From Bob Bannister Sent Thu, Dec 31st 1998, 09:02
From Bob Bannister Sent Thu, Dec 31st 1998, 09:02
<Before mass-production, instruments were sold on the basis of custom requirements of the musician... By contrast, the output from and design of the mass-produced, MIDI-based instrument is dependent less on the requirements of the user/musician than on the whims of the programmer/music industry.> This is not wrong but skips much of the 20th century - as soon as art and instrument manufacture entered the age of mechanical reproduction (and one can only wish Mille Plateaux had been unpretentious enough to do a tribute to Walter Benjamin instead of the impenetrable Deleuze) this change took place - well in advance of MIDI anything - I don't know whether any of us can really grasp how music was experienced before any kind of phonographic reproduction or broadcast existed. <The design of the instrument was determined solely by the mechanical sound qualities demanded by the user/musician.> But the demands of the musician were and are conditioned by the demands of his or her patron/audience/peers. To use your own superlative, "with very, very few exceptions" are the "qualities demanded by the user/musician" independent of these constraints. <Because the musician was playing live to the audience, each performance was a unique, one-time function grounded in the cultural base of the audience, the emotional makeup of the musician, and the time and surroundings in which both the artist and audience interacted.> Every variable you mention is no less true now than 150 years ago - once the one-of-a-kind qualities of the handmade instrument (vinyl record) are fixed (when it's finished being built), the only difference between one and another live performance on that instrument (using that record) is everything you mentioned. <today's user/musician who makes use of electronic instruments restricts himself to the conceptual landscape of the instrument's designer.> Not to be vulgar but, fuck that - I can sound more like me and more accomplished than someone else on on an instrument as crude as a Casio CZ-101 keyboard - "musicianship" (quaint, old-fashioned term, I know, maybe "musicality" is better) can transcend all such limitations. As for "conceptual landscape", all I have to do is plug a keyboard from manufacturer A (or a pawnshop violin of utterly unknown provenance) into distortion/delay foot pedals from manufacturers B and C and I've already created sounds (or at least timbres) that the designers never dreamed of. Currently blowing my mind (maybe change the subject line if you want to comment): Smyglyssna - Dold e.p. (Plug Research) Vapourspace - Sweep - 3 x 12" (knob) plus (you all know about): Jega - Type Xero 12" Highways Over Gardens comp. and big thumbs up to: Robert Merlak - Icepick Tracks (Phthalo 08) That's all for now, Bob Bannister