Re: [LAU] OT: talent and craftsmanship [was: Re: OT: Dub Fx]

On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 2:42 AM, Atte André Jensen <atte.jensen(a)gmail.com> wrote: i'm not referring to software at all. i'm talking about the hardware interfaces used to control the sounds that software is used to make. i'm also not talking about genres. i'm talking about the difference between the experience of playing an instrument with an effective "sensor sampling rate" that is the same as the audio sample rate, and has a dozen or more parameters than can be controlled (almost) simultaneously by a skilled player. for the purposes of the criticism i'm making, whether you use these things to create hard bop, deep ambient, world fusion, scandanavian extensions to bill evans' conception of jazz, the entire ECM ouvre, early baroque, indo-rock syntheses (all of which i listen to regularly) or hard core techno, country&western, chart-topping pop, french chanson or any variety of metal (all of which i do not) is as irrelevant as the software used. again, what eno said: a good instrument has qualities that the body can learn and the mind cannot. a bank of knobs and buttons does not meet this standard, at least not easily. i think i've also noted before that there are categories of music that are not "performed" at all, just composed (e.g. CSound, or more generally most "electro-acoustic" pieces).