Conference napalm::commusic_v1

    "MIDI performance" is not identical to "Entered in step-time".  With
    appropriate new controllers all the same means of expression should be
    possible (or even new ones).  Provided you are equally proficient on
    the new MIDI controller as you are on the real thing; the more
    precisely a MIDI wind-controller captures the "performance" of a sax
    player, the better a sax player you will have to be to use it, or it
    will honk and squeal just like a real one.
    
    This is all assuming that the thing to do with electronic instruments
    is make them sound just like acoustic ones.
    
    Hmm.  New modes of expression.  Accelerometers fastened to your clothes
    to capture "body english"...

    Since virtual instruments allow arbitrary re-scaling of controller
    information, I predict that reflex-level fine motor control will cease
    to be worth years of study.
    
    	Eirikur
    

    Somebody is eventually going to add intelligence to a sequencer that
    adds whatever expression you want.  For example, you can turn on
    portamento now and get some "expression".  But, what if you could do a
    sax "growl" with a macro that could chop up a note into a string of
    note-ons and note-offs.  Or, you could have the sequencer "humanize"
    a synth sequence by automatically delaying the melody line and varying
    the velocity and aftertouch according to what other parts are doing.
    In short, I think that somebody is going to put a lot of expression
    into macros that can be stuffed into sequencers.  Some of it might be
    accessible by footswitches and such.
    
    Steve

    Actually, I think the question Tom raised is a very intereting one.
    
    One of the first things we have to do is get people to use what is
    already there.  From various observations, I think few people
    incorporate things like mod-wheel, pitch-bend, after-touch, etc.
    into their playing.  I supposed it's because the old family spinet
    we all learned on didn't have any of those.
    
    For myself, I just try and listen and WATCH what players do when they
    play real instruments and try and inject that into my keyboard playing.
    
    For example:
    
    1) Vibrato/Trem - watch any guitar, bass, flute, violin, etc. player and
       you'll see that they use vibrato CONSTANTLY as part of their
       expression - at practically EVERY sustained note, virbrato is
       added.
    
       Listen or watch a lot of keyboard players or amateur sequencists
       and you'll see solos with violin sounds with almost no vibrato.
    
    2) Watch any good Hammond player and you'll see them constantly changing
       the leslie effect.  Watch a synth player playing a hammond patch
       and you almost never see them go to the mod wheel.  Most of the
       organ patches I've been able to get my hands on have AWFUL mod
       wheel effects even though with only a little diddling, you can
       get something very "Leslie like".
    
    3) Watch any horn soloist, many guitarists, etc and you'll see that
       many phrases are ended with a fall off.  Watch any keyboard player
       doing a horn solo on his synth and you almost never hear a fall-off
       even though it's really an easy technique with the mod-wheel
       (or a certain wonderful Proteus patch).
    
    4) Listen to any string section and you hear swells and stuff.  This
       is easily done with after-touch but I don't think most people
       bother.
    
       Although I must say that a lot of players DO use after-touch.  I
       wonder if they don't have the same observation that I have which
       is that even when we played on our pianos we used pressure as
       a form of getting "into it" even if the piano doesn't respond to it.
    
       I know that whereas it took me a while to incorporate the various
       wheels and pedal controlled modulation, after-touch I didn't even
       have to think about - I've always done it.
    
    5) Bends, slurs, etc
    
    These days I try to very be very conscious about using modulation to
    get expression out of a synth.  I've found on a couple of pieces that
    my band was doing, just turning up the Leslie on the choruses can
    really kick the rest of the band off a bit and bring the energy up.
    
    So I try and use some form of modulation in nearly all the things I
    do on my synth.

	MHO - the virtuosity that is developed by performers on
	conventional instruments is a function of several factors:

	1. limitations of the particular instrument. Violin players
	   do not expect to be able to handle pieces of saxophone
	   repertiore and generally don't even try. Expression on the
	   instrument is confined to a set of instrument-specific
	   techniques used in a context which includes among other
	   things the history of use.

	2. The similarity of instruments. Violins and guitars, oboes
	   and trumpets - each class of the older instruments have a
	   strong similarity between different instruments of the same
	   type. When I go to buy an electric guitar, there may be
	   a great variety of intruments to choose from but they all
	   have roughly the same `human interface' if you will. Players
	   of conventional instruments can have several individual
	   axes but there is no big head switch when they put down one
	   and pick up another. I have a gibson, a rickenbacker and a
	   fender and they all do the same things when I touch similar
	   parts.

