I kept up my relationship with Stevie Wonder, and on one of our get togethers at his new Los Angeles recording studio in 1982, he lamented the state of affairs in the world of musical instruments. On the one hand, there was the world of acoustic instruments, such as the piano, violin and guitar, which provided the rich complex sounds of choice for most musicians. While musically satisfying, these instruments suffered from a panoply of limitations. Most musicians could play only one or two different instruments. Even if you could play more than one, you couldn't play more than one at a time.
Most instruments only produce one note at a time.
There were very limited means available to shape the sounds. On the other hand, there was the world of electronic instruments, in which these control limitations disappeared. In the computerized world, you could record one line of music on a sequencer, play it back and record another sequence over it, building up a multi-instrumental composition line by line. You could edit wrong notes without replaying the entire sequence. You could layer multiple sounds, modify their sonic characteristics, play songs in non-real time, and use a great variety of other techniques.