Conference napalm::commusic_v1

    
    While I agree with most of your position,
    you offer no suggestions, only critique.

    Ron
    

I tend to agree too.  First it was acoustic instrumentation.  That's obviously
a cliche'.  Now it's electronic instrumentation.  That's turning into a 
cliche'.  Next?  Perhaps nuclear instrumentation.  Figure out a way to 
turn radioactive waste into music and you'll be a millionare...

Todd.    

Re:0

Though I haven't heard much of the others, I have heard some of John Cage's 
stuff, and it ain't really toe-tapping material.  He's a good "experimental" 
composer, but his purpose is not to make something that sounds good - his 
purpose is sort of to "go where no man has gone before" and not to find a nice 
cozy little place for self-expression.  

The guys turning out garbage on the airwaves do it for a different reason.  
They know it's garbage, but it's garbage that SELLS!  They compose/play garbage 
because they're out to make a buck.  

Most of us synth buffs fit into a totally different category.  To paraphrase 
Ned Rorem, I write music because nobody else writes what I want to hear.  I 
like to compose and I find most classical instruments (and my ability to move 
my fingers) to be very limiting to my compositions.  What I hear cannot always 
be realized by classical instruments, and I usually find myself banging 
into the limits of classical instruments pretty early on.  I can't play piano,
but I can write for it, and I'm told the stuff I write often sound good, but
is hard to play.  Other composers run into the same problem.  As an example, 
listen to some of John Williams stuff, and you'll hear competent musicians 
really struggling to keep up with the score.  Every instrument has limitations.
I feel that from a composition point of view, synths are not as limited.  

My compositions don't sell.  They are only slightly "experimental" in that I 
write stuff that I haven't heard before, except in my head.  I compose because 
something inside tells me I HAVE to.  And, I use classical instruments when I 
can afford them and when they have flexibility that approximates what's in my 
head. But, usually they are expensive, very limited, and poor approximations.  
So, I use synthesizers because I HAVE to.  They are flexible, cheap and I can 
finally hear with my ears the stuff that's in my head.

Steve

Whenever a new technology comes about, it gets abused.  The solution is to
not listen to Current Music stations so that you are not oversaturated and
can judge new material and technology in some sort of context.  This does not
mean you ignore anything new until it's two years old, but it's easy to get
wrapped up in JUST new things.  When that happens, you lose both roots and
perspective.

I am sick of the abuse of modern technology.  But then, a few years ago I was
sick of the abuse of whammy bars.  Now I can listen to the tasteful use of
whammies without getting nauseous.  Because it no longer brings to mind all
those other DIS-tasteful uses of the same device.

Until I stopped listening to Current Music stations when my original car stereo
got ripped off two-and-a-half years ago, I had gotten so sick of British synth-
pop that I never wanted to hear another synthesiser as long as I lived.  Every
time I heard a synthesiser it reminded me of those droning Human League albums.
I haven't heard the League in several years (although I hear they have an
absolutely DREADFUL new LP out), and can thus once again appreciate Depeche
Mode.

DM are the true masters of sampling.  Alan Wilder has been pushing forward
with every piece of technology the group picks up.  Rather than attempt to
describe what they do with the technology, I suggest people listen to some
of their material; particularly "Everything Counts", "Blasphemous Rumours"
and "Stripped" (one each from the past three LP's).

So, I may sell my synth but I'm NOT selling my sampler!  Sampling brings
forth the dream of using one existing instrument as an interface for another
existing instrument or for an entirely new sound.

As Tom mentioned, though, the "interrupt-driven" nature of sampling is
definitely a problem.  This is more a function of the type of sampler than
sampling itself, though.  DM uses an Oberheim sampler (I assumed it was an
Ensoniq Mirage; guess I had better alter my buying plans).  Mine is a Korg,
but is really a digital delay and I haven't used the sampler portion yet.

