ABSTRACT
A range of issues and related tasks inform our use of technologies for music making, and in this chapter we will consider many of them. Exploring these issues will reveal our assumptions and habits when working with a computer and it is useful to expose them and be able to identify their influence. Some of the ideas may be unfamiliar and provide new ways of thinking about and approaching the computer’s role in our music making. The issues discussed in this chapter include ways in which computers amplify our decisions, how technologies cannot be invisible in the music-making process, the significance of cultural context on technological design and usage, the importance of metaphor in assisting or directing our activities with technology, what the impact of music technologies are on our notions of musicianship, how the computer can scaffold and support music making, that the motivation or intention of music making does not fundamentally change with the use of the computer, the ways of engaging students with music-making activities through the use a computer, and how the use of computers should not distract us from the importance of musical activities being a meaningful part of a student’s life.
