Noted.

Yes, I'm aware that you can dynamically key synths, though I can only guess at the latest versions and their versatility. I guess that is, 'playing that instrument'; the creativity in presetting, also in altering those programs (during, in real time) kinda rebuts my assertion that this isn't like "playing an instrument".

I'll even have to concede that, just possibly there shall be new ways of performing which are not limited to those presets.. yet.. the utter determinism of any state-driven piece of electronics remains -NOT- equivalent to the kinds, extents of whole-body muscular + brain virtuosity whose drum I have been beating.

That I cannot dissect that whole-performance well enough, doesn't particularly bother me; it's a task not unlike defining (music.)

Simplest I can manage: natural instruments demand much more body-controlled nuance - in the act of performing - than these constructs do. Yes, there are similarities to the piano, of any keyboard; doubtless much has been improved since the Vorsetzer ('Sitter-in-front') piano-roll type robots: which required a human's original input natch, and included even-then some crude aspects of key/pedal pressures and rates.

But the strings, woodwinds, brass cannot be mastered by any amount of electrical assistance (that I can envision, anyway) - and to me it is not particularly relevant that we can today create sounds indistinguishable from a 'piano chord'.

"Creating <the sound itself> from a natural instrument" is simply a much more demanding whole-body experience than any of the above. I see no way around that difference with a real distinction. That is an art we must not jettison - is my POV.

The field you are into is certainly music/sound; I simply cannot 'conflate!' whatever we call, 'performance with the New Instruments?' - with the level of involvement needed to achieve even a perfectly clear chromatic scale.. from a violin (or, oblig. trumpet, clarinet, yada.) These are Different pursuits.




IIRC, late-50s the Japanese had cobbled together a vac-tube synthesizer of then: surprisingly realistic instrument sounds. It was claimed that banks could simulate an orchestral sound. I merely heard about this accomplishment at the lab, where we discussed the feat. (I should try to find out what that was called.) Similar issues arose in our discussion then. They aren't very different now.


If I've missed something that can resolve these differences ...