I was listening to some Miles Davis "Bitches Brew" era stuff last night, and
was amazed that the reason I hate it isn't because of the electronic gimmickry
but because of Ron Carter's playing.  Sometimes my favourite bassist, he can
just as often be my most hated.  He has this horrible tendancy sometimes to
slide his fingers up and down the bass or to introduce way too much vibrato
into his tone.  Now, an electric P-bass wouldn't have caused quite so much
listener fatigue on those albums...or even a funky deep-bass synth or organ
part...


				Mark

 Funny, I was just thinking about the same stuff over the weekend.
Every time a new technology is developed, its first use is to mimic
an old technology. When the printing press was invented the first
typefaces imitated hand lettering. Early machine-made watches have
hand engraving on their works to make them look hand-made. Early
television was heavily populated with warmed-over radio shows. The
first cars looked like horse-drawn buggies; the first steam ships
looked like sailing ships; the first trains looked like stagecoaches. Now
we have synthesizers, and it seems the principal goal is to imitate
"real" instruments; witness the concern about "will live musicians
become obsolete?"
 Imitating old technology is a routine phase in the history of any 
new technology. "Switched-On Bach" somehow made synthesizers legitimate
in the minds of many critics - "Hey, listen! Actual music from a 
synthesizer!" The question seemed to be,"What can synthesizers do that
real musical instruments can do?" Wrong question, of course. What can
synthesizers do that "real" instruments CAN'T do? Making a box of wires
sound like a piano is useful for those of us who can't afford or don't
have space for a real piano, but it doesn't make for musical progress.

 I don't have a lot of suggestions about what the next phase ought to look
like. Different scales, different temperaments? Are scales necessary?
Is a keyboard the best way to control an instrument? What is Truth? Why
are we here? 
 Hey, don't ask me; I'm no expert. 
    
    -John

    Well.. those damn piano strings all oscillate alike...
    
    As with computers, bringing them down to the human-usable level
    requires absolute system mastery...
    
    The E-Mu samplers (Emulator & E-Max) have something called 'variable
    LFO'.. each of the 8/16 output voices can have its own randomly
    -within limits LFO value, which can vary ANY programmable parameter,
    like volume, pitch, panning, and various analog filters. This is
    why the Emulator is so popular with film scorers.. I guarantee we
    ALL have heard Emulator-generated 'acoustic' instruments without
    identifying them as 'samples'.
    
    As for the philosophical question 'should electronic instruments
    mimic acoustic ones', no, not me. All I know is that synthesizers
    sound, well, synthetic.
    
    karl moeller, possibly back permanently    

>    The E-Mu samplers (Emulator & E-Max) have something called 'variable
>    LFO'.. each of the 8/16 output voices can have its own randomly
>    -within limits LFO value, which can vary ANY programmable parameter,
>    like volume, pitch, panning, and various analog filters. This is

I think that this is the future of electronic music.  I feel that controlled
random inaccuracies injected into drum machines (volume, tempo, timbre 
[multi-sample?], pitch) and synthesizers (pitch, timbre, volume) are
going to be a big part of affordable technology (~1K) in the future.

Does this mean that we are trying to emulate old technology (human generated 
music) with new technology (computer generated music) as described in -.n?

Yup...

Todd.

    
    	All we have to do is to teach the acoustic players to sound
    like the samples.
    				,km

    
    When I play, I inject controlled random inaccuracies (CRI?).
    
    And I thought years of practice were meant to avoid that!
    
    CRI, I like that.
    
    Come to think about it, I write software similarly.    
    
    Lotsa CRI.
    

>  Figure out a way to turn radioactive waste into music and you'll be a
millionaire...  <


They already have, Todd.  They call it "Rock."



Hey, just kidding, Guys!


Leave it to Tom Janzen to come up with a note called "Abandon Your
Synthesizers!"   I do have to agree with him for the most part, though.
 
