Mellotronists

That's ME told, then..

   Press the key, get the sound, big grin. That's all I meant. If I didn't 
appreciate the quirks of the Mellotron I wouldn't have bought one. If I 
didn't REALLY appreciate them I'd have sold the thing by now. There have 
been assorted occasions in the last ten years where such a course would have 
made life easier.

I don't want to start bickering, I'm not the competitive sort.. but I don't 
play a Hammond any differently because of my intimacy with the workings of 
tonewheel generators and vibrato scanners. I just play the thing. Sometimes 
I'm great, sometimes I'm shit.

  'the music got me here- There's a difference'....

I was a prog snob for a while too. ;-)

I play music - 'handmade' and recorded- every day and have done since I was 
a kid. I think I have a fairly balanced relationship with music. I happen to 
particularly love certain Mellotron sounds and I wasn't being remotely 
snotty about them.

  I was just expressing my approval of another limited-market machine -that 
presumably cost somebody quite a lot to realise and might well bankrupt them 
if it doesn't take off- that was designed FOR 'people like us'. Maybe it 
wasn't, then.. whatever.

Ah well. I'll get back to fixing my car. Good honest muck. Jimmy Smith on 
the stereo.

See ya, etc.

MSW xxx







>From: Donald Tillman <don@...>
>To: "Mark Wallis" <markstuartwallis@...>
>CC: mellotronists@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: Re: [Mellotronists] Memotron Video Clip
>Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2007 23:19:14 -0700
>
>    > From: "Mark Wallis" <markstuartwallis@...>
>    > Sender: Mellotronists@yahoogroups.com
>    >
>    > Essentially - CONCEPTUALLY-  it IS a Mellotron.
>
>This must be a use of the word "conceptually" that I am unfamiliar
>with.
>
>    > Everyone who wants to use the sounds- and it's the sounds that
>    > got us all in the first place- CAN in some form and the machine
>    > itself has a future.
>
>Speak for yourself.  No, the sounds didn't get us all here in the
>first place; for me, the music got me here.  There's a difference.
>
>    > Regarding the 'soul' aspect.. surely the sounds come from real
>    > live wowing/ fluttering tron tapes in the first place- and as far
>    > as I'm aware every note recorded onto the real live moving tapes
>    > in MY M400 has sat inside a computer at some point...  so it's
>    > down to what you make of it.
>
>That's the Casio-is-a-Steinway argument; it's all sound, we copy the
>sound, therefore a Casio CONCEPTUALLY IS a Steinway.  Yet remarkably,
>a Casio is nothing like a Steinway.
>
>You're abstracting out all the interesting stuff.  The feedback from
>the touch of the keyboard, the feel of the tape under the keys, the
>ability to use pressure to control the dynamics, separate pressure
>control for individual notes ("polyphonic aftertouch"), a direct
>connection to the sound-making process as opposed to going through
>that ridiculous midi protocol, the delightfully quirky behavior of the
>tape handling mechanism, the relationship the musician has with the
>instrument's intrinsic workings that inspires the music.
>
>   -- Don
>
>--
>Don Tillman
>Palo Alto, California
>don@...
>http://www.till.com

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