Musicianship: Does technology redefine it ?

[dbb]

We do have a multi-quote button, I just used it! It's on the right hand side where the quote and edit buttons are; just click it next to whichever posts you want to quote (it lights up orange) and when you're ready hit reply. The posts you quoted should be there in the reply box.

Thank you!

 

[smitty_p]

My script is illegible,even on a laptop, but my wife uses them all the time and I wonder if there is an online source I should try ?
​

I'm not really a fountain pen aficionado or collector. I just have a few. Honestly, except for two of my pens, I got them off of eBay. The other two I got from Staples. My everyday pen is a Cross fountain pen. It's not a cork-sniffer pen, but it's durable and writes well. The "Les Paul Guys" of the fountain pen world generally prefer pens like Mont Blanc or something on that order.

On topic! Thinking about the future - something I often think about with technology is how far will it go? I keep thinking that there has to be a limit, it's got to stop somewhere, but does it? Think how far we've already come compared to, say, 150 years ago. In 150 years from now, where will we be? Will it come full circle and go back to traditional or will our perception of music have again changed so dramatically that we wouldn't even recognise it (Much like old composers would probably baulk at techno)?

Maybe in the future music will have changed so that little electronic devices are implanted in the ear and directly stimulate the eardrum and so making music would be a matter of balancing waves and wave patterns? Maybe even connect it to a device in the eye that stimulates the optic nerve so that images will be produced alongside the music? Will we reach a point where people won't produce music at all without some kind of tech?

Music produced en mass may get like that, but I do think there will always be a market/interest in playing real instruments, even if it eventually gets to a point where that is a rarity.

In all sorts of areas there is a "primitive" following. For example, there is a real cottage industry and following in pursuing ancient skills, such as flint-knapping (making tools from stone), primitive fire-making, and other neolithic skills. There are clubs that gather every year to demonstrate these skills and engage in competitions, such as who can start a fire fastest with a bow. You can even go online and purchase items to get you started in flint-knapping or other primitive skills.

Another example. We all know the buggy whip is a relic of a bygone era, correct? Nope. They are still made and specialty craftsmen still make horse-drawn carriages. Granted, they are a novelty and not the mainstream form of transportation, but they still have a market.

Moving into music, in spite of the overwhelming predominance of technology in music, acoustic instruments still exist and have a strong market. Technology will definitely change the face of music on an everyday basis, but I don't think it will eradicate what we use, now.

I'll be honest. Sometimes, I tire of pickups, amps, and pedals. Sometimes, I tire of having to plug into a power outlet. Sometimes, I just want to have a more earthy musical experience and I'll spend more time playing my acoustic guitar. That's the world where the wood and the build of the guitar really do matter. That's the world where windings of wire on a bobbin, tube types, and concerns of digital versus analog effects all fade into the mist. That's the world where you have real sound emanating from a physical object with no intermediate electronic gadgetry.

Perhaps, one day the way we play our instruments today will be the "primitive" technique that will have a small, but fervent following!

 

[sgtbeefheart]

I guess everyone is focusing on the electronic aspects in modern music, but there still seem to be young people going in the opposite direction. My local cable has been overplaying this movie "Big Easy Express", which features a lot of folky, maybe bluegrassy bands, that have become popular in the past few years.

The movie has this hippie vibe to it, but the drug use is either edited out, or absent. Also, it's interesting the way that young people rock to folk music, it's almost like the audience at a rock concert. (I've always liked the words and message of folk music, but the music itself doesn't really speak to me.)

This movie makes me feel old though, because the experiential aspect the kids are having is so clearly from a different generation.

I also never took to folk music, finding myself drawn to "American" music
at a very young age.

However there are some new bands playing Celtic Folk, and I've realised
that it was just English Folk that didn't appeal to me.

Being a Celt, I suppose it's to be expected, but it's also made me aware
that the roots of the "American" music that did appeal to me came from
that direction, and merged with African rooted music.

This is the band "Lau", who occasionally make use of a P90 and a synth.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VjGVTkpxTk]Lau - Torsa - YouTube[/ame]

 

[JohnP]

Music produced en mass may get like that, but I do think there will always be a market/interest in playing real instruments, even if it eventually gets to a point where that is a rarity.

In all sorts of areas there is a "primitive" following. For example, there is a real cottage industry and following in pursuing ancient skills, such as flint-knapping (making tools from stone), primitive fire-making, and other neolithic skills.

Neolithic skills like how to tune a guitar.

Here is me and the rest of the cavemen in our project “The Neanderthals”. We’re all analog!

 

[smitty_p]

Neolithic skills like how to tune a guitar.

Yes, exactly!!!

 

[happy_tom]

Wow, a long thread, excuse me, I gotta go soon and can't read all of it, but feel I gotta post

Well, in my normal everyday life, I agree with most posts on page 1, and I'm very very old school when it comes to sound (old school means all music up till year 1980 to me)

But really, deep down, to me all music is all music; from the most complex compositions to pure noise, it's above rational mind.
So, even though I usually bash electronic music, I also shared a rehearsal place with some alternative technoheads, and I've seen they creat just as we do: they have a vision, an idea in their heads and use different means than us to make that idea come to life.
Computers don't generate music, people do.

