The musician is a machine
Musicians operate machines or ‘instruments’, which simply described are an extension of the physical body into non-human materials like wood and metal. In some cases it can simply be machinery situated ‘on site’ within the human body, such as the vocal cords. In most cases it is a combination of three individual machines: (a) the mind, a machine which operates (b) the body, a machine which operates upon (c) the piece of machinery which is an extension of it.
Musicians ought to understand that in this regard they are no different from anyone else who has ever operated any kind of machine in any kind of context.
What do musicians output to their machines? They simply send data which their machines translate into sound. Where does this data come from? The mind sends data in the form of muscular impulses via the body which are then outputted to the machine. These impules are governed by patterns of movement that the machine operators have become used to generating through repetitive action when they first learned to use the machine. Operators of musical machines dictate information via these patterns which enables, for example, the production of sequences of pitches (not all musical machines will necessarily output pitch though). It is also sometimes suggested that the information that comes out of the machine is supposed to have some relationship to the ‘feelings’ in the mind of the machine operator (itself a machine). ‘Feelings’ are simply instructions for the machine to either speed up or slow down or get louder or quieter and they aren’t usually required for the machine to function normally (in fact this can encourage inaccuracy). It is quite common for a specific set of instructions, usually constituting black dots and lines impressed on paper, to be fed into the visual receptors of the machine operator to ensure the correct data is output. This is especially important when there is more than one machine present.
Musicians operate their machines for many reasons. In some (if not the vast majority of) cases they do it for an employer who pays sometimes very good money for an operator’s skills. The employer is typically an individual who requires a designated space to be filled up with sound, for example, to accompany eating and drinking. Elsewhere the owner of one of these spaces will demand that there is complete silence while the machines are observed functioning by non-operators. In some situations the observers of the machines hope that the operation of the machinery will have some sort of an effect upon them. This is often manifested in attempts on the part of the observers to match, using their physical machinery, the impulses of the machine operator (known as ‘dancing’). If they watch other more experienced observers closely they can usually identify patterns that they can copy to achieve this. Musical machines are on the whole very good at coordinating the synchronized movements of large numbers of people although this isn’t always allowed to happen.
Some observers will make a special trip to observe a particular group of musical machines because they are used to the familiarity of the patterns such a combination might generate. As far as they are concerned the machines in question are the only ones that output the right information and any other machines that might be being operated in other designated spaces are in their view probably malfunctioning or have faulty parts.
Many observers simply want to see how the machines are used and often decide (probably misguidedly) that they would like to learn how to operate such equipment too. There is a machine called the ‘guitar’ which frequently attracts attention like this. Drummers are perhaps the most interesting individual machines to watch because you can see all the moving parts.
Ordinary people spend their working days involved in repetitive processes and routines. They like to extend this behaviour into their spare spare time by operating musical machines at home. Part-time time operators of musical machines often enjoy translating the sounds produced by their favourite full-time machine operators into data which they can then output to their own machines. They seem to revel in making their machines repeat the patterns generated by the machine operators they admire. Often they will use a machine which is a replica of the machine they like to achieve this. However, not all of them can do it accurately. Frustration at not being able to copy the data exactly, usually because of some defect in the physical machinery of the would-be operator, makes some people extremely irritated. Inefficient operators of musical machines may even appear on television from time to time but will eventually be de-commissioned.
Like with all technology which requires human skill to operate it, whether musical or not, there are potential physical dangers involved in controlling the equipment. For example, the mechanical repetitive actions involved in operating musical machines can cause repetitive strain injury and tennis elbow. In an age when the technology is readily available to save anyone the trouble of wearing themselves out by operating a musical machine it is surprising that people nonetheless continue to want to do this. For many years there have been musical machines available that can be told exactly what to do and when. Even better still, they never get the information wrong and they never ask for money or recognition.
One Response to “The musician is a machine”
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Nancy Schick Says:
You know, the sole reason “machines” are distinguished from “humans” is not that humans can do the same things (sometimes better, sometimes worse) but that machines do not have any intrinsic intelligence - which is probably a good thing. While it is very tempting to try to argue that humans and machines can do the exact same things, only a fool or a hearing-impaired person would mistake an electronic HD string recorder (or virtual orchestra) for a live Yo Yo Ma.
Electronic sound “machines” have a huge shortcoming: they compress and limit the sound - all of the sound, by the way. Since human hearing is only supposed to be able to hear sounds between 15 Hz and 20,000 Hz, electronic amplification systems are typically limited to a range of 50-15,000 Hz.
The problem with this is that instruments actually produce sound that extends above 30 kHz, and below 15 Hz. Because of sound wave/partial interactions, even though our ears cannot “hear” these out-of-range soundwaves, they can hear when these sounds have been removed from the original source, prior to amplification.
This doesn’t matter much with electric guitars, which are creatures of the electronic age. But it matters very much with violins, horns, and woodwinds.