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Excerpts from Fons Adriaensen's message of 2011-10-19 22:42:32 +0200:

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> On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 10:02:44PM +0200, Philipp Überbacher wrote:

>

> > In at least the time I could observe them many musicians fell into two

> > categories: Those who are happy with playing music in the style of

> > popular musicians from years past (Classical era, Beatles era, Rock era)

> > and those who are happy to play in the popular style of the present

> > (Pop). I believe those who tried to find new grounds have always been a

> > minority, and it likely always was hard, for a variety of reasons.

>

> True. And there is nothing wrong with wanting to play in the popular

> style of the present (Pop). But that's not the same thing as assuming

> that using the plugins/effects used on a recent hit will automagically

> produce something interesting, or that you need them at all.

That's certainly true, I know this behavior from myself and others. I'm

sure it's not only encountered in music but at very least in other arts

as well. Example: "Understanding Comics", 1993, by Scott McCloud is a

comic about comics and near the end (p. 197) it say: "Comics welcomes

any writer or artist to step into its world, a world as close as pen or

pencil and paper", and in a margin note it says: "And no, they don't

have to be these types of pens and pencils.". At least to me this

indicates that in the world of comics people also tend to mimic the

'surface' only, or at least 'surface' first (same book, p 171).  Most

likely it's a even more universal behavioral pattern and can be found

outside of art as well, I guess some psychologist somewhere even created

a name for it. I don't believe this is anything special, neither special

in music nor in time.
> Some months ago someone wrote that zita-at1 was indeed the only

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> usable autotuner on Linux, but that unfortunately it could not

> produce some effects that were popular at the time. As far as I

> know, that refers to male singers sounding as if their b***s are

> being squeezed or roasted. Is such an effect an essential element

> of 'the popular style of the present' ? AFAICT it will be forgotten

> soon if it isn't already. It's the sort of thing that gets boring

> the third time you hear it.

I don't think I even know that effect, it might not last, and it doesn't

matter much anyway. People need to experiment, and to mimic others is

one way to experiment on a personal level. Most things don't stand the

test of time anyway and fade into irrelevance. Those effects don't need

to be feared because they likely won't last.
I don't see any obligation for anyone to write anything. If some effect

is possible with your software then you have a hard time complaining

about it if your software is released under the GPL because of the

freedom to use the software for any purpose. If its not possible then

people need to modify it on their own or achieve it some other way. I

can imagine that creating the feeling of obligation in authors is not

helpful. I can also imagine that this happens increasingly more often in

the free software scene in general, simply because free software is

presented as substitute or competition to commercial offerings and many

new users are as a consequence demanding instead of grateful and

supportive. In a sense a fundamental idea of free software is vanishing,

the idea of getting and giving. From a more positive view this whole

competition thing could be seen as a compliment to free software,

because it means that it often plays at least in the same league as

companies.
Have a good night,

Regards,

Philipp
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