aesthetic and other determinants. I'll let others speak about musical
traditions in other parts of the world. At the core of European
standard practice traditions is a musical score, which includes
information only sufficient to tell you what note to play and for how
long (timbre is limited to choices from a fixed set of instruments);
MIDI hardware and software is note-based (rather than sound based)
and keyboard in its orientation - like the piano, which is a grid of
fixed pitches without anything in between them, and thus highly
quantized. More generally, much (most?) off-the-shelf music software
is constructed around design "features" which are also pretty
determinant aesthetically - loop-based software is designed to
privilege samples and loops. This is great news for opening music
making to anybody in a way that hasn't been the case for a while, but
not great news for people who wish to create on a more in depth
creative plane.
On the flip side, the history of live electronic music has largely
been one of idiosyncratic home-designed instruments, such that a
composition includes composing not only musical contents or other
guides, but also the instrument - hardware and software - for which
there are few standards. There are few traditions to inherit, since
instruments keep changing (unlike, for instance, a violin, which took
its present shape after hundreds of years of development and
performance practice). With the exception of some of the emerging
programming environments, like Max/MSP/Jitter, most of what we have
is oral in tradition and pretty individualistic in practice, with
certain theoretical models and bits of computer code that are passed
along.
- Bob Gluck
--
Robert J. Gluck
Associate Professor of Music and Director, Electronic Music Studios
Affiliate Faculty, Department of Judaic Studies
Associate Director, Publications: Electronic Music Foundation
University at Albany
PAC 312
1400 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12222
518-442-4186
http://www.electricsongs.com
http://www.myspace.com/bobgluck
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/bobgluck
New FMR CD: http://www.electricsongs.com/trio
"Some I know, the cawing crow and three pulsed dove that sounds a coo
nothing like a baby's. Others I cannot name: trill-like-insect
sibilant-song and a gullet-throbbing call forced out by the staccato
notes that follow. It all comes together like a symphony. the passing
cars, notes with flags. counterpoint to the birds." (Susan
Robertson, 'Morning Prayers')
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