A Computer Now Counts As An Instrument?

[ShredAstaire]

are you f**king stupid?!?!

 

And if you still disagree with that FACT, then you're a moron and not even worth arguing with!!

 

That's no way to talk to someone who disagrees with you. Take some deep breaths and calm yourself down.

 

Also, once again, your point has nothing to do with the OP...whether or not computers were designed to do math or something else is irrelevant. Who cares what they were designed to do in the beginning? The fact is they have eveolved long past their original intention. The topic HERE is whether a computer is an instrument or not.

 

Please...try to follow along. :)

[milod]

A computer simply is a processing unit that manipulates on-off switches. Those switches can be combined to create numbers that on "ascii" computers can, by very long pre-computer convention represent letters, numbers, punctuation marks and ... even to ring a bell.

 

Each set of those switches are combined with others to create an 8-switch "team" we call a byte, and it's the byte that really got us into manipulation of letters and numbers we might more easily understand. Ever mess with binary math? That's what it is.

 

After various sorts of storage became available, various sorts of computers were used to manipulate database information. Due to the expense of the early ones, that tended to be such things as tax information and magazine subscriptions.

 

When 8-bit microprocessors became available, such as the Intel 8080, there was a rush to use them for a wide range of applications, but letters and numbers tended to take priority, especially as "mass storage" such as tape drives and such as a 360k floppy drive became available. Yeah, that's 360"K", not M or G or T.

 

Obviously there had to be variations of a "BIOS" that would allow both input and output. Not simple at all.

 

Little computers designed more specifically for home use, such as some by Commodore and Atari, even Timex, also used an 8-bit cpu, but added chipsets and at time variations to their built-in versions of a programming language to handle music. That takes us now back roughly 30 years.

 

The small-midsize "mini computer" basically gave way mostly to various sorts of "PC" networks that did the same sorts of things faster, easier and cheaper. When 16-bit CPUs became widely available at low prices, you saw the Mac and PC, both of which would be able in time to be credible music-making machines - albeit after faster and more versatile CPUs came along. Both did, however, pretty much from the first have the ability to produce sounds in various pitches.

 

That's kinda "it" in a nutshell. I don't think you care to know the advantages of the 6502, or the z80 vs the 8080 or whatever. <grin>

 

m

[mcmurray]

What then, technically, do they do?

 

From wikipedia: A computer is a programmable machine that receives input, stores and manipulates data, and provides output in a useful format.

 

I might add to milod's statement - computers at their most basic level use specialized binary circuits, called instructions, or operations on bits of data. These instructions can number in the hundreds and do things like comparing, shifting, branching, incrementing, decrementing, logic (AND, OR, XOR etc) and a some binary math. The theory of these instructions has been the same from the birth of computers (or even before) to the present day, only now they do more of these things and they do them faster.

 

This is an instruction set from a simple self-contained computer (note that arithmetic only forms a small part of what it can do): http://www.ele.uri.edu/courses/ele205/6811-Instructions/index.html

 

A software developer (in the old days they used punch cards or even physical on/off switches, these days they use compilers - a specialized program) programs the computer to perform a particular task. The program is made up of a series of instructions as described above. Computers as we are familiar with them, are general purpose - i.e. they can be used for anything the programmer wants them to be used for. (Even the computer at the heart of a modern digital piano or synth is a general purpose computer).

 

There are other processing machines that do deal strictly with mathematics, these are called digital signal processors (or DSP) and have a much more narrow range of applications.

 

Anyhow, all this is now off topic thanks to GibsonKid

[Riverside]

Well, you both get partial credit for missing the point in its entirety.

 

I suppose a French Horn doesn't "do" the Fibonacci sequence, you just blow in it and push buttons.

[milod]

Riverside...

 

But in ways a lotta the stomp boxes "we" use are functionally little computers too. Especially the multi-effect boxes and modeling amps. Almost any keyboard you buy nowadays is a computer controlling the sound; some can indeed catch loops of different lengths.

 

I guess I don't see the diff between Les Paul messing with a tape loop and me using a computer-recorded loop. Even the pipe organs of the golden age of such things created many different sorts of "copied" sounds.

 

Yeah, you can't do math on a French horn as it is; but you also can't do more than one note at a time. One might easily suggest that a player piano functionally is programmed just as are computers.

 

I dunno, but I think we've gone past meaningful comparisons and I question that logic has much to do with conclusions different "sides" of this discussion might have.

 

A physical creation that takes human input and converts it into sound is, however, a definition both of a French horn and an appropriately equipped computer. Or a player piano, for all of that.

 

m

[McDuff]

Is a pen not a writing tool because a quill tip is more difficult to use? Computers can be instruments and I don't believe that computers actually pose a threat to musicians as no one will ever pay to go see very loud speakers. They will pay to come see a man manipulating a synth, they will come to see a man operate a computer as an instrument but the bottom line is people wont ever be able to simply program a song into a computer and then replace live musicians with it. Sure they can sell it as an album but aren't all albums just people programming a computer to re-play a song they wrote? Sure they programmed it indirectly through playing their instruments then having that information translated into some kind of computer program, or bumps in a wax tube or some such thing.

 

 

Something a little more frightening than synths though http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture-society/triumph-of-the-cyborg-composer-8507/ still I have trouble believing that it could ever write soulful touching lyrics even if by some amazing stroke of magical powers this man created a computer that could write beautiful music. Either way it was much safer to just put it to sleep....

[krock]

There is an art to controlling these complex computer software packages but still, "Down with fake musicians" :) Happy new year

[milod]

Krock...

 

There have been "fake musicians" long before computers. Consider the player piano: who is playing it, the artist who created the roll or the guy pumping the pedals to make it work? And if the guy pumping the pedals also is singing along, is he not a musician using technology to be a musician/entertainer?

 

Even that seems to be subjective.

 

I had an older friend - easily old enough to be my Dad - who was a fine B3 player "in the day." But without sheet music in front of him he'd not play at all. I still don't understand that. He even wrote some music. But without flyspecks on lines that he followed, he'd not touch the keyboard. So... was he a musician? <grin> I think so because he added great dynamics from inside himself.

 

In "pop music" I even get bothered a bit about the concept of a "cover" in that there are folks who want to sound exactly like somebody else - and there are folks who love a tune and/or lyric and use it as a vehicle for their own sound. You pay your money and take your choice, I guess. Ditto gear one might use in a performance.

 

m