Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!husc6!brauer!elkies
From: elkies@brauer.harvard.edu (Noam Elkies)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: responsibility
Keywords: Intonation systems, octaves, pianos, computers
Message-ID: <3111@husc6.harvard.edu>
Date: 10 Nov 89 02:13:23 GMT
References: <various> <3068@husc6.harvard.edu> <1553@esquire.UUCP>
Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu
Reply-To: elkies@zariski.harvard.edu (Noam Elkies)
Organization: Harvard Math Department
Lines: 21

In article <1553@esquire.UUCP> rreid@esquire.UUCP ( r l reid ) writes:
:In article <3068@husc6.harvard.edu> [I wrote:]
:>New computer technology makes it easy to accomplish what in earlier
:>times would have required heroic efforts.  Remember the responsibility
:>that comes with this power.
:
:Mercy me! Heaven forbid we should make any "bad music" as we
:go along!
:[...]

That wasn't quite what I meant...  Only that, as with text
typesetting programs, the surface sound of synthesizer output
can be seductively appealing quite independently of musical
content, tempting the composer to accept what in another
medium (s)he would further improve/revise.  [The same point
has been made in earlier times with, say, effective orchestration
instead of synthesizers---but I'm digressing from comp.music
issues...]

--Noam D. Elkies (elkies@zariski.harvard.edu)
  Department of Mathematics, Harvard University