Know what's wrong with electronic sound?  It's insincere!  Noise transients and
the like which make acoustical sounds so interesting are a result of the honest
imperfections and limitations of natural instruments.  Since electronic sounds
are free of such imperfections, all manner of sonic events have to be injected
to make the sounds interesting to us.  The result is like drawing a beautymark
on a woman's face.  You get the same effect, but hate the contrivance at the
same time.  Is that what's wrong with electronic music today? 


John M.   

    
    	One aspect of real instruments that synthesis fails to account
    for is the spatial effects. A standup bass is a good example. In
    being a real instrument, it radiates sound in all directions, and
    a polar plot of it's output frequency spectrum could be made. How
    you would account for that in a attempt to syntheticly reproduce
    it's sound is beyond the scope of all synthesizers available today.
    
    	I imagine non-keyboard interfaces of the future would resemble
    [whatever that "thing" was that_didnt_catch_on the music stores
    *all* had by a couple of years ago - DEVO used one, I believe].
    Interfaces will be artificially intelligent, with the user being
    able to use as much or as little of that facility as he/she wanted.
    Also, they will be able to monitor the not yet approached aspects
    of the player - things like heart rate and general tension - and
    derive controlling outputs from these. Perhaps something will spin
    off from fighter plane technology and you'll wear these glasses,
    calling up different scores from computer memory, just by looking
    at different parts of the CRT screen.
    
    	Joe Jas
    

>    	One aspect of real instruments that synthesis fails to account
>    for is the spatial effects. A standup bass is a good example. In
>    being a real instrument, it radiates sound in all directions, and
>    a polar plot of it's output frequency spectrum could be made. How
>    you would account for that in a attempt to syntheticly reproduce
>    it's sound is beyond the scope of all synthesizers available today.
    
This is a good point, and brings up the following question: "Should we
be comparing synthesized sounds with genuine acoustic sounds, or should
we be comparing recorded synthesized sounds with recorded acoustic sounds".

99.9% of us could tell a stand-alone real piano from a digital piano played 
through an amp and speakers, but a much lesser percentage could tell a 
*recording* of an acoustic piano and a *recording* of a digital piano apart.

Comments?

Todd.

    I wish people would stop "comparing" synthesized sounds with "genuine"
    acoustic sounds.  Electronically synthesized sounds are no less
    genuine.  It's just a different way of producing sounds.  For a
    lot of users, it's a cheap way to get sounds from instruments they
    can't play themselves or can't afford to hire somebody to play for
    them.  Just because a lot of people use these instruments this way
    doesn't mean they're (the instruments) somehow inherently inferior,
    or soulless, or all kinds of other judgmental bs.  They're just
    different.  There are sounds that I can get out of my Super Jupiter
    that simply cannot be generated acoustically.  I can make "warm"
    sounds, I can make "cold" sounds, I can make "boring" (i.e., static)
    sounds, I can make interesting (i.e., dynamic and nonrepetitive)
    sounds.  BFD.  This argument sounds like the tubes vs. transistor
    debate that amplifier freaks have been wrapped up in for years.
    
    Who cares how close the sound comes to a "real" instrument?  Does
    it serve the needs of the music?  Of the listener?  Do two "real"
    pianos made by two different manufacturers sound "the same"?  Should
    we take our "real" brass instruments and bash the tubing to make
    the sound more "interesting"?  Don't "real" instrument makers
    strive for some notion of perfection?  How much imperfection is
    enough?  How much "perfection" is too much?  Have all possible
    "interesting" sounds already been invented by "real" instrument
    makers?  Should electric guitars sound like acoustic guitars?
    
    People will always resist technology.  People will also always
    misuse technology.  People will always feel threatened by technology.
    Life is easier if nothing changes.  "Life is change, that's how
    we differ from the rocks". (Jefferson Airplane)
    
    The issue is not the instruments, but how people use them.

    len.
    

     I read a wonderful small-press book of poetry once about the
    life of rocks. They perceive things much differently than we do,
    because their time scale is so much longer and slower. They don't
    notice people at all, they're so transient.
    
