By Miriam Erasmus
Want to destroy the human spirit?
Destroy anything that has a human artistic endeavour.
Make machines and programmes that can mimic music, painting, writing, sculpting, drama, mime, you name it.
Make sure that even the most artistically deprived can pretend to be Mozart or Monet at the touch of a button, and make sure that it is cheap, or, even better, apparently free.
I cannot tell you the amount of lives and spirits that are being destroyed, as I write, by the insidious introduction of ‘artistic’ short cuts into our lives.
I must admit to being guilty of using musical and artistic programmes over the years. Mainly because of financial restraints.
As early as the 1990s, John and I used programmed music to enhance our own performances – particularly drum boxes and keyboard cards that can produce various sounds from strings to saxaphones. He became an expert at reprogramming backtracks for our specific use.
The trouble is that everybody used the same backtracks, so every pub or sports bar is now echoing to the same backtracks with different vocals on top!!!
For many years, we played actual instruments during all our shows.
Then to make things less cumbersone on our set ups at schools, the keyboard and drum machines were replaced by cds. Our childrens’ songs accompaniments were eventually written out note for note, by me, on good old Cakewalk and I could make everything sound orchestral or pop as I desired. I still used John’s arrangements as the templates, but his fingers no longer tickled the ivories as we worked with the children.
Even the Puppet show accompaniment music was programmed.
I still made and manipulated the Puppets, and my voice was live for the script and songs. John now had to follow my cues and press buttons for ‘on’ and ‘off’, and he was brilliant at that timing.
The book and cd covers I designed with the help of our son teaching me Photoshop and Microsoft Word programmes.
In our defence, the design still had to be worked out by our brains and skills, not just a typed format as done nowadays.
The only thing I could not programme was my actual voice, but even that is doable these days!!
My heart goes out to the thousands of artists, of all disciplines, who are battling to find ways of earning an income because something destructive has taken over those magical skills that take years to hone, and mere seconds to undermine.
I even lament the fact that I am using a machine to type this instead of the beautiful handwritten documents that became books and articles of the past. Original manuscripts are a joy to behold, and, even in my small way, I have kept and archived all my pre – computer handwritten words and music.
Whose fault is this demise ? The Inventors or the Users?
These are the time honoured questions as Things advance
but
does Humanity advance I wonder?
Meanwhile I am still thinking, singing, writing and using this device to communicate it all.
Hey Ho!!
Author Bio:
Singer / Songwriter Miriam was born in Lewes, Sussex in 1948, and has a lifetime of making music.
From 1993-7 she was “Miriam Backhouse. The First Lady of Folk”.
She still tours Europe with her own songs and traditional ones.
In 1977 she married John Erasmus and moved to South Africa.
They raised a family as “Mim and John” playing music for all ages, but mostly touring the local Schools from 1987 to 2018.
She wrote 300 Educational songs and poems for children.
Now a journalist, she writes of life in South Africa and her travels.
Contact Author:
YouTube link:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnpj8REUlOzHPXnPnULwpKg
Facebook link:
https://web.facebook.com/miriam.erasmus
