It's more fun to compute.

Fine musical instruments are extremely sensitive, and this sensitivity offers to the performer a subtle control over the sound. Not exactly control though, since the performer shapes but does not finally determine the sound. To shape the sound requires an ongoing mechanism of feedback so that the instrument places not only the controls of the dominion of the player but also puts the player in direct contact witht he sonic surfaces of the instrument. Subtlety is possible because the player hears, from some small distance, the sound produced by the instrument but also because he experiences in his body and immediately the vibrations of the instrument's parts. One does not simply adjust one's playing according to the sound produced but also according to the feel of the instrument against one's flesh, the sensation of the string pinioned under the finger against the fretboard, the back pressure exerted by the column of air in a trumpet varying against one's lips, tongue, and mouth cavity, the vibrating reed in the oboe that makes one's cheek vibrate. These feedback mechanisms preclude a wholly preconceived performance; the player's goals are always provisional, only starting points that set the instrument to vibrating. Ends are never determined, beforehand but are produced from a complex negotiation between player and instrument.

82,3 Sound and Digits.


ADD N TO (X) - METAL FINGERS IN MY BODY von electro

An activity without an end product: the performance of a pianist or of a dancer does not leave us with a defined object distinguishable from the performance itself, capable of continuing after the performance has ended. An activity which requires the presence of others: the performance [Author uses the English word here] makes sense only if it is seen or heard. It is obvious that these two characteristics are inter-related: virtuosos need the presence of an audience precisely because they are not producing an end product, an object which will circulate through the world once the activity has ceased. Lacking a specific extrinsic product, the virtuoso has to rely on witnesses.
From Aristotle to Glenn Gould. P.V