A drummer playing a LRLR steady beat with sticks will most likely lift each stick a consistent distance above the drum head during their stroke. To the extent that they do this, they will be removing a variable from the equation, so to speak…imposing a physical constant on their technique. A violinist might find that playing in a certain part of the bow (e.g. closer to the frog or closer to the tip) allows them to play repeated notes at a certain speed, or that larger muscle groups aid in the maintenance of long, slow bows and smaller muscles in the wrist and fingers aid in fast playing. In each case, the musician is relying on physical qualities their bodies or their instruments, to maintain a steady beat. Good musicians are taught to internalize the beat (e.g. subdivision), but what I’m referring to external sources of beat and the musician’s relative ability to access those sources.
Different instruments have different physical characteristics that can be accessed. The touchscreen, in my estimation, not so much. A musician with a good internal sense of beat might overcome some of these limitations, but I think they’d still prefer an instrument providing more physical feedback.
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