Mellotronists

> From: "charel196" <charel196@...>
   > Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 21:22:45 -0000
   > 
   > Gee Don,INSULT? Don't you think that's akin to saying that a tron
   > is insulting to real violinists?

It sure would be if you played it with a bow and called it a 
"Violin Mk 7"! 

Actually the 'Tron probably did insult a lot of violinists before
folks realized it had a voice of it's own.

Ever played a Yamaha Clavinova?  Is there any argument that it's an
insult to acoustic pianos?

   >  There are always going to be die hards who prefer the "real thing" to 
   > something new.

It has nothing to do with die hards, it's more about the very act of
playing a musical instrument.  I mean, why do you play a musical
instrument at all?  Do you just like hitting buttons?  Do you like to
hear sounds?  'Doubtful.  More likely it's the visceral joy of
interacting with an interesting and wonderful noise-making process,
exploring and discovering it's capabilities, being able to use it as a
form of personal expression, and being inspired by the noise-making
process to make great music.  Now y'r talking.

But you don't interact with digital emulations.  Digital samplers
arguably don't even have a "process" so there's no process to interact
with.  And so they're missing the fundamental point of being a musical
instrument.

Ie., you can't play the blues on a computer.

If you claim that only diehards can tell the difference, howcum it's
so difficult to find many truly memorable solos, riffs or themes
played on digital emulations?

What's worse, digital emulations are particular bad at responding to
the subtleties of personal expression.  Thus, it's really, really
difficult to recognize who's playing a digitial emulation; whether it
be Fripp, Wakeman, Pinder, heck even myself, or a computer.  In my
book that would disqualify them from being Musical Instruments.

Instead of coming up with yet another cheesy emulation, the noble
thing is to take the basic Mellotron mechanism and improve it.  And
hey, that's exactly what Dave/Markus's Mk VI does.

  -- Don

-- 
Don Tillman
Palo Alto, California, USA
don@...
http://www.till.com