|
I'm going to take a different approach to the apologetics here than what I ordinarily read
about MIDI in other places on the net. |
| Instead of discussing
strategy for bigger, heavier Sound Fonts, or my hopes for the new extended MIDI which will
have the power to |
| include the samples
from which it is made within the midi file, thus making MIDI files a LOT bigger, I'll just
acknowledge that I'm |
| playing around with a
limited musical instrument that has no ability to sound like an expensive oboe in the
hands of an expert, and no |
| resemblance to the best
Steinway you ever heard, with Van Cliburn or Glenn Gould at the keys. Just because
these instrumnts, along |
| with all the Stradivari
and Amati stringed instruments happen to exist, does not make it true that a $150 clarinet
is not a musical instrument. |
| No
trainload of fine Hauser and Ramirez and Torres guitars can prevent a Hohner Marine Band
harmonica, a pair of simple castanets, |
| a no-frills Russian
balalaika, or even an Arthur Godfrey ukulele from being a musical instrument. If you
get your expectations in line with |
| what your instrument
can actually do, you can make pretty good music on almost anything; even pop bottles with
water in them. |
|
So I won't be kowtowing to the snobbery that lets people distance themselves from MIDI by
comparing it with more traditional |
| instruments and
claiming that "real" instruments played by humans are
"superior." Baloney. They are in no way comparable. |
| MIDI simply has
different sounds and different rules, so why not take advantage of them? When I pick
up a ukulele, I play ukulele, |
| and I don't blame the
poor puppy for not being a Lloyd Loar Mandolin. If I happen to get my hands on an
Appalachian dulcimer, I'm |
| stuck in one key with
only the major scale, so the instrument isn't very versatile, but I can still get music
out of it that sounds pretty good. |
|
This means I have devoted all the misery I am going to devote to the failure of my General
MIDI violins to sound like real violins, |
| and instead take the
best advantage I can of the way they actually do sound. I am going to just claim the
EMU 8mbgmsfx.sf2 Sound Font |
| as my instrument of
choice and go on from there to see what I can do to make the best music possible with that
instrument. |
|
|
I think we do need to remember that we can go to the Philharmonic practically every day of
our lives, then have some band of |
| South American mountain
men come along with fretless lutes and six-hole flutes and ocarinas and just tear our
heads off with absolutely |
| superb music that has
great harmony, great melodies, and great rhythm. That is, unless we're snobs,
it's always possible. |
|
|