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From: rsk@pucc-k (Wombat)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: Musical notation and Kate's use of Fairlight
Message-ID: <1199@pucc-k>
Date: Thu, 25-Jul-85 10:14:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: pucc-k.1199
Posted: Thu Jul 25 10:14:31 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Jul-85 01:42:51 EDT
References: <4751@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Reply-To: rsk@pucc-k.UUCP (Wombat)
Distribution: net.music
Organization: Purdue University
Lines: 34
Keywords: Kate Bush, Sequencers, Fairlight
Summary: 

In article <4751@mit-eddie.UUCP> nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan) writes:
(while talking about Kate Bush's possible use of a Fairlight)

>I believe this for several reasons: (1) She doesn't read music well (2)
>She's big on velocity-sensitive keyboards, and much of that aspect would
>be lost (3) I'm sure I'd be able to hear the difference between music
>generated by a sequencer given notation and that played by a good human
>player on a velocity-sensitive keyboard.
>
>The other use for a sequencer would be to "record" a piece of Fairlight
>music played on the keyboard, and then have that repeated over and over
>again.  I'm sure I'd notice that.

Uh, actually, that's not quite true, since the sequencer records
the notes as you play them; thus you don't need to know how to read
music to use it...and sequencers on velocity-sensitive keyboards are
usually able to store the velocity information along with the pitch,
so that the playback is quite indistinguishable from the original.
The design goals of most sequencers include generating playback
that approximates as closely as possible the human performance; in
the case of the Fairlight, I'd say they achieved this quite nicely.

You'd probably notice the repetition of a sequenced piece only if
the phrase was short; but some sequencers can store thousands of
notes, and that'd be hard to catch.  (I don't know the capacity of
the Fairlight synth, but I'd guess it to be large)

The superiority of the Fairlight stems from its sampling abilities,
and its broad polyphonicity, along with its extensive computing
capabilities.  Net readers wishing to donate to the "Buy the Wombat
a Fairlight, a Synclavier, and a Kurzweil" fund may contact me at...
-- 
Rich Kulawiec	rsk@{pur-ee,purdue}.uucp, rsk@purdue-asc.csnet
		rsk@purdue-asc.arpa or rsk@asc.purdue.edu