If Hendrix didn’t tune his guitar in such a way, it wouldn’t make his characteristic tone. If he didn’t play it in such a way, he wouldn’t be “unique”. Hendrix chose the guitar and made the accommodations to it according to his style. I don’t deny that these things are important to an artist’s style and image, but I don’t see how the guitar is responsible. I agree that a “classic guitar” could inspire such style, but I don’t see how that means the guitar gets credit.

I guess what this debate comes down to is the extent of the credit we’re willing to issue the instrument. I credit it with inspiration for style.

Jenkinson says that his music “reveals as much about the machine as it does about himself”. If you think of this in terms of Heidegger’s sense of ‘revealing’, where the machine is partly responsible for the music (or the music is partly indebted to the machine), how is this objectionable?

Consider also the fact that Jenkinson’s machines aren’t just off-the-shelf instruments, but they are usually highly customized and tweaked. A more familiar example: no one can play guitar like Hendrix, because he would open up the pick-ups on his guitar and hand wind the wires. So his guitars make a very distinct sound that characterizes Hendrix’s music. The eventual sounds being made are as unique to those instruments as Jimmy was a unique instrumentalist. Or think about how much time Jack White (to name just one example) spends looking for classic guitars or unique amps and speaker set ups. If the instruments didn’t matter, why go through the trouble?

The point is that the resulting music is partly an expression of the tools, and not just a spontaneous creation from the mind of the artist. It is never the case that an artist has an idea, and then realizes that idea perfectly. Every attempt at art goes through these instruments, and the resulting artifact is partly shaped by those tools.

In other words, there is no perfect, ideal creator, and no unique creative process. It is ALWAYS a process of collaboration.

I agree with you about computers being a new type of instrument. I think Jenkinson wants us to recognize how the instrument an artist chooses to use impacts the work he ultimately creates because of its features and connotations (and I agree with this), but I think he goes too far to credit the machine in such a way. Perhaps the cover of the album ought to say “inspired by my laptop,” in the same way an author usually dedicates a novel.

On a side note, computer aided music is mostly digital and therefore the sound is not going to be as “real” as music made with acoustic or electro acoustic instruments (fender rhodes etc…).