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Yes, I meant synthesized sound. I am not prejudiced
for or against synthesized sound or sampled sound or processed sound any other
kind of sound someone might manage to come up with!
I only want people to really listen to the
sounds....
Regards,
Mike
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 7:19
AM
Subject: [Csnd] Re: Re: ease (was Re:
[OT] Human speech is music to out ears)
To begin with, computer music sounds are not
comparable to
instrumental music sounds. Generally, frankly, they are not
as good.
This is not due to lack of potential, which is far greater for
the
computer, but rather to lack of (a) understanding and (b)
traditional
evolution towards quality.
By computer music sounds do you mean sounds synthesised from sctratch
- i.e. computer generated sounds? If so then yes I agree with you. Otherwise
recorded and digitally stored samples are also computer sounds. I don't agree
with the puritan attitude that we should only use pure synthesis and not
sample-based processing. Sample-based processing and mixing, which is a type
of additive synthesis (alone or in combination with pure synthesis) can indeed
lead to spectrally rich sounds that far surpass the complexity of instrumental
morphologies.
Best,
Peiman
Next, without quality sounds, quality performance is (a)
less
rewarding, and (b) harder to improve through
practice.
However, I believe the future is very
rosy.
CD-quality audio covers a subset of human perception - a large
subset,
but with less than the full audible dynamic range and
frequency
response. Using this level of quality means that the sheer
precision
of the sound is inherently inferior to what you get off a
fiddle,
piano, or horn on stage. This is where computer music has been
stuck
until very recently.
High-resolution audio (float samples at
96 KHz, say), which is now
standard in professional audio, covers the
full range of human
perception, so is no longer at a loss compared to
acoustical
instruments. If you have good enough
speakers.
Synthesis algorithms continue to evolve. They evolve faster
than the
acoustical instruments have evolved. Ergo, they will equal or
surpass
the synthesis beauty of acoustical instruments in the future,
probably
the near future.
Robotics and human user interface design
principles also are
continuing to evolve and afford the possibility of
musical performance
interfaces that exploit the full speed, precision and
number of
degrees of freedom afforded by trained human performers (which,
as I
am sure we all understand, is phenomenally beyond the capacity of
the
most advanced robots today).
Indeed, I expect new interfaces
to surpass acoustical instruments in
exploiting the potential of the body
for expression. We can exploit
not only pressure and impact, but also
orientation, speed of motion,
wireless sensing, the whole body, you name
it.
Again, these performance interfaces are evolving
rapidly.
When the "musical payoff" of the combination of synthesis
beauty,
acoustical precision, and (potential) performance precision
and
bandwidth hits a "sweet spot," performers will have an incentive
to
practice. Not before. Where new musical possibilities are
afforded,
for some performers these spots are already being exploited,
e.g. Pat
Metheny and the MIDI guitar. More of these spots will appear --
at
least, in potential.
I would advise designers of computer
performance system to view
synthesis beauty and performance interfaces as
unified systems, and
not to work on one side while neglecting the other
side. Otherwise,
the sweetness of the work will not be heard and nobody
will feel
motivated to practice enough to get the music out of the
system.
Regards,
Mike
On 12/10/09, DavidW <vip@avatar.com.au>
wrote:
>
> On 10/12/2009, at 11:20 PM, Victor Lazzarini
wrote:
>
>> That brings us to an interesting question: Need
computer music
>> instruments (software or hardware) be 'easy to
play'? This is
>> something I have always asked myself. Often we
hear about how
>> something is either hard or easy, and whether in
people's opinions
>> this makes it good or
bad.
>>
>> In the case of traditional music instruments
you don't seem to see
>> the same things. OK, players can complain
some music is hard to
>> play, students complain that their
instrument is difficult to
>> master, etc. But you don't see people
going to redesign a violin to
>> make it easier to play; or
attempts to do something like this seemed
>> to have taken away so
much of the expressive possibilities that they
>> are disregarded
as serious.
>>
> My experience with acoustic instruments,
also backed-up by far better
> players than I, is that good
instruments are harder to play than el-
> cheapo ones because they are
more responsive, had a greater tonal
> range etc; these
characteristics make them difficult for a beginner to
> play, not
less.
> So the issue fro me is not ease of play, it is a sort of ratio
of
> potentiality / skill. As skill develops software potentiality can
be
> increased for more expressive power.
> What I don't find
interesting, except in a perverse party-trick kind
> of way, is
a piece of software written and locked off by an anonymous
> 3rd party
that generates a "composition" for you on the click of
> mouse. Or, at
the other extreme, the sort of software that makes tasks
> harder than
they should be, given the required level of skill;
> requiring dogged
determination because of the way the SW forces you to
> deal with
it.
>
>> This links to another question: should we not be
regarding 'computer
>> music' as a field of study and development
that is every bit as
>> complex and with long-term-development
goals as standard musical
>> instruction?
>>
> Do
you mean the standard music performance instruction? If so, I'm
> sure
there's as much work involved - probably more - but it is
> different
class of work - very little concerned with learning through
> embodied
memory, for example.
>
>>
Victor
>>
>>
>> On 10 Dec 2009, at 12:06,
Stéphane Rollandin wrote:
>>
>>> same here. by ease, I
meant practicability. some concepts can
>>> really be played
with only when the software supports them
>>> comprehensively,
else it gets very tedious. we (as composers and
>>> software
developer) have to reify the lower structural aspects of
>>> our
composition in order to use them effectively; and while
these
>>> are lower in the view of the composition, they are
very high-level
>>> in terms of software
engineering.
>>
>>
> Yes, I think that's what I was
meaning above re brute force.
>
> David
>
________________________________________________
> Dr David
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>
>
>
>
>
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