Andante,
Yagan said, "the term is useless and we are destroying it." See the order there? First the term is useless, and then we are destroying it. Destroying a useless term would be a good thing, eh?
You see? I was just giving Yagan a gentle nudge to pay attention to his words. Everyone, pay attention to your words.! So many contributors to this thread have gotten so caught up in bludgeoning, they've forgotten what Elgar asked for in the first place, which was simply to know whether we think the laptop is a musical instrument or not.
So far on this thread, the nots have it, but so what? Perhaps Elgar realizes now that this was possibly the wrong group to ask this question of. Or that the answers would be predictably predicable. People who don't like contemporary music would of course say nay. People who do would say yay. That is, one's response to this depends utterly on one's attitude towards music. Those with an exclusive attitude are going to be very unwilling to accept things like laptops as instruments. Those with an inclusive attitude are not.
Perhaps we could look outside this thread for a moment, to practicing musicians playing music. Do any of these people use the laptop to create music? To perform music? Yes, they do. Would those people be appalled or at least amused by this whole conversation. Probably yes. There are those on this board who would argue, sorry, I mean assert, that what these people produce is not music. Too bad. Those musicians are going to keep on performing it, and listeners like myself will continue to enjoy it, just as we will continue to enjoy Bach and Brahms and Stravinsky. Because ultimately, it all comes down to enjoyment. And if I enjoy Bach and Brahms and eRikm, then there's a possibility that eRikm is pretty good, eh? Whether or not you or Gorm or Yagan think so.
Just a possibility.