Oh, and in relation to that youtube clip I stress my point again: I will not consider it an instrument until someone uses like one. i.e. they play music on it.
Yes
No
Oh, and in relation to that youtube clip I stress my point again: I will not consider it an instrument until someone uses like one. i.e. they play music on it.
I don't think it does - except purely in order to settle on an agreed definition of 'musical instrument' so that we're all talking about the same thing. We still don't seem to have achieved that. It seems to be like trying to decide whether a lump of rock used to bash a stick into the ground can be called a hammer. None of these are really musical questions - they're linguistic ones
But it demonstrates that the laptop can be used in a concert situation. If you don't like the sound of a lathe, there are other sounds a laptop can reproduce or synthesize.
And yes, a car engine can be used as an instrument, not a good one given its extreme lack of versatility and range, but an instrument nonetheless (god save the poor composer who decides to write for one!)
When all the paint has been dried, when all the stone has been carved, music shall remain, and we shall work with what remains.
That isn't an argument, and does not suggest anything. Anything can be used in a 'concert situation'. Hell a guy taking a shite on stage is music to some people. That doesn't mean it's an instrument or that it is music. It proves absolutely nothing.But it demonstrates that the laptop can be used in a concert situation.
Top Gear put various car engine pitches into a computer to play some piece. Sounded like shite and you couldn't hear anything. Oh, and just because some people who call them selves artists say that a car is an instrument, doesn't mean it is true. I actually heard today a composer almost admitting that he tries to be different at the detriment of musicality, and the the concept of uniqueness is the most important aspect of modern art.And yes, a car engine can be used as an instrument, not a good one given its extreme lack of versatility and range, but an instrument nonetheless (god save the poor composer who decides to write for one!)
A computer could be an instrument, calling a car an instrument is just destroying the actual meaning of 'musical instrument' completely. If anything can be a musical instrument (or anything can be music), the meaning (of both are/)is destroyed completely.
Thomas Adès has used paint-cans and newspapers as percussion instruments in his works and they sound fantastic.
I know of a guy that canned his faecal matter and sold it for a hansom profit as art. Then there is the guy here in Perth who was cooking his own blood into a sausage and selling it without the buyers knowledge; then how swimming into the ****** of a live female whale it music.
The sausage was also apparently music.
Except Thomas Adès gained a double-starred first in music from Cambridge, was signed up by a publisher before he was even twenty, is a virtuoso pianist, is also a conductor and one of the pieces which uses the aforementioned instruments is 'Asyla', which earnt Adès one of the most prestigious awards for composition in the world - the Grawemeyer. He was the youngest ever person to receive the award. In addition to his supreme musical achievements and astonishing musicianship (I've spoken to instrumentalists who have been conducted by him, and they attest to the precision and sensitivity of his ears) his music is also very original and very competent technically in a traditional sense. Most importantly, it sounds fantastic.
Please stop talking about things about which you patently know nothing. Paint-cans and newspapers are no less valid percussion instruments than maracas, anvils and tambourines etc.
Last edited by Herzeleide; Feb-26-2009 at 16:57.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4y272NI7J8
Who decided the anvil should be used as an instrument?! Surely it is a practical apparatus (much like an automobile) and should be segregated from musical affairs! Damn that experimental Verdi!
When all the paint has been dried, when all the stone has been carved, music shall remain, and we shall work with what remains.
Here in the UK we had a spate of that kind of thing in the 1970's. It was on the verge of catching on big time when Greenpeace and animal rights activities put paid to it. As you might imagine this ban sure left a gaping gap in the classical music market. I think that's what may have explained the subsequent growth in "minimalism".
OK, I'll reiterate my point then, that this thread is about whether the laptop is an instrument or not, not if it plays music you like or not.
As for "that youtube clip" not being music, well, I'd be interested to know who designated Mr. Kiely as the one who gets to decide what's music and what's not. And it's a very good thing that Yagan's ideas have no real, tangible bearing on the matter! Wow. There's a ton of music that suddenly would cease to be music any more. Can't have that!! "A lathe turning a piece of cast iron without any lubricants," in Andante's fine phrase, is a beautiful noise says I.
Do you consider a jar of peanut butter/paste a musical instrument?OK, I'll reiterate my point then, that this thread is about whether the laptop is an instrument or not, not if it plays music you like or not.
Ahh, I love you completely uncalled for ad hominem! Keep it up! Great argument.
Last edited by Yagan Kiely; Feb-27-2009 at 03:12.
No, a laptop is not an instrument. Why? Because it's a freaking computer that's why!![]()