Re: [microsound] Lemur!

[David Powers <dpowers3@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Well...  Playing an instrument is impressive, true, but - is it really
what makes music so amazing?  Isn't that more along the level of
enjoying sports and athletic events?  Personally, I'm more interested in
the way a musical performance SOUNDS than in how much skill was required
to create the music.  I think the fetishization of technique is
problematic, to say the least.

I'd say that technique is just a means to an end, and that the kind of
skills and techniques needed for one project might be total different
from another.  Being a great jazz pianist might not help you create a
brilliant electronic composition, and being a great electronic composer
won't help you play jazz piano.  Each activity should be evaluated on
its own merits.  I play jazz piano, but I'm just as happy twiddling
knobs if that is what the music I'm currently involved in requires.

~David


David Powers
Secretary
DePaul University, School of Education
Department of Leadership in Education, Language, and Human Services
773-325-4806

>>> kevin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 02/08/05 01:07PM >>>

Oh dear God I hope you're kidding, but if you're not, that's a jaw 
dropping statement. I don't see how anyone can consider themselves a 
musician or even a lover of music without being awed at a display of 
mastery over a physical instrument. The amount of minute motor control

honed over decades, synapses working in perfect harmony with 
appendages, the mind performing astronomical calculations on the fly in

order to make horse hair dragging over cat gut sound beautiful? It's 
one of the greatest heights to which a human can aspire. I'm sorry, but

it doesn't take a tenth the skill to twiddle knobs (even if you built 
the box and wrote the software) that it does to master a "dead-ended 
physical instrument".

kp


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