Digital Instruments and Players: Part II-Diversity, Freedom and Control

This article explores some music instruments generic properties such as the diversity, the variability or the reproducibility of their musical output, the linearity or non-linearity of their behavior, and tries to figure out how these aspects can bias the relation between the instrument and its player, and how they may relate to more commonly studied and (ab)used concepts such as expressivity or virtuosity. It aims at conceiving a theoretical framework in which the possibilities and the diversity of music instruments, as well as the possibilities and the expressive freedom of human music performers could all be evaluated; a framework that could help to figure out what the essentials needs for different types of musicians -from the absolute novice to the professional or the virtuosocan be.