With that said, I think the main difference is that we still had to put a lot of effort to master an instrument or two.
Computers are acessible to practically anybody (except Wade, obviously ), so that means a lot more talentless people will make music than they normally would -> hence more bad music.
Even if you don't have a creative cell in your body and absolutely no ear for tone or no feel for rhythm, you can still paste together some samples and generate some beats. But it probably aint gonna be any good?

But the same can be (and has been) said about punk rock: the idea that anyone can start a band has produced some of the most creative stuff in decades. Also, it produced a whole bunch of Scheise from phonies who were in it for all the wrong reasons... Combine that with technology and we suffer the consequences today.

And same has been said about rock'n'roll before that: beatniks would frown: of all the possibilities in the world, everyone goes for this primitive bang-bang, plunk-plunk stuff...

And the same has been said about jazz before that...

And a lot of musical theories and criticism criticism actually comes from hidden Eurocentrism and classical elitism... etc
etc.

I have completely lost my point...

Make sound. Be free.

 

[JohnP]

Excellent post happy_tom.

It’s not the style of music/sound/noise that I’m debating, but rather the way it’s performed live:

We are not “playing the computer”, we are executing programs, which per definition is playback.

The computer is not an instrument. The fact that an instrument could contain processors (Like a keyboard synthesizer or like the Firebird-X etc.) is another matter.

You visionary ladies and germs of ETSG; -tell me about the guitar of the future! How technology will change "guitarplayingship"?

 

[Heket]

You visionary ladies and germs of ETSG; -tell me about the guitar of the future! How technology will change "guitarplayingship"?

Aren't we already getting there with products like the Line 6 Variax? I think modelling will feature heavily, as will auto tuning. Also let us not forget that with the current rate of consumption, fine wood is a finite resource, so most guitars of the future will probably be made of manmade materials.

Beyond that it's hard to see. For it still to count as a guitar it has to at least have strings. Right? I hope we're not going to see guitars that look like Guitar Hero Controllers!

But if we do have stringl-ess, button-mashing, plastic guitars, think how that might evolve.

When they are new: String-less, button-mashing, plastic guitars
When they are a few years old: Button mashing, plastic guitars
A couple of decades: Button mashing guitars
A bit later: ...Guitars

To look into that idea a bit further, I suppose each position on the fretboard would have a button and the right hand would be free to mess around with dynamics, tapping and maybe some other fancy stuff I haven't though of yet. But still, the very definition of a guitar is of a stringed instrument, so I don't even know if you can call that a guitar. But maybe some day in the future, some people will.

 

[dbb]

Interesting concepts...maybe even optical "strings" or something.

However there is something tactile and wonderful about touching the strings, with the vibrations seeping up one's fingertips while playing. It'll be hard to get beyond strings.

Perhaps there will be two lines of development - the full-on sci-fi guitars of the future, and more traditional ones too.

Like the modern violin family, though, even the traditional instrument will benefit from technology - think Perlon strings, those Whittner precision tuners, carbon fiber bows, etc.

 

[chilipeppermaniac]

Spock

Interesting concepts...maybe even optical "strings" or something.

However there is something tactile and wonderful about touching the strings, with the vibrations seeping up one's fingertips while playing. It'll be hard to get beyond strings.

Perhaps there will be two lines of development - the full-on sci-fi guitars of the future, and more traditional ones too.

Like the modern violin family, though, even the traditional instrument will benefit from technology - think Perlon strings, those Whittner precision tuners, carbon fiber bows, etc.

I wonder if Mr Spock has the answer?

 

[dbb]

I wonder if Mr Spock has the answer?

Of course he does. Spock reaches.

 

[sgtbeefheart]

..and beyond,

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZfXAfAMzvY]Agostino Castagnola 2000 Star Trek Voyager voice over 1 - YouTube[/ame]

 

[JohnP]

For it still to count as a guitar it has to at least have strings. Right? I hope we're not going to see guitars that look like Guitar Hero Controllers!

But if we do have stringl-ess, button-mashing, plastic guitars, think how that might evolve.

When they are new: String-less, button-mashing, plastic guitars
When they are a few years old: Button mashing, plastic guitars
A couple of decades: Button mashing guitars
A bit later: ...Guitars

To look into that idea a bit further, I suppose each position on the fretboard would have a button and the right hand would be free to mess around with dynamics, tapping and maybe some other fancy stuff I haven't though of yet. But still, the very definition of a guitar is of a stringed instrument, so I don't even know if you can call that a guitar. But maybe some day in the future, some people will.

You are truly a visionary. I can tell, because someone has already taken your product to the market:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkzvGi1GEUg][COOL!] The Guitar of the Future? [More!] - YouTube[/ame]

I have the same question: -Is this a guitar? If not, what is it? Does it at all qualify as a "musical instrument"?
If the "DJ" uses this thing on stage, would he come closer to become a live performing artist?

 

[sgtbeefheart]

It's a synth shaped like an electric guitar.

Not a guitar, and obviously not of the future.

 

[dbb]

The future is now.