Foreword to "Music & New Technology - the MIDI connection"

A book written by Gabriel Jacobs and Panicos Georghiades.

Many times in the past I have been asked the same question: What do I think about keyboards, synthesisers, and the modern technology?

I always find it extremely difficult to give a simple answer, one which can cover the full implications of the question. The reason for this is obvious. I don't know what it is that I am dealing with. Are we defining keyboards as things which have keys, an instrument ready to be played by humans, or are they things which appear to have keys but are far from being an instrument?

You see, it was inevitable that from the moment Man invented the first drum, flute, bow, string, and the like, he created something out of a specific need to produce sound in his own time and in his own way. Unlike the invention of the wheel, when an inevitable pattern was started that would lead us ultimately to conquer space, it is apparent to me that with instruments today we have not, so far, gone on to conquer creation. The reason for this is simple. Through our investment, and therefore our belief that technology will lead us to the mastery of creation, we might commit the error of underestimating, more and more, the Human factor, which is a far better machine in this area.

In other words, instead of using the technology to our own advantage, we are the ones who have become progressively more used, and for me, who have been a believer in technology since my childhood, the way of development has turned into a nightmare, due mainly to the monopoly of the approach taken by designers and manufacturers, who are responsible for the lack of playability and the lack of instant access. Instead of shortening the distance between the moment of creation and execution, the reverse has applied, and this distance now grows bigger by the day.

We understand however that, after all, there is nothing wrong with technology; it is simply the design which is at fault. It is known throughout the history of Humanity that many great and important discoveries end up being used in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons. In this area, therefore, I hope and I wish that we begin to pay a far greater attention to the problem, because music, and of course creation, are serious matters, far more so than sheer entertainment or easy commercial gains. Music, and creation in general, are the safety valve for the human race - not forgetting, of course, humour.

I appeal to you all, therefore (the reader as well as the various manufacturers) to take this matter very seriously, and to create a paradise of technology - one not made in order to look at, but to inhabit achieving thereby, at last, contact with the Universal Law.

Vangelis

PS: It is not by chance that various early Greek philosophers talked constantly about the music of the spheres!