The 303 – gave birth to music culture, that I still follow today – techno (a very maligned and misunderstood form of music, but then I am biased). As with all technology there are rules, but they can be manipulated to discover something new. Something Roland is figure on was a sound that wasn’t even advertised, but enterprising musicians. The TB-303 has an accent control modifies a note’s volume, filter resonance, and envelope modulation. This “feature” was used to warp and experiment with sounds, producing the definitive acid house noise, that was used across electronic music genres, and still used today.
It was only by means of Exploratory testing, that this came about – not following a rulebook. Someone (still disputed) hit on something that gave the feature another value – in this case spawning a new wave of electronic music. In people’s obsession with getting requirements work first time, and stressing about how much value to pack it, some ideas will only come from experimentation – taking what’s there, and feeling out strengths and weakenesses. You are unlikely to be able to do that when defining requirements, but by allowing culture of exploratory testing and development (managed and documented), you create a more robust application, and potential added value for your client can see. Although I hated the cheesiness of the phrase, “delight and surprise” was good aim, but seemed to be just stuck in management-speak rather followed up with any practical measures to achieve it (beyond delivering on time).
Modern electronic music (and I guess, all types of music) evolve through experimentation – not always successful, but how else do you move forward without trying – and at worst, learning from mistakes.
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