<Before mass-production, instruments were sold on the basis of custom
requirements of the musician...
By contrast, the output from and design of the mass-produced, MIDI-based
instrument is dependent less on the requirements of the user/musician than
on the whims of the programmer/music industry.>
This is not wrong but skips much of the 20th century - as soon as art and
instrument manufacture entered the age of mechanical reproduction (and one
can only wish Mille Plateaux had been unpretentious enough to do a tribute
to Walter Benjamin instead of the impenetrable Deleuze) this change took
place - well in advance of MIDI anything - I don't know whether any of us
can really grasp how music was experienced before any kind of phonographic
reproduction or broadcast existed.
<The design of the instrument was determined
solely by the mechanical sound qualities demanded by the user/musician.>
But the demands of the musician were and are conditioned by the demands of
his or her patron/audience/peers. To use your own superlative, "with very,
very few exceptions" are the "qualities demanded by the user/musician"
independent of these constraints.
<Because the musician was playing live to the audience, each performance
was
a unique, one-time function grounded in the cultural base of the audience,
the emotional makeup of the musician, and the time and surroundings in
which both the artist and audience interacted.>
Every variable you mention is no less true now than 150 years ago - once
the one-of-a-kind qualities of the handmade instrument (vinyl record) are
fixed (when it's finished being built), the only difference between one and
another live performance on that instrument (using that record) is
everything you mentioned.
<today's user/musician who makes use of
electronic instruments restricts himself to the conceptual landscape of the
instrument's designer.>
Not to be vulgar but, fuck that - I can sound more like me and more
accomplished than someone else on on an instrument as crude as a Casio
CZ-101 keyboard - "musicianship" (quaint, old-fashioned term, I know, maybe
"musicality" is better) can transcend all such limitations. As for
"conceptual landscape", all I have to do is plug a keyboard from
manufacturer A (or a pawnshop violin of utterly unknown provenance) into
distortion/delay foot pedals from manufacturers B and C and I've already
created sounds (or at least timbres) that the designers never dreamed of.
Currently blowing my mind (maybe change the subject line if you want to
comment):
Smyglyssna - Dold e.p. (Plug Research)
Vapourspace - Sweep - 3 x 12" (knob)
plus (you all know about):
Jega - Type Xero 12"
Highways Over Gardens comp.
and big thumbs up to:
Robert Merlak - Icepick Tracks (Phthalo 08)
That's all for now,
Bob Bannister