Mr. Bremmer - you must have had a really rough week or someone tampered with your wine cellar! We all have days when it appears that someone put bones in our milk - so I will not be judgemental about how you have seen the tuning and music business these past few days. I interpreted the article about computers and music to be that computers are more of a tool to creating music. Just as desk top publishing and email has made authors and publishers out of people who would not have bothered given the mimeograph machine and the manual typewriter, I find that music sequencing software offers tools that have heretofor been unavailable to the "common folk". It is now possible to compose music and get it written into proper music notation with just a press of a button instead learning how to write music notation by hand. It is now possible for a student to get an idea of how a piece of sheet music sounds just by scanning the sheet into a TIFF file, and using a music notation program to convert the "picture" to a MIDI file that can be played on a computer or a MIDI player piano. Computer aided music allows piano players to play their pianos and have the orchestra accompany them - for those who own Disklaviers, PianoDisc and Pianomation systems installed on their pianos. Computers allow music lovers of all ages to edit music and easily create orchestra scores and choir arrangements in any key signature that fits their voices. We should be greatful that computers are making music creation and enjoyment, as well as piano tuning more accessible, and therefore easier to compete with sports for people's time and money. I taught a little mini-tech at the convention in Arlington about how computer software can contribute to more people enjoying music, but I am in doubt as to whether piano technicians are ready for this yet. I also was present at the Smithsonian Hall of Musical Instruments when Owen Jorgenson, with his 2-foot tall manuscript, gave his lecture on historical temperaments. We had 4 pianos from the different centuries, tuned in their appropriate temperaments, and had students from Peabody Conservatory play the same music on each instrument. To hear these instruments played in historic temperaments was an ear-awakening experience. To me, it was like hearing music in color, instead of black-and-white. I use the above examples to point out to you that just as you are unwilling to accept that computers do indeed make a remarkable difference in what can be done with music - others are just as unwilling to accept that historic temperaments can make the music written for them sound more beautiful than can be imagined. The germ theory of disease was another concept that didn't go over well at the time it was proposed, or the concept that the earth was round and orbited around the sun; but over time the truth was accepted. Don't despair, Mr. Bremmer, as "the suffering of idiots" works both ways! Carol Beigel, RPT Greenbelt, Maryland
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