[PD] elitism, software and academia (was GEM FTGL Sadness)

[Claude Heiland-Allen]

jared wrote:
> Hey Andy.

[snip]

> The force of industry is continually to divide programmers from
> practicioners, to demark roles like "creative sound designer" from
> "audio programmer" and create neat conservative little pidgeonholes for
> HR people to fit CVs into. Of course this is nonsense. Any good sound
> designer 
> or musician is greatly enriched by a knowledge of programming, DSP, 
> physics etc, and at the same time any programmer is greatly enabled 
> by understanding the aesthetics and big picture of a product they work
> on.

I am disappointed when I see academia taking a similar line:


--8<--
Combine these in a degree in Computer Science with Music Technology and 
you could be creating music software for tomorrow’s musicians.
--8<--


or,


"get that tick for the box on the industry job application form"


I'm not sure I want to be part of that world.  For me, making music is 
inextricably linked with programming - I don't want to make an 
instrument for someone else; I don't want to make an instrument once and 
use it forever; I want to be constantly exploring, building new bespoke 
instruments to fit every piece I write, which may borrow from earlier 
work but are never exactly the same.  Art isn't "the wheel", there is no 
final destination, no brilliant black box instrument that once built can 
do everything I want it to do.


Claude
-- 
http://claudiusmaximus.goto10.org