[linux-audio-dev] XAP: a polemic

Pascal Haakmat a.haakmat at chello.nl
Mon Dec 16 23:00:01 UTC 2002


17/12/02 02:59, David Olofson wrote:

> For the exact reason I've suggested once or twice: A musical time 
> aware effects might want to know the length of one beat, or one bar. 
> Why not just allow the user to select "beats" or "bars" instead of 
> "note value" when configuring such a plugin?
>
> If you have integer-only meters, you make it impossible to do exactly 
> that, in the cases where beat or bar sync is most interesting; in 
> polyrythmic compositions. Users will have to resort to telling these 
> plugins about the correct lengths in other, potentially non-obvious 
> and/or inaccurate ways.

Well, I hope you're right.

> > I do not believe that the goal of instrument design should be to
> > accomodate every possible musical expression under the sun.
> 
> No, but we should at least try to cover what we know about, are 
> interested in, and can handle without too much trouble. (And I'm 
> definitely interested in exploring stuff beyond 4/4 and 6/8.)

Of course. If it is really that little trouble, and, say, user
interfaces don't suffer because they can no longer make a particular
assumption, I suppose it is pure gain.

> > A
> > musical instrument is always part of a culture and a history and
> > this defines its use.
> 
> So, you're not supposed to use cutting edge technology, unless you're 
> interested only in traditional western european music?
> 
> That is very discriminating, not only towards other cultures, but 
> also towards those of us who want to experiment and explore things 
> beyond 12tET and simple rhythms.

Discriminating towards other cultures? That is a bit of a stretch
don't you think? Besides, discrimination (distinction) is the essence
of culture.

Of course you're supposed to use cutting edge technology. But, surely
you realize that the desire for (technological) progress in art is
itself firmly rooted in the Western canon? Let's not fool ourselves:
Western musical tradition and Western technology are "where it's at"
at the moment.

Therefore any system or instrument we design, if it is to gain broad
acceptance (which is by no means a given), must first and foremost
address the concerns of "popular" music (for some definition of
popular).

That is not discriminating against other cultures; what is
discriminating is to think that you can reduce hundreds of years of
culture and tradition to a decision about whether to use an int or a
float.

> > It makes little sense to say that the piano is a flawed instrument
> > because it is so closely tied to Western musical values. In fact
> > the opposite is true: the piano is one of the great instruments
> > precisely because it lends itself so well to the expression of
> > Western musical values.
> 
> So what? I sure still want to explore harmonies beyond the 12tET 
> scale. We're not *excluding* anything here; just trying to find the 
> smallest common denominators for *music*, rather than just for most 
> kinds of western european music.

There's obviously nothing wrong with wanting to explore eccentric
scales. Personally I would also prefer to have that option. The
question is whether the added complexity is justified. You seem very
confident that the extra cost is neglible, which is good enough for
me.

[snip]

Pascal.



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