Bill Pirkle wrote:

>Ulvi wrote ...
>
>>I don't see any chance for MIDI performance to catch up and become of
>>anything other than educational value.
>
>But it has one great benefit.  It makes it possible for people to write
>music, classical and other, (especially larger works like symphonies and
>concertos) on their computer without the expense of hiring a symphony
>orchestra to rehearse it, not to mention finding an orchestra that will
>perform it. In that sense it liberates music from any existing politics
>in the composition/performance business.

This much is true, and it is interesting to hear new music at sites like
mp3.com, where some very interesting music is available on MIDI.  It is
much easier now for a composer or, indeed, a performer, to break into the
industry now than it was just a few years ago, thanks to our iMacs.


>Out there somewhere is another Beethoven or Wagner who will have a better
>chance or writing and distributing their classical music through MIDI than
>breaking into the music business the normal way, which requires going to
>the right schools, winning the right competitions, and knowing the right
>people.

Maybe, though the people who go to the schools, nail the competitions, and
know lots of fancy people are free to use MIDI technology too.  It also
comes down to writing good music.  You can be the grooviest MIDI-er on the
planet but if you don't write music that touches people you won't go
anywhere.

>If history in any example, the great classical music of the future will
>be rejected out of hand by the establishment and will come from people
>"outside the business".

Perhaps, but this doesn't have much to do with MIDI per se.  There's a
basic contradiction in this statement, because once people "outside the
business" become successful, they become the "establishment." I am not sure
the "establishment" is so opposed to new musical talent, and I'm not sure
how much MIDI will change the current situation.


>In that sense it is an incredible technology that will only get better.
>Sound cards reproduce the voices very well and if they don't already have
>it soon these sound cards will use the digitized sounds of the actual
>instruments.  I suspect that there are MIDI versions of classical music
>already that many music lovers can't tell from the "real" thing.

Perhaps, Mr. Pirkle, but so what? Do you propose that MIDI performances
become the industry standard? Are people going to stop going to concerts?
Does the capacity to electronically mimic live performance necessitate its
elimination? Nobody is arguing that it isn't a wonderful technology, but
classical music is too steeped in tradition, and to closely involved with
live performance and the recordings thereof, that MIDI will never become a
commercial substitution for "the real thing." A MIDI version of the LvB
violin concerto will never outsell A-S Mutter's.

David Runnion
http://www.serafinotrio.com