Obviously technology is not going away - I enjoy the advances of our digital age. But one thing that separates a live performance from a recording or robotic re-creation is the element of unpredictability - you don't know what will happen. It reminds me of something Hank Greenwald (ex-announcer for the San Francisco Giants baseball team) said: "Every day I go to the ballpark and I see something I've never seen before."
Hope you are all enjoying your summers. B Robert N. Ward Principal Horn San Francisco Symphony [email protected] On Jul 11, 2010, at 9:43 AM, [email protected] wrote: > > It's existentialism time. > > Imagine if you will a robotic orchestra which can copy every single nuance, > inflextion, etc. of a human orchestral performance. In other words, take > every action done by a human orchestra and program it into a robotic > orchestra so that everything is copied to the letter. What you'd end up with > is an exact copy of the human orchestra just as if the human orchestra was > recorded. > > But wait, we already have something similar in terms of actual recordings! > > If you go down to a major library you could easily find writings from people > 100 years ago who argued that recorded sound would eliminate all live > recordings. Yet, today, we still have many live performances and many > recordings from live performances. They haven't gone away. > > You could also make the argument that playing electronic instruments removes > the human factor from making sound by that logic. > > No matter what, you're not going to get around the fact that people made the > robots. People programmed them. People are behind their actions. We are > telling them exactly what to do. They do not think. They are not self-aware. > They are not sentient. Does a story change simply because it is written down > and read later? Does a performance change because it was recorded at one time > and performed for others later on a digital recording? > > > You're not really removing the act of performance. You're just shifting it to > the person who has to control the machinery. You still have to have a human > to write the music for it or make the machines or program them. Times change. > Technology is exponentially growing. We will have to adapt to it. Even if all > orchestras tomorrow were suddenly replaced with machines we would still have > some demand for humans to perform music. > > I say let the technology grow. I'm not burdened by it nor am I frightened. > Humans are good at adapting. > > -William > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Hans Pizka <[email protected]> > To: The Horn List <[email protected]> > Sent: Sun, Jul 11, 2010 12:29 pm > Subject: Re: [Hornlist] About those brass playing robots... > > > Have you ever heard about sampled sounds ? Write music with Finale or > > Sibelius, > > use Garritan sound bank & listen. It sounds reasonable, even much > > better than > > most Sunday-afternoon-orchestras or weekend orchestra, BUT - > > it is missing the human factor of sound coloring completely. > > > > I work with Finale since CODA issued this program. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > post: [email protected] > unsubscribe or set options at > https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/rnward%40comcast.net _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
