If you ask musicians what they value most about making music, most of them will say—in some form or another—flow. Flow is that wonderful sense of being lost in your work, when “work” becomes joy. Time disappears, and so do distraction, anxiety, and just about everything else, yielding to a pure unity of creator and creation.

So wouldn’t it be strange if many of today’s musical instruments were designed to prevent or destroy flow? According to a recently convened group of audio experts, that seems to be the case. The group issued a report stating that most electronic musical instruments are complicated, confusing, and just plain frustrating to use—and when it comes to supporting flow, they compare poorly to instruments that have been around for centuries.

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