Scarily Cool New Software...

[Originally posted in blog 1.0 on 20 June 2007]
Zenph Studios home page re-performance MIDI Sony Gould Tatum
[Summary: The software takes an audio file and analyzes every single note for at least 12 different attributes, including start/stop times, attack, volume, etc, etc, etc. All of this information is encoded into a digital (MIDI) file which is replayed by a computer-controlled piano.]
Okay, so Gould's recording of the Goldberg Variations sounds great... and yeah, it'll be awesome to "remaster" old recordings (presuming that the software operator in charge doesn't make any 'corrections' to the original... after all hi-fi still stands for high-FIDELITY!)
But what I fear is a generation of musicians growing up with this software as standard... Much like what MATLAB and MathCad have done for engineering students, this software could eliminate the transcription component of a musical education! (For those non-musicians out there, transcribing is the process of listening to music and writing it down into notes, accents, etc.). This is an INVALUABLE tool to a musician and should never be forgotten... Any musicians or music enthusiasts out there want to weigh in?