I almost forgot about this post getting lost in the shuffle of my email.
Larry David writes:
>>There probably aren't many people in the world who really
understand sound synthesis and are also talented musicians; most
people who are great at one are not great at the other. This
observation may be obvious, but I think it may partially explain why
the aleatoric synth competitions get more interest.<<
Yes, this is the problem. But you would expect that the majority of people
buying a synth (or it's full name, music synthesizer) would be at least be
somewhat musically capable. Before I plopped $10K down for a wall sized
modular, I would want to know how to do more than repetitive drones,
self-running patches, or bleeps and bloops. My mind would get bored in 10
seconds even if I accomplished those things myself.
>>One of the
reasons I like W. Carlos is he has lots of musical talent as well as
technical skills, and the combination of the two results in some
really interesting music.<<
Yes, being a good performer, synthesist, orchestrator of sounds, recording
engineer, and a composer if doing ones own music, are all needed to be a
really good synth musician. That'a a rare thing. But with 6.5 billion
people on the earth, you'd think we'd have seen albums using analog synths
in the last 25 years that could even come close to Carlos or Tomita.
>>all the most talented musicians I know - players and writers - are
drawn to acoustic instruments to write and perform on - very few
people seem to write traditional music for synthesizer.Maybe its
because the synthesizer is still a relatively new instrument, or
maybe its something inherent about it - I guess time will tell.<<
Actually it seems the synth is an old instrument, in that it was already
explored by a few in the 60's to 80's, then those people moved on to other
things, then it died. Seems composers and musicians are more interested in
getting their music done then in exploring synth timbres, so they go with
samplers or acoustic instruments. That's why it's a bit refreshing when I
visit non-synth sites like Northernsounds. That's where most of the
musicians are, but they're all using samples.
-Elhardt