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. . . a few weeks ago, I had
occasion to be present
at several full days of instrumental auditions. I heard in that time well
over fifty young musicians, all of them either young professionals or graduates
or postgraduates. Of that number I am sorry to report no more than perhaps
5 percent seemed to have any idea of why they were playing music, what
a musical phrase meant—indeed what constituted a musical phrase—and
what the expressive and intellectual range of music can really be. For
95 percent of them it was merely a matter of pushing down certain keys
at certain times, moving arms or adjusting embouchures or whatever was
involved in their instrument, to perform what appeared to be a purely mechanical
operation. The whole sense of the joy of music, of the beauty of music,
of the ability to communicate through music, was absent. If the computer
ever takes over the world of music, it will not be because this or that
composer wished it so and inflicted it on an unwilling public, but it will
be rather because the passivity and utter boredom of the player will have
reached such a point that he might as well be replaced by the computer,
for at least the computer is efficient.
Gunther Schuller
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