Expressiveness (was Software vs. Hardware)

[Mikael Hansson]

Jay Vaughan wrote:
>> Some people like to watch someone play an instrument with great skill,
>> some don't care a bit about the performance.
>>
> 
> You are flattening things in order to not confront the anthill.  The  
> fact is, music that is performed often has a lot of 'something' (I'd

Yes, in the case of NIN a lot of energy and in the case of Yngwie 
Malmsten a lot of boredom, but I wouldn't call it a fact but an opinion.

> say soul but that'd be an opening for one of the technorati autocrats  
> on the list to cry 'religion') that cut/edited/pasted music does not.   
> Mistakes, slight timing differences, not-so-tighty-whitey'ness, etc.

I guess I should play more guitar in my songs then :)

>> Some people like to learn to play an instrument with great skill, some
>> like to focus on composing music.
>>
> 
> It'd be fair if there was actual composition going on, but you cannot  
> say that the average DAW user is composing.  Composers put music  
> together for others to perform.  Editors put it together to just be  
> played back without any further performance.

I'd say that composers create music for anyone to realize including 
themselves and that cut and paste is also a method for composition and 
that it doesn't necesserily exclude *soul*.

For me equally important things are structure, sound, how things 
connect, harmonies etc...

>> Some people like to listen to music played by a virtuoso, some people
>> like to listen to music played by an anti-virtuoso.
>> For *me* music is about the emotion you create regardless of how  
>> skilled
>> you are at playing an instrument.
> 
> 
> .. and for a lot of people, unless there is a performance, the  
> emotions are flat and valueless.  That is what this discussion is  
> about: how the interface and methods impact the final delivery of  
> emotion.

The part that made me slide in was the cape thing. A skilled 
instrumentalist does not equal good music. Take our heroes for example. 
JD were not especially skilled when they started. I think that is what 
gave their music *soul*. They weren't trapped in any preformed 
conception of how it should sound or should be played.

Sometimes something that can be played by a bear on keyboard can be what 
sounds best in a composition.

> Consider this: a cheesy lick being played tight by a computer, or by a  
> grinning pal of yours on stage...

I'd probably love both!

If performance is everything, 99.99% of the time consuming music would 
be a waste.

/Micke