    -John

I'm not ready to abandon my synthesizer yet. Others, e.g. Michael Jackson,
may have gone as far as they can with their current synthesis techniques,
but not me. Some of the modern electronic techniques may now be common as
dirt (e.g FM synthesis via DX-7), but that doesn't mean they are well
explored, and it ignores many other developments (e.g. digital signal
processing) that are virtually untouched.

I agree that those who work for radical expression must abandon the common
synthesis techniques and pedestrian effects. But I can't agree that
electronics are no longer a useful way to create sounds.

The vast majority of synthesizer players (users?) are merely making the same
old music with a new instrument. Experimental musicians a free to make new
music using any available tool that does the job. Synthesizers definitely
belong in this category.  As do shawms, serpents, sackbuts and tambours.

But even experimental musicians depend on the existence of an infrastructure
of known technology from which to work. One can't, with every new piece,
invent everything from scratch.  

Don

    
    Whew, Len what excellent points (.14).
    
    Lets stop the comparison and consider instruments in their
    own unique sound domain. An electric guitar can be critisized
    all day for not sounding like an acoustic, and I bet it was.
    Was the "new" piano-forte was similarly treated for not
    sounding like a clavicord (or harpsicord)?. Probably. The
    point is that they offered 'new' sound possibilities.
    Each is in itself was a new instrument only resembling
    it's predecessor so that it could *be played* in its
    new sound domain. 

    I think we (humans) have recently gotten caught up in comparing
    Synths and/or samplers to acoustic instruments as a way to 
    judge the "quality" of the synth because we have no other
    standard(s)!. 
    
    The "wow_great_piano_voice" syndrome. What is concerning is
    that this limits the sound domain of the synth to only those
    currently in the acoustic realm. A sad trend. 
    
    Imagine some future synth that DID reproduce EXACTLY all or
    many acoustic counterparts. The only "big deal" is getting them
    all in one little box. I hope we get there soon, so that
    having finally *matched* our standard, we can concentrate
    other ways of producing and controlling additional "sounds".
        
    ron 

    
    	Ever noticed how 'special effect' has crept into pop jargon
    to explain anything that doesn't sound like a 'normal' instrument?
    
	By this definition, most of the classical electronic music of
    the 50's and 60's can be hand-waved away as 'just a bunch of special
    effects'.  Why, it must have been the primitive technology that
    caused it to sound like that. Why, if only they had the technology
    we have, they would have written pop songs in E major on sampled
    pianos; you know, *real* music.
    
    							- Karl

    I can't help but get intellectual for a minute.

    What is the purpose of creating music?  What is the purpose of
    listening to music?  To learn?  To get inspired?  To critique? Perhaps,
    but certainly the most prevalent reason is (in my case) for pleasure. 

    I generally listen to music because I LIKE the way it sounds.  I do not
    listen to music that I do not like.  The music I write, I normally
    enjoy.  I usually do not write something I do not like.  Why?  Because
    it is not *pleasurable* to me, be it auditorially or whatever.
    Therefore, enjoyment must have something to do with it all. 

    If I *like* to listen to a DX-7 Rhodes, where does someone else get off
    telling me that it's boring?  I personally think John Cage is *BORING*
    (that's right - boring) - but that does not detract from his
    compositional prowess or color my opinion of those who happen to enjoy
    his music.  It simply means that *I* do not find listening to his music
    a *pleasurable* experience.

    If that makes me a musical illiterate, so be it.  I would just as soon
    be happy listening to things I enjoy (being both illiterate and cliche)
    as be miserable listening to things I do not enjoy (being intellectual
    and avant garde).

    What's the big fuss?


8^)

Well, this is one little topic that really took off!


I still maintain, as I did in .10, that a big problem with electronic sounds
is their insincerity. To a large extent, electronic sounds can be boring
because they lack noise/intermodulation/what-have-you transients that occur
when natural instruments are plucked, or struck, or blown on.  Our ear-brains
have evolved in a way that expects to hear these imperfections, because
EVERY sound in nature has them.  Orchestral instruments are no exception.

