[LAU] Chris McCormick

[david]

thomas fisher wrote:
> On Thursday 23 August 2007 03:05:33 david wrote:
>> Ken Restivo wrote:
>>> I continue to be amazed by the lengths that we-all electronic
>>> musicians go thorugh, in terms of painstaking sequencing and editing,
>>> or long hours of programming and algorithm tweaking, in order to
>>> approximate the things that a well-rehearsed band does when
>>> performing in real time.
>> That's because digital control interfaces aren't as rich as analog
>> control interfaces. Compare the expressiveness of a good violinist
>> playing a real violin vs a synthesized violin played through a MIDI
>> keyboard.
> 
>   Possibly the price of exploring new spaces? It seems to me a different 
> interface is needed. A input dynamic device sensitive to the needs of the 
> application. Those who are aware of what a "Wacom" is to the digital graphics 
> arts. The Wacom wand is sensitive to location, pressure, tilt and the driver 
> also incorporates essential mouse functions, Thus the artist is cut free of 
> the limitations of the mouse, and of course providing the application being 
> interfaced to is Wacom smart.

I've used Wacom tablets for over 10 years. Quite delightful, and it 
would be a very new space as far as a music instrument interface goes. 
But it wouldn't work like any of the instruments that humans have 
developed centuries of expertise playing.

I hope someday to have the money for a Theremin. Humans have been 
developing eye-hand control and dexterity for a million+ years - might 
as well play to human strengths!

> My thought is the digital glove which 
> quantitizes the human hand and the applied pressures, It appears that the 
> devices are out of the lab. With the Open Source techno {knows} it could be 
> reality, soon.

A digital glove idea would be interesting, especially if they get to the 
point where you can wear one and play without any feeling that it's 
there, coming between your skin and the instrument.

Then you'd need a "digital bow" to capture the variations in bowing 
speed, angle, pressure and tension of the bow. Then you feed all that 
into a synthesizer able to adjust the synthesized sound appropriately 
(note by note and WITHIN individual notes) - and you have a synthesizer 
that could be as expressive as a violin.

Then we can tackle the process of matching the expressiveness of a 
well-played Blues Harp! ;-)

-- 
David
gnome at hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community