Re: TV commercial with accordion

Gerd wrote:
I agree about V-accordions. If things keep going as they are, maybe all
real instruments will fade away and be replaced by artificial sounds.
Imagine a 30 piece symphonly orchestra with every musician playing a
keyboard that supposedly (not) sounds like his former real life
instrument. Real accordions, play on!

Uhm.... it isn't an either/or, y'know. As discussed many times previously, the goal of a MIDI instrument (for now) is to expand the performer's options while reusing their existing (huge) investment in playing skills. If you want a trumpet solo in your arrangement, a MIDI keyboard is usually pretty bad and even a MIDI wind controller isn't going to be entirely right -- but if you don't have a trumpet player available, these options may beat having to settle for playing it with your reeds.

For that matter, accordions are in a worse place to criticize MIDI than most instruments. Isn't the fact that you have multiple voicing to select from (and that they're labeled "clarinet" and the like) just as much of a cheat and a lie? The point of multiple-voice accordions, like that of multiple-voice organs, is versatility for the performer, opening up additional textures for creative use even if they aren't an exact (or even close) reproduction of previously existing sounds.

So: If you love the sound of reeds and haven't found a synth that comes close enough for you yet, that's an entirely valid point. Play on. But don't run down the folks who like other sounds as well and want to expand their options. MIDI accordion isn't "better" -- OR "worse" -- it's just an alternative. Use it where it works, don't where it doesn't.

Viv' la differance!

--
() ASCII Ribbon Campaign | Joe Kesselman
/\ Stamp out HTML e-mail! | System architexture and kinetic poetry
.

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