	3. Keyboards are very mechanical and keyboard virtuosity is
	   very difficult and very rare. Keyboards do not lend themselves
	   well to many of the types of emotive expression available on
	   string, wind or other percussion instruments.

	Now for the real scoop. I suspect that the true MIDI virtuosi
	in 10 years are likely to have not changed instruments very
	often and may be using controllers which do not have the same
	limitations as a keyboard.

	Check out "Thunder" reviewed in the most recent issue of EM.
	

    Just to be piciune:
    >
    >            <<< Note 2405.6 by SMURF::BENNETT "Be Bay Be" >>>
>	1. limitations of the particular instrument. Violin players
>	   do not expect to be able to handle pieces of saxophone
>	   repertiore and generally don't even try. 
    Isn't jazz violin making a comeback?  Like in the Molly Dodd theme?
>	3. Keyboards are very mechanical and keyboard virtuosity is
>	   very difficult and very rare.
    Piano is common, virtuousity is common; it's just that the diagnostics
    engineer in the next office never mentioned that she was 83rd in a 70's
    Tchaikovsky competition.  I mean it.  Those classical people, including
    ex-pro orchestral and studio musicians, don't
    correspond in here or in music notes, so they're kind of invisible to
    us.
>
>	Now for the real scoop. I suspect that the true MIDI virtuosi
>	in 10 years are likely to have not changed instruments very
>	often and may be using controllers which do not have the same
>	limitations as a keyboard.
    That's not a scoop; we know that virtuousity comes from staying with an
    instrument, but the only instrument with stability is a keyboard.
    
    Tom

    Hmmm...   I question whether MIDI can truly address the whole
    "expressivity" issue raised in .0 I've always been a "right handed"
    keyboard player with a heavy left hand on the modulation section (a
    true Roger Powell devotee!)  Consiquently, I tend to run out of
    bandwidth and memory pretty quickly.
    
    My other beef is not related to MIDI so much as modern synthesizers.
    Once analog modules became history, programmability hit an all time
    low. The beauty of the old modular analogs was the fact that you could
    route the control voltages and signals all over the place.  I suppose
    you could come up with some really interesting applications of the
    system exclusive MIDI controls, but no one really has so far...
    
    The expressivity issue is one of control.  More control breeds greater
    expressivity.  If we continue to be hindered by synthesizers that are
    designed for synthesizer illiterates, and by MIDI implementations that
    do not take advantage of the system exclusive extensions available,
    there will never be more expressive electronic music.
    
    "All MIDI has done is empower a new generation of DreckMeisters"
                                                        -Todd Rundgren
    
    -Ed
    

                                                             
    Can anyone give a short synopsis of the Thunder controller?  
    
    	-Bill
    

    re .-n (for some value of n)
    
    Anything that can be done in real time can be done in step time, it just
    takes longer.  And it also sounds the same every time you play it, a
    liability or asset depending on your values, which may be context
    sensitive.
    
    Agreed, the MIDI protocol as currently defined does not adequately
    address the requirements of real time expression (even if originated/
    programmed in step time), from either the bandwidth or encoding
    perspective, but we had to start somewhere.  Once upon a time people
    thought 64KB was a lot of memory and 16 bits an adequate address space.
    Machines with 16 bit address spaces made it possible (necessary?) for
    us to understand what was really necessary.  So too with MIDI V1.
    
    re .9 - the thunder controller consists of very large masses of charged
    water droplets.  When the potential difference between two regions
    exceeds the breakdown voltage of humid air, a charge transfer occurs.
    The resulting plasma generation produces an audio side effect.  The
    challenge in playing this instrument consists of suitably manipulating
    the charged masses of water droplets (sometimes called "clouds") to
    produce the desired expressive effect.
    
    ;^)
    
    len.
    

    
    Dare I disagree with Len? sure. 
    
    The ear/brain connection is only 'so' sensitive (in timing resolution
    arena, which is where we are playing). Lets start simply:
    
    Say I perform 'music' on a controller. Assuming this controller can
    'sense' n number of nuance (<=127 is probably enuf, eh?) , and say
     the recorder can capture the performance (notes, pitch deviation, 
    duration and start time, etc. etc. like any $800 sequencer)....
    
    then I'd have a good chance winning bets that even a well trained ear
    could not distinguish that PERFORMANCE from another difference when
    'played back'.
    
    This is not a midi bandwidth problem. NOR is it lack of a 'nuance'
    capture mechanism in midi protocol. 
    
