[linux-audio-user] MDK sound-RPMs troubles / Sound in Slackware?

[Michael Solberg]

> On Tuesday 01 April 2003 19:39, Tim Hall wrote:
> > On Tuesday 01 April 2003 16:15, Rob wrote:
> > > Musicians aren't geeks
> > Since when?
>
> Show me a musician who wants to take the time to patch his kernel and I'll
> show you a musician who isn't getting any gigs.

Gosh.  I normally don't like to perpetuate threads like this, but it's
actually an interesting phenomenon to me, as I'm the system administrator
at a school of music with about four hundred case studies.

As much as I had always thought computers and music went hand in hand,
there doesn't seem to be much of a hard and fast rule about this.  (I
guess it's silly to expect a stereotype, no matter how benign, to be
true.)

For example, the prof who teaches electronic music is a Macintosh guru.
He runs his own OSX web and streaming servers, and can get his way around
on the command line just fine.  He writes crazy MAX patches that interface
with video, sound, and lighting.  He's set up streaming video conference
classes with instructors in South America.  However, he often remarks how
he feels that technology gets in the way of his composing, and that he can
really only focus on one at a time.

One of my most savvy users placed 2nd in the Tchaikovsky competition and
frequently tours the world giving concerts. But, I also have a number of
world travelers who can't open a document without double clicking on it.

What I've generally found is that everyone knows how to do exactly what
they need to know how to do (i.e. the guy who has the Jazz radio show can
run circles around me in ProTools and DigiPerformer, the staff member who
does up the programs kicks my ass in PageMaker, most of the students
here can rip and burn six or seven CDs at a time), and very few go much
beyond that.  But - if what they need to know how to do is generate CSound
files with Perl scripts, they sit down with a book or come to my office
and learn it.

I've only given one "howto" presentation here to the faculty in the last
year, because that one presentation generated about a month's worth of one
on one training with faculty who were ecstatic to try something new with
computers.

So - I don't know.  I'd bet if a faculty member needed to use Linux to
make some noise (like I do), they'd probably take the time to learn how to
use Linux, just like my faculty are taking the time to learn how to switch
from OS9 to OSX.  It's gotten to a point now where it's not uncommon for
me to walk in to help a client and they've got one or two terminals open,
just trying to fix the problem the (new) old fashioned way.

Mike.


> Rob
>

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Michael Solberg
Computer Services Specialist IV
The University of Georgia School of Music
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