Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Music and software - not the same

Author:Todd Blanchard
Posted:9/12/2000; 12:08:04 PM
Topic:Music and software
Msg #:21259 (In response to 21226)
Prev/Next:21258 / 21260

We've yet to create a really effective music environment, like a spreadsheet or a Web browser, but I don't doubt that we will. Today's music is more like a batch file, launch it, it runs to completion, and then exits.

Bollocks. I've got a really effective music environment that is implemented entirely in hardware. It was created in 1945 and it provides the user with great creativity on the level that you're describing. It even addresses the issue of payment for content usage.

Perhaps you've yet to create an effective music environment but they certainly exist. Currently the most effective software music environments are for the people who actually create music rather than just consume it. I get the idea that you are trying to create an environment to make it easier to consume music - but its got nothing at all to do with creating it.

I create both music and software - software is relatively easy to create - the tools are simple and the process is more or less linear - all you need is a text editor and a machine. Music creation (composition and "rendering"/recording is really an entire level of complexity beyond. You can't just make the notes, you have to make the timbre, perform synchronization, manage the interrelationships in volume and tone, create spatial relationships among the parts.

There's also a physical conditioning element to music that software simply doesn't demand. You can't sing well or finger a guitar proficiently, or extract good tone from a brass horn without daily physical training for hours at a time.

I don't disagree that software is a creative process and can be artistic and revolutionary - but its not on the level of music. It was Rock n Roll that knocked down the Berlin wall and collapsed the Soviet Union - software had nothing to do with it.

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