Klarinet Archive - Posting 000385.txt from 2002/11

From: "William Semple" <wsemple@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] on the use of technology [formerly page turns]
Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 07:44:22 -0500

I remember when ASCAP got into quite the brouhaha for charging the Boy
Scouts and the Girl Scouts for singing songs around a camp fire. And the end
of Napster. Rightly so in some cases; but sitting around a camp fire is not
my idea of public performance.

The industry will no doubt find some way to achieve copyright protection
without chilling the marketplace. Otherwise, orchestras and bands will
continue to use sheet music, as they have for several hundred years.

Every new technology has met a series of obstacles. After learning more from
this discussion, I can see the efficacy of digitized databases and screens.
Players, presumably, could mark their pieces and store them for later
retrieval.
Conductors could make notes that track performances and are immediately
conveyed to the rest of the orchestra.
They might be able to analyze the transcribed interpretations of former
conductors, to aid in their own.
Perhaps tempi could be marked electronically, where a laser on the baton
sends a signal to the screen (yuck, but in the case of a conductor difficult
to follow, maybe not so yuck). New works could be instantly modified by the
composer (more or less) as he or she listens in rehearsal. There could be
some form of pitch control, perhaps. The possibilities are endless and no
less diverse than those applied to other processes.

But here is the most relevant question in my mind: Given all of the myriad
virtues of technology (e.g., the tuner), do we think musical performance
will be improved?

I am not sure it will matter as much at the top level of performance, where
I believe the ear will remain king. But I do believe it matters at other
levels: I do think it will help concert bands like mine improve (golly, it
is tough to listen to the horn section at times, much less the clarinets in
the 3rd section).

Yet, part of me thinks too much technology will arrest individual musical
development in some key way -- the same way bringing calculators into math
rooms makes it easier for students to avoid the mechanics of calculation, or
the word processor the discipline of editing a draft as it comes out of a
typewriter.

There is also the danger of homogeneity.

Not that this will happen in my life time . . .

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Hausmann" <bhausmann1@-----.net>
Subject: RE: [kl] page turns

> At 08:17 PM 11/7/2002 -0500, Mark Charette wrote:
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Bill Hausmann [mailto:bhausmann1@-----.net]
> >
> >It seems to me that these screens were discussed here some time ago, and
it
> >was suggested then that the "copyright police" would have a screaming,
> >hairy FIT over the digital reproductions of the music that would be
> >required by this technology.
> >----
> >Not really. The owners of the copyrighted material just have to figure
out
> >how to charge you for it.
> >
> >The copyright owner might be Disney or the owner might be you, so who
> >exactly are the "copyright police", anyway?
>
> The "copyright police" are whoever would be figuring that they should be
> able to shake down performers for use of such technology. Yes, composers
> are entitled to their just compensation, but charging people for merely
> changing the FORMAT of the printed music will effectively kill, or at
least
> severely delay, potentially useful ideas such as we are discussing.
>
> Bill Hausmann
>
> If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is TOO LOUD!
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>

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