Re: Real instruments vs. electronic instruments

["James Winger" <jdwinger@hotmail.com>]

find that very expressive music can be made with relatively few 
parameters.  
Clavier instruments are very good examples of this. One is talking through 
mechanical or electrical proxies to the sound production means. Simple 
parameters can interact in complex and sometimes unexpected ways.


sure, melodies and rhythms are expresive and dont depend on sound, but 
when 
we talk about the expression of instruments here, its probably mosty 
through 
the sound

----

Here' I'm actually taking about the sound.  I think the neat think is that 
even with a parametric instrument like piano, you can control sounds 
through 
rates (you basically have hammer velocity and a release event, plus some 
global pedal control).
The time slices are of a finer scale than rhythm, the expressive 
velocities 
are of finer resolution than noted dynamics.
Even though depressing a piano key is discreetly parametric (you send a 
hammer event at a velocity).  This event affects the timbre of the string 
as 
well as simply the volume.  The player then gets to decide how long to let 
the overtones "bloom".
There are also options such as how long you let slurs interact, the slur 
itself may be a somewhat melodic expression, but how you let the sounds 
interact (relative volumes) can affect things sonically.


Pipe organs are even crazier...The pipes cross-talk so that depending on 
what you play, the sound changes (we're not simply talking about 
inter-modulation in the ambient here).  This cross-talk is SO STRONG that 
the intonation of the pipes change depending on what each pipe "hears".  
In 
the pipe organ, we have a machine with simple parametric inputs, but the 
sonic qualities are very dynamic






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