Contents Acknowledgements Introduction 1 The Micro Concept 2 The Personal Micro and Music 3 The Micro in the Studio 4 The Micro as Teacher 5 The Micro and the Percussionist 6 The Micro in Performance 7 The Micro/Instrument Hybrids 8 The Micro in Sequence 9 The Mighty Micro: Dedicated Music Computers 10 The Micro and the Musician 2 Acknowledgements Acknowledgements: Thanks are due to the many individuals, companies, magazines and publishers who have willingly offered both time and expert advice in the preparation of this book. Of particular help were: Apple Computer, Warren Cann, Richard Desmond, Peter Gabriel, Dave Green, Ikutaro Kakehashi, Michael Kelly, John Lewis, Fred Mead, Tony Mitchell, Brian Nunney, Stephen Paine, John Pawsey, Philips Electrical, Tom Piggot, the Roland companies in the UK and the USA, Martin Rushent, Kim Ryrie, Bill Stephen, Syco Systems Ltd, the Tandy Corporation, Cherry Watret and Hans Zimmer. Special thanks are due to my wife, Elizabeth Hammond, who proofread this manuscript several times. This book is for Jane, a musician of the future who will only have to be able to ‘hear’ to play. 3 Introduction This book is about the future of music. It assumes that the reader knows something about music but little about computers. With the aid of computers, music has taken a sudden evolutionary jump and many musicians have stumbled at the fence. For some adults, computers and the high-tech jargon that surrounds them, represent one of the least attractive aspects of life in the late twentieth century. Artists especially are dismissive of such coldly calculating objects, preferring to place their belief in human inspiration and instinctive creativity. But the computer has become a friendly beast. It is here to offer assistance with life’s problems and despite the difficulties that will undoubtedly occur as it arrives in society; in the long term it promises to help man fulfill himself. Music is in all of us, to a greater or lesser extent, but for many enthusiastic fans, expression is locked away inside, unable to get out because the body lacks a means of physical expression. Life has so much to offer, that time may not be available to train the body to express itself musically. Until now it has been necessary to school fingers, lips and feet to perform unnatural tasks for music production. such training often spans years before music-making becomes natural enough for melody to flow unimpeded from the mind to the outside world. 4 Now the computer liberates the music in all of us. There is no longer the need for years of piano practice, agonized months of violin scrapings and the deliberate cultivation of finger-tip calluses. The computer will take over the mechanical parts of the job, and allow us to make melody, to sing, allowing the music to pour forth. Such statements seem shocking (if not nonsensical) when applied to the ritually formal and stylized world of classical music, but here, as in all other music spheres, computers have much to offer and no power to harm. Some long-held attitudes will change as a result of this revolution. Technically-proficient musicians have long been held in high regard, but if their skill can be equalled, or exceeded, by a computer their future as the mechanical reproducers of music must be limited. Of course, the greatest performers, those who breathe originality into each performance, will remain inviolate, their skills even more clearly defined by their very humanity. This book is, of necessity, only an introduction to the subject of. computer aid for music making. Interested readers are urged to get ‘hands on’ experience as further instruction is hard to contemplate unless it is accompanied by practical experience. The computer is an ally, helping Man make better music. Ray Hammond, Bath, England. January 1983 5 1 The Micro Concept ‘The guitar will be gone within ten years - Microchips!’ Pete Townshend.1 Peter Gabriel composes and creates most of his music using a computer. So do Ultravox, Kraftwerk, Stevie Wonder, The Human League, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Neil Young, Jean-Michel Jarre, Toto, Landscape, Tangerine Dream, Keith Emerson and a growing army of successful musicians and composers. Why? Gabriel: ‘I have no technique really, no training, no formal understanding whatever - as is true for a lot of rock people. But now I am able to do things which before would have had to incorporate professional, specially trained musicians.’ Warren Cann (Ultravox): ‘It took me about a month to get used to machine tempo and then I started really getting off on it. I used to think: “it’s not really me against the machine”.’ 1 . Rolling Stone, June 24th, 1982. 6 The computer offers great power over music, compressing into weeks, tasks that would otherwise take months and freeing musicians to concentrate on the quality of their music rather than on its mechanical production. In this book, and in the music business generally, you will see and hear the terms ‘micro’, ‘computer’, ‘microprocessor’ and ‘chip’ used interchangeably; it might be a good idea to clear up any confusion early on although a Glossary of Jargon appears at the back of this book. In most cases the four terms mean precisely the same thing. Jargon is the curse of the computer age. Computing is a new science and whilst every science has its own language, computers will be used by everybody, not just scientists, and jargon is a barrier to understanding. A microprocessor is a small group of electronic circuits laid on top of each other on one silicon chip. They are usually cased in rectangular black- plastic housings about .5 in. (13mm) long x .25 in. (6.5mm). Half-a-dozen metal ‘legs’ protrude from both long sides and they are usually fixed to a printed circuit board by these legs (which also serve as the electrical connectors). The circuit itself is very much smaller than the black-:plastic case and the only reason that the casing is so large is to allow humans to handle the tiny circuits. There is one more important feature about microprocessors: they are CHEAP, and they are getting still cheaper. A chip that was $5.38 in February 1980 costs $l as this book goes to press. It is this combination of power and low cost that is the key to the revolution which is overtaking music (and almost every other aspect of our lives). 7 The circuits in the chip combine to form the processing unit of a computer - a machine that is capable of being programmed to carry out tasks of logic. You must alter your understanding of the word ‘computer’ in order to understand this revolution properly. Where the definition formerly read: ‘a room full of equipment smothered in knobs and dials with vertical open-reel tapes spinning endlessly’ it must now read: ‘a minute group of circuits that may be programmed to carry out logical tasks.’ It isn’t necessary for any musician to understand the details of how a computer works, but the first hurdle is to accept that a tiny circuit, such as the one we’re describing, can be a complete computer. All that is required is a method for us to communicate with it and a method for it to communicate with us. Only a few years ago a room full of equipment would have been needed to produce the computing power contained in today’s average $5 production chip. The enormous increase in computer power stems from the stunning technological developments of the last 30 years and it is important to realize that this development is still continuing and increasing in speed. Thus in five years we are likely to find one tiny chip that is a hundred times more powerful than production chips today. By now it must have become obvious that the term power is used a great deal when describing computers. Power means the speed at which a computer works and its amount of memory. 8 The tiny computer in the chip, the microprocessor, often consists of three separate circuits, although these circuits are sometimes separated on different chips. The three circuits are usually an ALU (arithmetic/logic unit), a control-logic unit and a control-memory unit. It is memory capacity which transforms the chips into computers because the ability to remember is the ability to learn, and so we encounter our first concept of artificial intelligence. The arithmetic/ logic unit carries out the addition and subtraction of numbers necessary in a program and also makes comparisons for logical’ reasons. The control unit is precisely what it sounds, a circuit for controlling what the arithmetic/logic and memory circuits are doing whilst ‘interfacing’ (connecting) them to the outside world (you). Every computer in the world remembers things by numbers, but only the two digits 1 and 0 are used in an endless variety of combinations (e.g.l0lll000). This method of counting is called the binary code. Computers seem more friendly, more human perhaps, when it is realized that the things can’t multiply or divide as we do. If a computer has to divide 1,000 by 12, the computer adds up twelves until 1,000 is exceeded, takes one off, calculates the decimal fraction left over and delivers the complete answer. This trial and error process of carrying out mathematical functions is effective only because it is done so quickly. Even computers which remember music or words actually store their memories as numbers, converting their memories into sounds or words when commanded to do so and returning them to memory as numbers when they are not required.