Musician and his instrument pt.3

Boris de Schloezer saw technology as distancing the performer from the musical product. "All those splendid mechanisms, like Theremin’s or Martenot’s apparatus, ...are in a sense negligible, since they are not animated by the thought and will of man ... The development we have seen in the last twenty-five years ... consists in gradually replacing the direct relation between performer and auditor ... by an indirect and somewhat remote relation." (de Schloezer, 1931:3) Although he foresaw the eventual widespread impact of electrical technology on music, de Schloezer also dismissed its ability to contribute to music as an art: "Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as mechanical music ... [M]usic is, and always will be, essentially spiritual ... The ‘mechanization of music’ actually means the increase in the number of intermediaries between producer of music and listener." (de Schloezer, 1931:3)

This view was the exact opposite of Theremin’s, who saw electrical apparatus tapping more directly into the performer’s thoughts and intentions. Clearly, Theremin and de Schloezer were operating under different assumptions. De Schloezer held the view that music and its "humanity" lay in the direct, physical relationship between the player and the sound-producing device. The closer and more immediate the relationship, the better the instrument to express humanity. "Perfection for a musical device means ‘being human’", he claimed. The ideal instrument was, therefore, the human voice- an instrument inherently expressive of the human condition. He did, however, name a second best: "[B]owed instruments are incontestably the finest ... because they are in intimate contact with the human body and respond to its slightest impulses." (de Schloezer, 1931:4) Theremin also saw the ideal instrument as one sensitive to the performer’s actions, but didn’t see the technology as an "intermediary" or distancing apparatus, but a means to remove the physical restrictions of the very interfaces de Schloezer saw as in "intimate contact with the human body". Interestingly, both authors saw the voice as the ultimate expressive instrument, but came to completely opposite conclusions about technology’s ability to emulate its expressiveness. As I hope to demonstrate later, I think that six decades of development have shown that both men were essentially correct in their assessment of the potential and pitfalls of electronic interfaces.
http://www.yorku.ca/beckwith/Rashleigh.html