16 Dec
2002
16 Dec
'02
11:59 p.m.
17/12/02 02:59, David Olofson wrote:
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.
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.
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.
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.) 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. 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.