OFF: Sequencers, What they are (in a nutshell)

[Paul Mather]

On Tue, 25 Jun 1996, Craig Shipley wrote:

> I keep waiting for the day when a composer walks out on stage, with his
> computer center stage, surrounded by synth modules and announces his latest
> piece of music. He clicks on "PLAY", leaves the stage and lets the hardware
> perform the show. At the end of the concert, he returns, to accept the
> applause and shut the system down. Would you feel cheated?

I'm sure this has actually been done quite a few times.  (Didn't Future
Sounds of London (literally) phone in a gig once, recorded for posterity
on _ISDN_?)

Anyway, the story I like is (naturally) the one in which a small ensemble
comissioned a piece of music from Frank Zappa.  Unfortunately, the piece
he wrote was too hard for them to play live.  Not to worry, he says, I'll
just program up the synclavier and it'll do everything for you.  All you
need to do is sit there and pretend to play yer hearts out.  Nobody will
notice the difference.  Well, that's what they did, and to tumultuous
applause, too.  (Nobody seemed to notice their instrument mics weren't
plugged in.)

The question stands: would you feel cheated? :-)

Cheers,

Paul.

obCheese: "Studio Artists", "Silver Machine", _Hawkwind Covers All_
        (Is this FoFP's famed "Top of the Pops" version of SM?)

e-mail: paul at csgrad.cs.vt.edu                    A stranger in a strange land.