BellaOnline Forums Books and Music Classical Music Classical music & the synthesizer

Do you guys think it is cheating to use a synthesizer when writing/performing classical music?

This option was not available up until a few years ago - the instruments did not sound real enough to actually pull off a performance (even now some of he instruments - violin especially- still sound stringent to my ear).

So is this cheating, or using a new media that is now available?

Do any of you remember the movie "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure"? Where the two guys were going and kidnapping all these historical figures through time so they could pass their history exam?

Well, one of the figures they kidnap is Beethoven - and I always remember the scenen in the mall when Beetthoven discovers all the synthesizers in the music store. He starts playing about 6 of those babies, plus a set of electric drums all at the same time - just composing at a frantic rate!

Could you imagine what the composers of those times - Mozart, Back, Rachmaninoff (God forbid) could do with today's technology?

Hi. I am a composer based in Perth, Australia (www.nickdavismusic.com) and a newbie to this forum. As someone who has embraced technology to produce essentially 'classical' music I felt I should add my two cents worth.

I am part of a small but growing band of composers who create music using digitally sampled sound libraries � not synthesised sounds but recorded samples of real instruments formatted to play via midi using a music keyboard. If it were not for a couple of networked PCs running a virtual recording studio and a virtual orchestra at my disposal my music would simply never be heard. I don�t have the recourses nor the means to have my music recorded by a real orchestra.

The purists are often appalled at what I do and I have received critiques from classical music reviewers who obsess over the fact that I have not used real musicians. They are quite confronted by this. Fortunately there are some liberal minded critics and classical musicians who can appreciate the music for what it is and can accept the inherent limitations of sampled instruments. I am the first to admit that there are limitations. There are some pieces on my albums that were crying out for the 'human' touch - where the samples did not have the right feel or emotion. As a result some compromises had to be made during the composition process. There are also some instruments that don�t sample all that well. A classic example of this is the solo violin. I have yet to hear a totally convincing sampled solo violin.

As for cheating, well I don�t buy that argument at all. I mostly record the midi tracks in real time and then edit them to clean them up. Sometimes I will manually notate using software without actually playing the line on my keyboard. This is akin to a composer writing notes on a sheet of paper with the main difference being that I can hear the notes played back immediately. I will admit that this does allow me to produce recordings beyond my playing capabilities but then again composers have always written parts that they could never actually play themselves. I write string and brass sections yet I can not play any string or brass instruments.

Technology certainly provides contemporary musicians and composers with a head start, but you still need to have the talent, ability and skill to write music in the first place. Without talent and skill the technology is quite useless. I write my music. It is all my own creative work. The technology is just a tool that I use to produce a recorded end product. I am certainly not alone in that regard.

Cheers

Nick Davis

www.nickdavismusic.com
www.earlcolemusic.com
www.melodymusic.com.au

Yes! I wonder if many of the great composers of the past could play ALL of the instruments in the orchestra that they composed for, hmmmm?

It's very unlikely!