The synthesizer represents a complete DEPARTURE from the orchestra. Since
it does not produce sound by excitation, it lacks the transients that make
sounds so interesting to us.  It is not enough to inject "random variations"
into a sound; natural instruments do not produce transients at random!
Therefor, the good synthesist must *invent* reasons for his sonic events.
This isn't easy to do, and few synthesizer players are willing to go that
far, but the good ones (read, "W. Carlos) do.

Nothing is more dangerous than a keyboard in the hands of a hack synthesist.


Is this getting too esoteric?  I need a name for this theory.

John M.

    Give me a break, John.  I find synthesizers through various effects
    very 'interesting'.  They sound different than sounds in nature
    and that's one of the reasons I like them.  When I first started
    getting into music, I loved synthesizer textures create by Yes,
    ELP, Pink Floyd, etc.
    
    You're trying to back your personal bias with some quasi-scientific
    explanation.  If natural sounds are so much more 'interesting' than
    synthetic sounds, how come recordings with synthesizers out sell
    those with strictly 'natural' sounds by the millions?  The public
    certainly finds them interesting.
    
    Dave
    

    
    
    This whole argument reflects an article I read in a new Free (yes
    Free) English music mag. This article relates the differnce between
    a Muso ( he who quotes scientifically about the likes of others
    and and tells them what sort of music they ought to like) and a
    Musician ( he who gets up and plays and enjoys it ) and Lo and behold
    which is it that the listening public takes to.
    
    I think (personal view here folks) that the whole argument stinks.
    Who's going to tell me what I should or shouldn't enjoy ? Not you
    Muso's.
    
    If I really like and enjoy that DX patch that a certain band used
    last year why shouldn't I try and emulate it, hackney'd thought it
    may be. I seem to remember wanting to sound just like Paul McCartney
    to.
    
    			Paul.

    RE: Lunch.....
    
    The context of the conversation was if a pianist could replace a
    piano with an MKS-20....I didn't think so...
    
    comparisons aside...I like the MKS-20...and synths....so there...
    dave :-)

Well, be you a musician or a muso who uses or toys with synthesizers (I happen
to be both), I think we all disagree with the slogan "Abandon Your 
Synthesizers" just by the sheer fact that we all participate in this file.

Ok Mr. Janzen, I suppose we can expect to see a topic in the parenting note 
file called "Abandon Your Children"...

Todd.

I am now donning asbestos...

RE: .21
    
>   You're trying to back your personal bias with some quasi-scientific
    explanation.  If natural sounds are so much more 'interesting' than
    synthetic sounds, how come recordings with synthesizers out sell
    those with strictly 'natural' sounds by the millions?  The public
    certainly finds them interesting.   <
    
  
Dave, Dave, Dave.  You must be kidding.  Recordings with synthesizers out
sell acoustical realizations because rock musicians use synthesizers and
most records sold are of the "rock" variety.  Period.  If every rock musician
threw away his synthesizers today, do you think rock records would drop
behind classical in sales?

Rock music producers generally aim for the lowest common denominator.  That's
what sells records (as they say, it's called "The music BUSINESS," not "The
music ART.")  Your typical rock audience could give a damn about *what*
they hear, so long as it has a beat.  Do you think Joe Rock cares if the
drummer is a robot, or that those "big band bursts" are done on a sampling
synth, or that the electric piano which he's heard 200 times that day
is a DX7?  The public is interested in whatever they're served; serve 'em
a diet of garbage and they'll eat it con mucho gusto.


RE: .22

>   I think (personal view here folks) that the whole argument stinks.
    Who's going to tell me what I should or shouldn't enjoy ? Not you
    Muso's.  <


This whole argument is not about what people should or should not enjoy, but
about how we can refine and better the medium.  Wonderbread is OK once in
awhile, but should we strive to make a steady diet of it?  If some people want
to dwell in a prison of musical atrophy, then let them if that's what kicks
their lantern over.  But we shouldn't expect EVERYONE to follow suit. Imagine
what would have happened if the Esterhausys (sp?) or the Duke of Brandenburg
had been satisfied with shlock.  But they weren't, and we have volumes of
beautiful classical music because of it. 


