Virtual Musical Instruments
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    In Dec 2001 I exited the software world and lapsed my IEEE membership
    but I continue to receive emails. Today the email contained the following link.

    https://www.computer.org/web/computingnow/archive/virtual-musical-instruments-september-2017-introduction
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,415
    More simulacra!
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,981
    Seemed to me the article highlighted the weaknesses of virtual instruments, more than their strengths. YMMV.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,827
    just toys for
    the toy room
    fun and games, yes,
    but not for the church
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    Ah, such simulacrymosa!
    Thanked by 6M. Jackson Osborn CharlesW CHGiffen MarkS Casavant Organist StimsonInRehab
  • TCJ
    Posts: 986
    All these musical gadgets that we have... will they not ultimately result in less people being able to really play an instrument?
    Thanked by 4CharlesW eft94530 KARU27 Adam Wood
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,415
    Yes.
    Thanked by 1KARU27
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,981
    It is difficult to get young folks to play any instruments other than guitar. They all want to be rock gods. Band instruments still attract students, but many of them drop them when they get out of school.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    My youngest grandson coulda chose drum kit. Things could be worse.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    They all want to be rock gods
    .
    It's not easy, lemme tell ya, not easy!
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,933
    It is difficult to get young folks to play any instruments other than guitar.


    You'd be surprised. Off the top of my head I can think of at least three amazing organists in my neck of the woods who aren't old enough to vote. Junior Schweitzers need to be encouraged.
    Thanked by 2M. Jackson Osborn CHGiffen
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    get young folks to play any instruments

    It all depends on the grade school music teacher.
    It is all about what some adult(s) think that the students want.
    How strange it is .. that only one teacher ever thinks that way about their discipline.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,981
    In the Catholic school where I taught before retiring, music programs were cut pretty heavily to save money. The place was running an unbelievable deficit. At an earlier time when I was in public schools, the money was not a problem.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,415
    There is nothing but enthusiasm and putting money where that enthusiasm is at Walsingham. Our choirmaster and his wife are expert at teaching youth a love of music and a love of singing. Before long we will have multiple graded choirs for the children of the parish and the Holy House home-schooling student body of around 250 students.

    Our treble choir for youth sings periodically at high mass and other occasions. They are vested in cassock and surplice, plus neck ruffs (which they must earn!). The treble choir has sung the treble part to motets which they sing with the cathedral choir, plus some very impressive REAL music for unison, two, and three parts. (Not a single note of that pap referred to incongruously as 'children's music'.)

    Our new choir hall, situated in our new educational building (St Elizabeth Ann Seaton Hall) is easily as large as the cathedral itself, with built-in riser seating for up to 100 choristers, plus room for an audience for musical presentations. The choir hall is graced with a new nine-foot Steinway. We will have music running out our ears - which is just what ought to be normal everywhere. What music will add to the spiritual and intellectual lives of our people, young and old, is immeasurably beyond that of other fields of learning. I, myself, would not be reticent in asserting that every field of learning finds its true perspective in the sacred nest that is the musical mind.

    Don't think that music is 'all' that is offered our youth and adults - the Holy House program includes history, philosophy, Greek, Latin, theology, Church history, and such, in addition to maths, English literature, art, and much more - even computer stuff. Recent graduates are now beginning studies in Classics at the U of Dallas, and Bio-engineering at Rice Univ. Plus, we have early teens who can play Mozart piano concertos. All this is the genuine investment in The Future.

    What youth are taught is a fair measure of how little or how much one thinks of God - and of the children which are his. Of course, for them to be taught one needs teachers who know what needs to be taught AND have a gift for teaching it. This is the great weakness in Catholic education. The employment of such teachers is a rarity in our Church - as are their pastoral cousins, our choirmasters.

    You won't hear 'Catholics can't this and that' at Walsingham.
    Nor anything that is 'virtual' - it's all real.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen StimsonInRehab
  • KyleM18
    Posts: 150
    MJO: When you say you don't sing "Children's Choir" stuff, you're speaking OCP-style trash, not RVW-style compositions, right? I mean, some of it is marketed as "Children's Choir" or "Boy Choir". Maybe its just me, but that's the first thing i think of when I hear "Children's Choir", not "Rise up and sing." The children's choirs at several parishes are accompanied by a SYNTH of all things, playing the kareoke tracks of Haas and Lawton, so I wouldn't be surprised if others think of that sacrilege.


    Back to the main topic: I mean, I'd be fine playing a Hauptwerk for practice, but I'd rather not inside of a church. Not getting into the debate about Pipe v. Digital, but I know I wouldn't want to be messing with a PC during Mass. Oh, blue screen of death right during the Offertory. Oh well, I'll just keep - Oh wait, that means my Organ's dead, and the congregation is going to listen to the standard startup sequence. Wouldn't that be an abuse worth writing home about!
    Thanked by 3M. Jackson Osborn CharlesW CHGiffen
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,933
    Well, on the topic of youth and simulacra, I hope we all managed to see this story about Fr. Cekada's young protégé and his setting of the mass. There's a nice MP3 rendition at cpdl of his work. This kid's not even in college yet, seems like. Yikes. (And yes, I know Fr. C's theological views. Thank you.)

  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    An admirable effort. And, God willing, an impetus towards more innovative and inspired works.
    But that said, for all practical purposes it proves mostly as a duet and continuo more than anything; well-crafted as it is.
    Should, as F. Cekada suggests, it be serviceable for parish TLM choirs, ought not such choirs actually explore the vast and largely unheard (at service) choral repertoire of past masters? Or more fully invest in contemporaneous composer works by modern writers whose expertise in both past and current idioms needs more widespread attention (ie. Allen, LaRocca, Giffen...)
    I am happy for the young man and pray his continued studies enable his further efforts to glorify our Lord.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen StimsonInRehab
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,933
    it proves mostly as a duet and continuo more than anything; well-crafted as it is.


    The state of Fr. C's choir (at least as judged by the editions he makes on cpdl) seems to consist entirely of Teen Girl Squad. Singers of the masculine persuasion seem to be in short supply.
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