    EXCEPT: Most of what is being addressed here involves a MAPPING problem
    of controller nuance to SGU (look it up) capability.  And THIS problem
    is usually best understood as: (ex.) "trying to play a saxophone from
    a piano keyboard".
    
    There is nothing in midi that restricts the controller to a piano
    action. There is no problem generating information OR capturing that
    information. The problem is the SGU interpretation of that information.
    
    Ok. Have at me Len. 
    eek partner disconnect!!!
    
    

                      <<< Note 2405.8 by FORTSC::CHABAN >>>
    "All MIDI has done is empower a new generation of DreckMeisters"
                                                        -Todd Rundgren
    "Consider the source"
              -Karl Moeller
    
    In ten years ?  We'll see the same instrument interfaces as we do
    today, plus a few more.  MIDI will have evolved into a true LAN.
    Gear will be available for nothing, as countless thousands discover
    that their family and friends aren't willing to listen to their
    original music any more, and of course there's no opportunity to sell it
    commercially because the only music distributor left in the world is
    owned by COLUMBIA/RCA/GEFFEN MEGARECORDS Inc., and they don't want you.
    
    So as lack of corporate support will hamper music-only distribution,
    the ubiquitous video cabling and computer networks to everyone's home
    will allow participation in Virtual Reality environments - a Pay per
    Play scheme.  The artists of the future will use 3D visuals, 3D audio,
    and pressure-feedback body suits to allow players to participate in
    custom-made virtual realities.  The gulf between computers, music, 
    telephones and TV will be long gone.  
    
    I'll be off on a hilltop in northern Arizona or New Mexico, sketching.
    
    karl

    On the other hand....
    
    Position yourself on the edge of technology. Keep up. BECOME the
    generator of virtual realities....
    
    Cash in.
    
    Someone's gonna.   See you there. ;}
    
    ron
    

    
    Re: .12
    
    Karl, just what is your beef against Mr. Rundgren eh?  
    
    -Ed
    

    re .14, Ed, 
    
    Todd Rundgren, in addition to being a fine guitarist, vocalist and
    writer (I go back to NAZZ), is a loudmouth doper with a crappy
    personal outlook, In My Humble Opinion.
    
    And all his fine characteristics don't qualify him to pontificate on
    MIDI, non-professional musicians, or anything else.  Or at least I
    don't have to swallow it when he does.
    
    karl

    
    Karl, good friend, I'm afraid I'm getting the same opinion
    of YOUR "personal outlook" based on your prior note about the 'future'.
    
    There are many talented virtuosi that go unknown and unrewarded. I
    suspect that it's ALWAYS been that way; has something to do with
    'mass opinion'; and perhaps a bit of luck in one form or another.
    
    Logic doesnt work in this topic. If you want art, make music...
    make *YOUR* art for that reason alone. If you want COMMERCIAL success,
    make that 'art' for the masses and stand back, because if you
    sucessfully create it 'FOR' them big brother megaCBS-et-al is
    gonna HUNT you down with cash in their hand. Stop complaining.
    
    Or wait to die. Make out a will first, fellow artiste. Time and time
    again commercial success 'evolves' posthumously (sp?). But you
    were creating your ART, right? so money wasnt a consideration 
    while your were alive...stop complaining.
    
    As for your note on Todd, he is no more or less qualified to
    pontificate opinion than you or I...midi or otherwise. I dont
    understand why you're so vested in disqualifying him. 
    
    Stop complaining and make more music. Many of us would be thrilled
    to have the success that you have so far enjoyed...
    
    rr (well, there goes my Arizona vacation this winter...)
    
    

>          <<< Note 2405.16 by LEDDEV::ROSS "shiver me timbres...." >>>
>                             -< are you serious? >-
    Probably not.  
    
>    Karl, good friend, I'm afraid I'm getting the same opinion
>    of YOUR "personal outlook" based on your prior note about the 'future'.
    
    I take it that you're referring to the following passage:
    
>>    Gear will be available for nothing, as countless thousands discover
>>    that their family and friends aren't willing to listen to their
>>    original music any more, and of course there's no opportunity to sell it
>>    commercially because the only music distributor left in the world is
>>    owned by COLUMBIA/RCA/GEFFEN MEGARECORDS Inc., and they don't want you.
    
