The synthesiser

Brian Eno on the synthesiser:

One of the important things about the synthesiser was that it came without any baggage. A piano comes with a whole history of music. There are all sorts of cultural conventions built into traditional instruments that tell you where and when that instrument comes from. When you play an instrument that does not have any such historical background you are designing sound basically. You're designing a new instrument. That's what a synthesiser is essentially. It's a constantly unfinished instrument. You finish it when you tweak it, and play around with it, and decide how to use it. You can combine a number of cultural references into one new thing.

This concept of "unfinished" instruments is especially true of electronic music today. Where do you draw the lines of historical development with groups like Autechre or Supersilent? I wonder if those kinds of sounds/instrumentation could eventually have the standard conventions of a grand piano? It seems unlikely, but at the same time, necessary for creative development. I guess we'll know in 500 years when people are dusting off copies of Draft 7.30 for music theory classes.