AW.: PC appeal.

I have to disagree with this appeal. Over the years, I've encountered list
members with every sort of Mac, every version of DOS or Windows, at least one
Amiga and one Atari, quite a few Unixers, and a growing number of Linux or
BeOS users. Although software is sometimes discussed, the concerns of this
list are largely platform-independent, if not computer-independent; indeed,
many of us still work primarily with pencil and paper! In any case, this
platform variety is a real part of this list's character.

I agree heartily that computers are wonderful tools . Calculations, graphics,
and tables are all easy to make, and the ability to synthesize .WAV files in
my home studio has profoundly changed the way in which I work, although my
finished scores are still intended to be read by instrumentalists and
singers. While I'm not yet satisfied with the Internet as a vehicle for
transmitting recordings of music, it is an excellent way to transmit news,
theoretical writings, technical information etc., most of that encodable in
plain ASCII. Isn't that already a large enough task for this list?

There is also a political argument to add here. The pressure to constantly
upgrade comes at a high real cost to most users. The newer platform or
operating system or program may include a lot of attractive new features, but
they are seldom made with any real sense of economy other than the desire to
convince consumers that their existing system is out of date. I still drive
my Rayna box with an Atari ST without a harddrive, getting sophisticated,
musical sounds with an operating system that fits on a single floppy, while
Windows 98 is eating up the better part of a gigabyte on my PC.

Some of my favorite electronic music was composed with a minimum of resources
-- Richard Maxfield's _Night Music_ used only a tape recorder and a high
frequency oscillator and some Latin American composers have used simple
bamboo instruments to simulate synthesized sounds. The whole Early Music
movement has also demonstrated that advances in technology do not necessarily
bring improvements in music, but rather that particular technologies may
often be more appropriate to a given music.

Daniel Wolf

In a message dated 8/20/99 5:30:01 PM, you wrote:

>... advances in technology do not necessarily
>bring improvements in music, but rather that particular technologies may
>often be more appropriate to a given music.

WHOLE-HEARTED AGREEMENT from me...
there is such thing as "Appropriate Technologies"
... ties in with the whole "Small is Beautiful"
ethics/ aesthetics.

For example, the only reasons why I seek a synthesizer that is
capable of non12TET scales:

1) to be able to play many different sounds that
do not exist or are unwieldy to cart around or
to expensive for me to make or have made

2) to create wide variety of UNEQUAL Just Intonation
scales & to be able to experiment with same w/o
too much "techno-obsessive compulsiveness" or
"techno-consumerism."