ABSTRACT
The authors observe that for many people a crucial difference is the need to ‘mould oneself’ to an acoustic instrument, whereas a digital instrument can be created to suit the needs of the user. However, the mutability and lack of limitations of software can also be a weakness, because its short lifetime discourages the achievement of mastery. Technical problems such as latency (the delay between an action and the system’s response) were also seen as problematic, but probably the most vexed issue was ‘arbitrary mapping’, or
the fact that ‘there are no “natural” mappings between the exertion of bodily energy and the resulting sound in digital music’. One consequence of this is a difficulty in disengaging the brain and becoming ‘one with the physical embodiment of performing’.2