    Well, call me grumpy !  I DO have some serious doubts about how many
    folks are going to continue to invest MAJOR bux into music studios if
    there's no way to distribute the music they make.  As you know I've
    long been an advocate of do-it-yourself: record it yourself, design
    your own cover, have the music duplicated, find a distribution outlet.
    What do we do when the independent distributors are all gone ?
    After I wrote the paragraph on Virtual Reality, I reread it, agreed
    with it, and realized that I don't want to play in that sandbox.
    That's all.
    
>    As for your note on Todd, ... I dont understand why you're so 
    >vested in disqualifying him. 
    
    I remember the interview that quote about MIDI DreckMeisters came from-
    it struck me about like Wendy Carlos' slap at 'unqualified' musicians
    making music with MIDI - lamenting the democratization of music.  Too
    late!  
    
>    Stop complaining and make more music. 
    
    Good advice.  Except I wasn't complaining, I was 'venting'.  
    
>    rr (well, there goes my Arizona vacation this winter...)
    
    Not necessarily. karl

    I saw Laurie Anderson playing her Zeta violin at the Bershires last
    month.  Also, acoustic pianos have had MIDId switches put under the
    keyboard.  Perhaps other acoustic instruments will be MIDId, either by
    switch additions or by pitch following.
    That way, traditional virtuosi can become MIDI virtuousi.
    osi.
    Tom

    How about a MIDI tuba for those guys who've always wanted to do the
    piccolo part from "Stars and Stripes Forever"? ^)
    
    An advance that doesn't seem beyond the ken would be voice-driven
    real-time entry to a sequencer, to capture the expressivity of the
    human voice. DA-da-tududu-BANG-lotta. There's lots of syncopation and
    dynamics in that string. If the sequencer was smart enough, this could
    get pretty close to the way orchestral leaders operate. "Play bars
    64-68. [...] Substitute for bars 64-68: Da-da-tuDUdu-ZAPPA-lotta. Play 
    bars 64-68." This would be cool. We already have the voice-to-MIDI
    converters; I don't know if the dynamics are captured well.
    
    - Hoyt

    Do acoustic instrumental virtuosi have real advantages when coming to
    MIDI instruments, or more disadvantages than advantages?
    Tom

    Re: .15, .16, .17
    
    Karl,  
    
    Seems to me your attitude is VERY similar to Mr. Rundgren's.  Todd's
    attitude towards the music industry (i.e. his dislike for the big
    record company/radio/distribution monoply)  has been well published.
    
    As for his qualifications to comment on MIDI, this man is no computer
    illiterate.  His 20 year career in the recording industry make him FAR
    more qualified to comment on MIDI than any of us here in this
    conference.  
    
    I think the interview in Mondo 2000 was poorly constructed and missed
    Todd's point.  The comment on MIDI was directed at the entire music
    industry not merely at home hobbyists.  We have all been told about how
    MIDI is some great new technology that will revolutionize the music
    business.  Unfortunately, all it seems to be doing is making it easier
    to mass produce music.  The "democratization" we are all hoping for is
    NOT being aided by MIDI.
    
    The fact remains that the airwaves will continue to be dominated by
    dreck (guess how much disco-garbage is MIDI sequenced!) and
    consiquently, the racks at the record store will be full of that junk.
    
    Finally, your comment about Todd & dope.  I don't get high, and I don't
    judge people on that basis.  Many great men and women throughout
    history have used drugs.  People have reasons for getting high.  Many
    need compassion not criticism.
    
    I'll get off my soapbox now...
    
    -Ed
       

    
    Re: Mr. Rundgren:
    
    I don't like his music.  More precisely- I don't like music he writes
    or performs.  Interestingly, I *do* tend to like music he produced (but
    not wrote or performed).  
    
    Why be upset by what he claims?  It's not like Congress is going to
    classify the D-50 and the SQ-80 with the Mac-10 and the AK-47.  :-)
    
    	-Bill

       re: -.? - talking about distributors & stuff

       Independent distributors aren't going away.  Home music gear
       isn't gonna disappear.  As the bandwidth into the home increases
       there's going to be a lot more diverse stuff on the channels and
       room for people with something to say to get heard.  You may not
       get a mega-deal, but if that's what you're after, sell your
       SUX-2000, buy a strat & some Rockman boxes and play power chords.
       Oh, yeah, don't forget the eyeliner.

       Think I'm wrong?  Could you host your own TV show 20 years ago?
       Could you inexpensively publish your own software 15 years ago?
       Stop moaning about how David Geffen won't return your calls, and
       go back to working on your catalog.  But only if you're doing it
       'cause you hear a tun that nobody else has heard yet, and you
       want to play it for 'em.