We have no connection with Kurzweil or its parent company, Young-Chang. The Kurzweil Synthesizer is one of a variety of very competitively developed instruments, all of which employ some of the wonders of digital technology. The last decade, with no exaggeration, has ushered in a new era in the history of musical instruments. We are witnessing developments that are even more far-reaching and significant than, say, the change from viols to violins, or from natural horns to valve instruments. The implications for music as a performance and a compositional art are nothing short of epoch-making.
Music is one of the areas in which digital technology has had the greatest impact over the years.
Digital technologies have opened up means for accomplishing in music things that were hardly imagined in the past. These new capabilities greatly exceed what we might have expected from any technology whatsoever. Digital aids for musical practice and education are simply astonishing in their power not only to make practice and study more effective, but also more enjoyable. New mediums and channels for the production and distribution of music have simultaneously opened up, as have systems of communication that have far-reaching implications for the lives that we lead as musicians. Think only, for example, of technology being used today that permits musicians in Los Angeles to play with musicians in New York, and to record their ensemble with no more trouble than they would have talking on the telephone.