

The Walking Heads team will be giving a talk at Glasgow’s Citizen M Hotel at 8.30am on January 26 to mark the Scottish Music Industry Association’s first Monthly Music Meet Up.

ROCK CONCERTS THAT WON’T UPSET THE NEIGHBOURS

Silent discos are a common sight at summer music festivals, providing a party for headphone-wearing clubbers without the need to worry about noise disturbance or curfew restrictions.

Silent concerts which feature the combined sound of live instruments being transmitted into headphones would surely be a much more complicated feat to pull off. However, Falkirk-based Silentgig are fast changing that perception.

Run by Chris McCarron, a former touring sound engineer, Silentgig came into being in April 2011. After a few successful trial events they decided to test the market by persuading The View to play a gig to 200 fans at the Overgate shopping centre car park in Dundee in July 2011.

They have had major support and endorsements from Sennheiser, Allen & Heath, Marshall and Gibson, which culminated in Silentgig securing a contract with AEG Live for the December Sessions – the world’s largest free music festival – at The 02 in London in December 2011. Silentgig catered for 100 bands over 20 nights.

Director McCarron uses a team of about 10 freelancers – audio and lighting engineers, production managers, stage managers, back-line technicians, IT and graphics technicians, and financial and administration consultants.

Their next job will see them take care of a run of silent opera performances of La Boheme in London’s Old Vic Tunnels in February as part of a documentary being filmed for Sky Arts.

Silentgig have had approaches from Live Nation and other promoters, and there is interest from the corporate sector regarding specialised events around the London Olympics. They are also in the final stages of securing research partners for further developments in the fields of rehabilitation and medical research.

Look out for an April launch in Glasgow, as well as showcase events at the Apple Store and Glasgow Science Centre.

SELLING DIGITAL IN A PHYSICAL WORLD

There’s no better place for a band to persuade a fan to part with hard cash than at a gig. Emotions are running high, folded notes are only a pocket or handbag away.

The problem is that physical formats such as CDs aren’t cheap to produce and most fans who do buy them will probably end up ripping the tracks into mp3s for digital consumption.

So how can an artist combine the opportunity to sell their music in a physical world with a fan’s preference for non-physical music? Simple: sell them a more desirable piece of merch that does both jobs.

Glasgow-based T-shirt company Jetpace Industries have created Inklink, which puts a unique and secure digital download code onto every piece of memorabilia such as T-shirts, hoodies, belts, bags and hats.

The initiative means bands now have an alternative format for releasing their music: a band T-shirt, with a screen-printed Inklink to their latest track(s), album or video.

Jetpace director Tim Pearson said: “The Inklink idea arose as we pondered two factors. First, how hard it is for bands to sell their music on CD. And second, how increasingly reliant bands are on T-shirt and other merchandise sales. Integrating download codes into T-shirt designs seemed an inspired, cool and natural solution.”

RM Hubbert’s Inklink merch will go on sale for the first time at the launch show for his new album Thirteen Lost & Found at Glasgow’s Stereo on January 27.

I Build Collapsible Mountains’ Inklink T-shirts are due to go on sale soon and will link to two exclusive tracks, Song From That Never Scene and Double Dare.