Re: Guitar good, DJ's bad, etc (was LOOPING PHILOSOPHY)

["T.W. Hartnett" <hartnett.t@apple.com>]

>> >On the subject of a hierarchy of expressive instruments:
>> >
>> >I'd rather hear Gary Burton on vibes (considered by some of you to be
>> >less expressive than guitar/sax/etc.) than another bad imitation of
>> >Jimmy Page on guitar or that awful sax player who couldn't even play
>> >in tune with that mediocre lite jazz band I saw several years ago.
>> 
>> I don't think anyone can argue with statements such as "I'd rather hear 
>a 
>> really good musician on one instrument than a really bad one on 
>another". 
>
>Well, folks here have been discussing the relative merits of instruments
>in terms of absolutes; which left me a lot of leverage.  ^_^
>  
>> It might be more interesting to compare musicians at the top of the 
>skill 
>> spectrum, rather than at opposing ends.  
>
>Here I must respectfully bow out.  I don't see how anything is to be
>gained discussing, for example, why Pat Metheny is a more expressive 
>soloist
>than Gary Burton because his instrument is "inherently more expressive".
>I'd rather not go there myself. 

Actually, I think there's a lot to be gained, because I think it's easy 
to find consensus on the statement "Pat Metheny and Gary Burton are 
equally expressive, despite the limitations of their respective 
instruments", yet there's much criticism of various electronic 
instruments and effects processors because of some niggling feature that 
isn't present, be it 24-bit resolution, velocity sensitivity, only 8 
seconds of sampling time, the inability to map all paramenters to CV 
controllers, etc.  
This list, and the MI in general, spend a great deal of time discussing 
the technological aspects of instruments and music.  All variety of 
equipment is criticized because of some perceived terminal flaw.  Look at 
the piano--no pitch bending, only one sound, doesn't stay in tune, no 
aftertouch sensitivity, no doubling of pitches--it's full of limitations 
which would sink a synth, particularly if it cost $8k and weighed 500 
pounds.
If we can agree that Gary Burton might be able to get some meaningful 
work done with an instrument as woeful and feature-poor as the vibes, 
perhaps the rest of us might be able to make some headway with whatever 
we have, despite the inability to, say, have three concurrent loops of 
different length playing back at the same time.  Even if we're playing a 
synthesizer.

Travis