Thread: Do you consider the laptop to be a musical instrument?

Originally Posted by Andante

What! do you blow it, bow it pluck it hit it squeeze it??? welcome to Planet BurningDesire

Huh? :P Didn't know there were such arbitrary limitations on what qualifies an instrument. Technically you could bow, hit, and squeeze both a laptop and turntables, though those would fall under extended techniques, and I can't promise the sounds will be interesting enough for use in a musical composition.

Regardless, I wouldn't really count a laptop as an instrument in itself (unless you are hitting it or something) but more as an apparatus for controlling software instruments (synthesizers, samplers, etc.). In some regards, this makes it similar to an organ console, or the keyboard part of a piano, but considering that it can be used for controlling a vast array of very different software instruments, and being far more multi-purpose, I would at most consider the laptop (and all computers in general) more of a component of software instruments, rather than an instrument in itself.

The turntables however I think more easily fit into the category of instrument. They are a unique anomaly (similarly to radios and tape-recorders, and samplers) in that they do not generate sounds on their own but rely on the imput of recorded sounds to make music with them. However, turntables are capable of producing unique sounds via their manipulation of recordings that can be very beautiful and ripe for exploitation by imaginative composers. I think it is silly to argue that turntables used in this manner aren't instruments. Radios are a little more vague, because they basically only operate in chance. You can control volume, and what frequency is being recieved, but what comes through is ultimately out of the musician's control. Still, these mostly uncontrollable sounds can still be utilized in musical composition (as has been done by John Cage and others). Really, if it makes a sound, you can use it in a composition. Some things are designed specifically for that, others are found to have interesting properties or are capable of generating unique and interesting sounds and are thus appropriated as instruments. Most of the intentionally built instruments we have today were likely developed from appropriating found objects a long time ago, so is it really so absurd?

Welcome to planet use your imagination a little bit. Think outside the sound box.

EDIT: Also, going back to the musical saw. No, it wasn't originally a saw without teeth. That is a pretty recent developement. When the saw was first utilized for musical purposes, it was a found object, not made for that purpose. People noticed (probably by accident) that it could make neat noises, and some experimented with it and developed skill and technique, and could perform music with it. The saws that are made nowadays specifically for music making are descended from just using a normal "non-musical" tool as a musical instrument. You can still play a regular saw, with the teeth and everything, and that still makes it an instrument for making music.

Stumble and bumble your way through the world, enjoy the ride and to hell with reality

Reality is that place where things are more flexible and don't fit simple categories or dictionary definitions.

Originally Posted by Andante

What! do you blow it, bow it pluck it hit it squeeze it???

I hit and squeeze my laptop sometimes, doesn't always produce a desired sound though...

Originally Posted by quack

Reality is that place where things are more flexible and don't fit simple categories or dictionary definitions.

...says a duck

Exactly! what more proof do you need.

Originally Posted by Andante

Stumble and bumble your way through the world, enjoy the ride and to hell with reality

Originally Posted by quack

Reality is that place where things are more flexible and don't fit simple categories or dictionary definitions.

Oh Ducky, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined by some

Originally Posted by Andante

Oh Ducky, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined by some

but isn't "existing" just a concept of the mind? and why would things exist in only one state?

Originally Posted by Philip

but isn't "existing" just a concept of the mind?

For you maybe but, I exist and when I die I don't exist but lets not get side tracked cause a Hammer is a tool not a musical instrument and only confused people would think otherwise.

Hammers being used as musical instruments.



I'm not sure why you are arguing this so vehemently. Some things are designed and made to be musical instruments. Other things are used as musical instruments despite it not being their primary use. Spoons, comb and paper, rubber band, wobbly hardboard, laptop, they become musical instruments for a performance but then stop being musical instruments when use them to browse TalkClassical, or eat yogurt (in the case of spoons).

Regarding the items that you mention.......what type of shop would you purchase these from?

Originally Posted by Andante

Regarding the items that you mention.......what type of shop would you purchase these from?

We're getting in to "would a postman whistle Stockhausen?" territory now.

Precisely , If you want a Violin you go to a music shop if you want a rubber band you go to a stationary shop if you want to use a spoon in a piece of music it does not become an instrument but simply a spoon being used for something other than what it was intended for.

Originally Posted by Andante

Precisely , If you want a Violin you go to a music shop if you want a rubber band you go to a stationary shop if you want to use a spoon in a piece of music it does not become an instrument but simply a spoon being used for something other than what it was intended for.

Why do you persist even after the battle is over?