done

Very interesting,...little by little there will be more & more programs like this and ones we wouldn't imagine in years to come to compose music.. It's the wave of the future.

How's the key feel?

Still no 76 keys.It's probably Yamaha.

Judging By the replies it's funny how no one is open to new technology. Let's face it in today's high tech world of music composition there are so many ways to create music. I Know us old dogs don't want to learn new tricks, but it's here to stay and changing all the time. Although I don't own an iPad I personally thought it was a cool new idea.AS with any of these new fangled inventions there's has to be some form of musical knowledge also to make it all come together.

I thought at least this forum was populated by people old enough to think that moving samples around of OTHER people's music was nothing to do with playing music...

Guess not.

When this trend toward making music using advanced technology made it possible for everyone to be a composer or a live musician or a Karaoke singer overnight, I initially became very concerned. Now I welcome the trend. You see, the more 'robo-music" there is out there, the more real musicians (who studied their craft for years and have enough sense to play songs with actual melodies to them) will suddenly become very attractive to have around.

And a bonus, which I'm experiencing already. People are fascinated watching a keyboard player do his stuff......LIVE! They don't see that much anymore.

This is a world of guitar "strummers" and Garage Band players now, and we should be quick to say......"bring them on." The more "strummers" and technology geeks there are on the scene, the more folks are going to be mesmerized when they get to see a live keyboardist for a change.

At the very least, it's a breath of fresh air for many listeners in today's lop-sided world of music. Guitarists are a dime a dozen, outnumbered only by fast food restaurants, and technology is everywhere . Keyboardists are becoming extinct. But that might be good. The fewer there are, I like to think the more they will be in demand, even if only as a circus act (whatever pays the bills!).

That's the romantic side of me. On the other hand, unfortunately, I'm a realist. Diki wrote a while ago about today's young people wanting and accepting "mediocre" music and music-making machines as it gives them the feeling that they too can become "stars" overnight by just pressing buttons and making noise (paraphrased)......as compared to.....spending years learning to play as the great 70's rock bands did. Each group had a personality and craftsmen expressed themselves through instruments and not through an Ipad. There were 48 flavors of music then. Today there's only vanilla!

It will be interesting to see which way this whole thing goes. Will machines play music or will humans?

The same happened in the late 80s early 90s when technology allowed you to press a button to create a musical phrase, however by the mid-90s it had gone out of fashion as people got bored of somebody just pushing buttons and not being able to see them play it live.

The same will probably occur with the easy play stuff out now, unfortunately like the late 80s early 90s we will once again have a generation that no nothing about music.

Bill

As so much of our day to day lives becomes commercialized, commodicized, and corporately packaged, consolidated and bundled, just as it is getting hard to find 'real' food, 'real' workmanship, anything built to last longer than our well researched minimum expected lifespan, expecting music to return to a pre-corporate paradigm is a pipe dream at best.

For good or bad, WE made this bed (our generation WAS the ones who jumped enthusiastically into sequencers, MIDI, arrangers and other forms of making music without a full band), and now we must lie in it.

Just go with the flow and mix it up....hurry all aboard!!
the train leaves the station very soon..

I have no regrets, but I do still keep my hands in non-arranger playing gigs fairly regularly, even if they are just jam sessions...I don't want to lose my chops.

The arranger has it's advantages...it has kept me working when the other jobs were scarce or non-existent, and has mainly been just another tool in the musical tool-chest for me.

Still lots of traditional instrument players here on Cape Breton Island, and for many years there was an abundance of fiddle players and their piano accompanists...it appears to be balancing out now, especially with several schools in the area offering band programs.

Ian

Real talent will always shine thru the technology, I believe. just look at our boy Rory and my new favorite singer/writer, Lianne La Havas.

Of course, the talent will manifest itself in new ways. The "up and comers" will take what they've learned from past innovators and refine it. Technology will be incorporated at the proper time and place(s).

But, I really feel that the world is full of innovative youngsters who will make their mark and constantly improve
the quality of music.

And that will make the world a better place, for all.

Russ