>   If I really like and enjoy that DX patch that a certain band used
    last year why shouldn't I try and emulate it, hackney'd thought it
    may be. I seem to remember wanting to sound just like Paul McCartney
    to.   <


Go ahead and emulate it, but be advised that everyone and his bushbaby is
probably doing the same thing.  BE ORIGINAL AND GROW!  I know from our
correspondence that you are a skilled electronic musician, and I'd quack
like a duck if I thought that your goal was to sound like Paul McCartney.

Guys, all I'm saying is that we should strive to refine the medium, and
we don't do this by following the bitch-goddess of public consumption. 
Synthesists *must* take into account physiology, psychology, history, and
physics in the pursuit of excellence.  If not, then music is in for a long,
cold winter.

John M.
    
    		
    

Re: .25

    First off, no flames are contained herein, so get rid of your asbestos
    suit.

    John, I appreciate what you and Tom (and a few others) are trying to
    say - but I also understand Mr. Dave and Paul.  Not everyone is going
    to be original - not everyone is going to create their own sounds or
    style; I daresay that most will simply use the tools that exist (be
    they patches, synths, riffs, or whatever) to get their sounds.

    Hey, I use VMS, and do a darn good job of it.  I use it exclusively as
    a matter of fact.  Does it make me a moron because I don't rewrite the
    operating system every time I need to develop a piece of software?  I
    don't think so.  (It would, however, make me quite stupid if I tried
    to "program" everything using Datatrieve.)

    You can measure the talent of a synth programmer by the originality and
    quality of his programs.  You can measure a musician by the way in
    which he puts together tools (which might include output from the
    programmer) to make an enjoyable tune.

    Almost all rock tunes use guitars.  Why not a note entitled "Abandon
    Your Guitars!"??  A great deal of classical music incorporates piano.
    Why not a note entitled "Abandon Your Pianos!"??  Who says that playing
    stuff that the general public enjoys is selling out?  Come on, John, do
    you REALLY believe that EVERYONE is using the SAME sounds and the SAME
    samples?  I'd really like to know.  If so, what do you think can be
    done to change things?  What would YOU do?  (And don't tell me that
    you'd abandon your synthesizers...  8-) 


8^)

	Argggg! We are missing something here. We are starting
	to use extremely simplified analogies. Points:

	IDIOM:  All music has a certain idiom or classification.
		We struggle to *classify* in order to associate
		and maintain relational "storage" mechanisms.

	ALL MUSIC (COMPOSITION) FITS INTO A CERTAIN IDIOM:

		If you cant classify a tune in *relation* to
		others, you *still* classify it. Play someone
		a tune, ask them what 'style' it is, and see.
		They will classify in terms of existing classes
		or invent a hybrid.
	
	THE COMPOSER AND NOT INSTRUMENTS CREATE THE IDIOM:

		Instruments are only musical tools. The tool user
		produces the music (or noise) which we THEN try to
		classify in terms of "good or not-good". 

	PERCEPTION OF "GOOD" MUSIC IS SUBJECTIVE.

		The metric for measuring "good" is not agreed upon.
		A measure of "goodness" is also based on *adherence*
		to known idioms.

	THEREFOR:

		Composers, not instruments, are responsible for
		stimuli, that *we* classify on a scale of "goodness"

	whew. Ron
 
    

    There have been many hundreds of musical instruments invented, played,
    and "abandoned" in the last 500 years.  I am sure our synthesizers
    will join their ranks eventually.  I have this vision:
    
    Somewhere in the year 2086, a troupe of waistcoated musicians, their
    wigs powdered and cheeks rouged, enter a stage, to polite applause,
    sit down at a variety of antique DX7's, Prophet-5's, and Jupiters
    to play 1900's music. "Isn't it quaint", dowagers smile. "They really
    were quite clever in the old days" everybody agrees, "considering
    the fact they only had VLSI to work with."
    
