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[microsound] Re: poverty



First, I buy almost all of these cheap electronics USED. They are cheap
because they are obsolete. They may not have been cheap originally.

Right. But then you can hardly go cite the price of a top of the line violin as a reason why acoustic instruments are elitist.
But I don't think that quite what you were saying.
Sure, the violin is associated with an aristocratic tradition, but it knows nothing of that. Poor people can just as easily make music on any instrument, whether it's a cheap fiddle or a cheap casio. And those people privileged with time and money can make "better" music, according to a certain standard, whether it is on a violin and years of training, or a G5 and extensive DSP knowledge. Or, one of the worst culprits in my opinion, the ridiculous formalism of modern recording, where vague terms such as "warm" and "punchy" are code words for "the sound you get from an insanely expensive compressor with World War II radio knobs on it".


Second, the developed world - and here I can only speak from experience
of the United States - has quite a few of those truly destitute people.
I see so many homeless people everyday here in Chicago, it's quite sad
really. And if you go into the worse off urban areas things are really
bad. Average working people are still exploited in the United States,
regardless of a somewhat better lifestyle, and wages have generally been
decreasing over the last few years [...]

Quite right. I sometimes forget about the scary 'other' third world growing in the heart of the biggest cities. I often tend to take analogies too far. It just seems to me sometimes that we are not as far from feudalism as we are often taught.


As soon as I get off work, I'm going to play my lovely DX-21 with three
broken keys (luckily only at the extreme registers) thought I bought for
$100.
~David

And I will play my $30 ukulele :)

Galen


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