I would not defend MIDI. Even in its vastly improved state, for real instrument imitation, I always stress to students that you NEED to know how it really will sound in order to understand what the MIDI is trying to represent. It is better, in some circumstances, than playing it at a piano. You can use the knowledge of the real sound to tweak the MIDI, but you never can get all the way.
Recordings, however, are a different thing. Of course you need to develop your own opinions, getting, one hopes, to the point where others interpretations seem eccentric. But I remember hearing the eminent violinist, Joseph Silverstein say that he listens to Heifitz recordings every day. As he put it: "Go ahead, try to imitate Heifitz. It isn't easy, and if you could do it, it wouldn't be all that bad." David Froom On Sep 29, 2012, at 1:00 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > It strikes me that the 'teacher' is the plethora of recordings -- a kind of > crowdsourcing of learning. A teacher can do a personal critique, but what is > wrong with a vast array of possibilities for any student? I certainly > encourage performers of my music to listen to previous performances as well as > demo versions. Learning every piece from scratch doesn't seem at all p _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