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, shuffles off
    to boogie in Bethlehem ?
    
    David
    

    re.  -1 -2 -3  et al
    
    But can you dance to it and does it get you right there ?
    
    				

    I listened to a boatload of  "hit radio" this weekend.  Wanted to prove
    to myself once and for all that these guys were all wet. 

    Well, I think they have a valid point.  If I hear one more DX7 "Rhodes"
    or sampled "chorus", I think I'll gag. 


8^( _the_humiliated

I popped into a local music store the other day and got into a discussion
with one of the salesmen on the state of digital synths. (This guy was
perfect--knowledgeable, friendly, and couldn't be LESS pushy!)  He was the
only one in the store when I walked in, so I asked him what it was he was
working on.  Apparently, he was in the process of programming all of the
various digital synths to emulate the Yamaha DX7 piano sound.  "It's the
only thing the customers want to hear," he said.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRG!!


John M.

 Electronic instruments are still young. None is as yet a member in 
good standing of the symphony orchestra. There has been a conservatism
not only in the orchestra but in the instruments themselves.

 One or two interesting instruments have enabled the performer to seem
to evoke and change musical tone with a mere wave of the hand, but by and
large, so far as the performer is concerned, present electronic instruments
call for the same kinds of manipulations as acoustic instruments - keyboards,
pedals, stops, strings to be fingered and bowed or plucked (there are few
electronic instruments to blow like wind instruments, however). And the sounds
which are produced by the new instruments heva been too slavishly related to
the sounds of traditional instruments. More volume, more sustaining power
if the acoustic counterparts involve striking or plucking, control over the
natural and unavoidable percussiveness of almost all our acoustic methods of
setting a vibration going or changing a pitch, a new compactness and
portability in organ-tone or bell-tone instruments - these have been the goals
and the achievements of electronic instruments to date, plus a multiplication
of the variety of sounds whicah any two hands or ten fingers can produce
and a certain intermingling of species, as in pianos which can be themselves
and also imitate violin timbre and clarinet timbre. Between performer and 
the ultimate sound, all of course is different, not only the appearance of
the instrument but its physics as well.  Electrostatically, electromagnetically,
or photoelectrically, the sound of vibrating string or column of air may
be changed into electricity or light, amplified, and then changed back into
sound.  Meanwhile, its harmonics have been knocked about, if a change in
timbre was desired, or its duration has been extended. Or there may be no
vibrating string or column, no sound in the first place; the whole process,
from the beginning up to the point at which the end product comes out as sound,
may be electrical. All this is new - the physics, that is - but the result
has been old, the end-product is an imitation. Most unnecessarily so, for 
the sheer mathematical possibilities of the timbres that can be 
produced by electrical tinkering with harmonics are inexhaustible. New
sounds, new timbres, new blends of timbre, a new massed sound - a single
keyboard, perhaps, astonishing us not by its reproduction of the sound of
a symphony orchestra but by its invention of a new "orchestra", whose
sound, both in its individual components and its ensemble, has never been
heard and can therefore not at present be imagined - this is what the
future should hold, though a century of trial and error may be necessary before
the sound is one we want to hear.

********************************************************************************************

 This was written THIRTY YEARS AGO in Grosvenor Cooper's superb book,
"Learning to Listen."  (Mistypings and other logistical fumfers are
solely the responsibility of the submitter.)
 Could have been written today, no?

-John

I was about to say, "I couldn't agree more" until reading the punchline!  Hard 
to believe that was written in 1956!  It just goes to show that the more 
things change, the more they stay the same.  Or perhaps that the breakthroughs 
in synthesis have pretty much just happened in the realm of producing cheap 
consumer goods that open up the market to more people.

Perhaps Yamaha's breath controller is a major step forward?  Although I know 
Eastman School of Music has been heavily involved for years now in alternate 
input to synthesis modules.

				Mark