Software vs. Hardware

[James R. Coplin]

> > It's more that it's a bit silly to limit our physical abilities to a
> > single
> > point of contact.

I was thinking about this.  What is the minimum number of simultaneous
parameters to be musically useful?  Is there a minimum?  Could a mouse be an
expressive control?  There does seem to be an expressive minimum.  I tend to
agree that fewer control parameters lead to greater expressiveness. At least
my violin, piano, electronics experience supports this anecdotally.  The
violin was by far the most expressive of the three with the electronics
being the least expressive despite the absurd number of knobs, sliders, and
buttons available (remember back when I won the knob, button count contest
;) ).  However, at some point, you go too far and are left with a rubberband
band

The violin has two points of contact with a couple of parameters.  Your left
hand provides pitch selection and vibrato while the bow is volume and timbre
(to a lesser degree). When thinking about a mouse, it gives you at least two
parameters in a point of contact.  There is no reason you couldn't use two
mice and have the same (or marginally more because of buttons) expressive
modes as a violin.  With shift states using the buttons, you should be able
to have more expression than a violin.  Once you begin adding shift states,
extra axis, you reach the state of electronic controllers and lose that
expressiveness.  Somewhere in there is the perfect number.  My suspicion is
that because of the nature of our hands, eyes, and brains, there is a reason
that traditional instruments have developed and persevered they way they
have.  It is this bit of biology that as musicians we are better off
embracing the limit to some degree.  As individuals, we are unlikely to
evolve out physiology during our performing lives.  Embracing this
physiology, like a pianist or violinist, probably has the best artistic
yields for a human audience mired in the same physiology.  



James R. Coplin