I think that it can be a great thing for synthesists & people who do extensive sampling to learn more about what a 'live' musician would do playing the same or similar instruments. I also think that 'live' musicians can benefit from thinking 'outside the box' a bit more (so to speak).
For example, when I first started doing electronic music my compositions were a bit 2-dimensional even though I had years of guitar playing and some drumming behind me. By actually taking the time to THINK about what was just a natural (learned) behaviour before I found that I could pull many things from the live techniques and apply them to my sampling & synthesis to 'liven' up & vary the sound in musical ways.
In contrast, a friend of mine who is a devout guitarist/bassist for years didn't quite 'get' electronic music aside from providing some new-agey backing ambience for his dubby bass & guitar playing. 5 years later now and he's gone through 3-4 different synths that take input from a variety of sources (breath, string etc) and now he's settled on 2 physical modelling synths he loves and has a large variety of controllers lying about to use with them.
I should add that our conversations could either devolve into building fences & defending mental 'territory' or they can build into great exchanges of ideas from multiple 'camps'. Seems to be a lot of the former recently, probably time for some of what we used to experience a lot more (the latter).
pah, all this talk about sampling vs "real" playing is a bunch of crap. Wake up guys, this is the year 2004! How many bands are there now that succesfully incorporate both techniques in their music? Just because you can play and record a "real" instrument (I consider computers and synths real instruments too though) doesn't mean your music is better. That's a bunch of pretentious crap. Using samples doesn't make it neccesarily easier to make music either, that just depends on how you use the technique. Of course some people will use prefabricated loop and add very little of their own, but how is that different from a kid playing covers on his guitar?
Just throwing some prefab samples together doesn't make a good piece of music but that doesn't mean that the technique of sampling makes your music inferior to "real" music.
Also, not all samples are always made by other people. You can make your own samples as well so then what?
That said, it's of course always good to be a able to play an instrument, know the chords and stuff even if you make, say, techno music.
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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: King of Snake on 2004-04-19 06:36 ]</font>
On 2004-04-18 13:25, mikem wrote:
I just took it 'there' after many people looked at my statement 'no offense to anyone', as 'take everything with offense'
it might have had to do with the phrase "hyped up samples and whatnot". I can understand why people would take offense by that, even if you say you don't mean any.
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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: King of Snake on 2004-04-19 06:32 ]</font>
Mikem,
I understand where you're coming from and if you trawl around the forum you will find a variety of music that has been done "properly", ranging from Gary's reggae, through eastern plucked instruments, drumkits, guitars, vocals et al.
However, there are other things to consider and many have already been said by others with regards to samples, e-music etc.
I did my time on the pub and club circuit and now admit to having lost some of my keyboard dexterity, replacing it with mouse skills.
I consider myself to be, not so much a musician, but more of a hobby composer.
I can't fit a grand piano in my bedromm studio.
I can't fit a girls choir in my bedroom studio (as much as I fantasise about it - oops, back as soon as I've ironed my hands again )
I haven't the time to learn the guitar, violin, cello, drums, harp and all the other acoustic instruments that I like to include in tracks.
Neither can I afford to go to a studio and hire session musicians and vocalists - why should I? I have samples that allow me to do that.
Now, I can remember seeing pub and club organists in the past with a new organ that had, for instance, a guitar sound on it. And what did they do? Play it like an organ - no hint of trying to get the feel of a guitar out of it. Sampling has provided the opportunity for more realism.
Anyway, I digress from my main point.
Many composers, especially hobbyists like myself, are not virtuoso musicians on varied instruments.
The point is that there are many people on this site and in the music forum who now have the ability to express themselves musically by use of CW and other equipment/synths/effects etc.
I think it only proper that these people are artists - art is expression and the amount of pleasure that the music has given me on this site is immeasurable. Thank you everyone for your skills in producing art in music form.
Is it right to stop people being creative by using the media that is available? I think not.
Is it right to deny listeners of the opportunity to hear something that they enjoy, purely because it wasn't "played properly"? I think not.
Not blowing my own trumpet (because I haven't learned to play one yet), but on Good Friday a few local churches used a piece that I had composed (on samplers etc) for meditational services. This would never have seen the light of day had it not have been for the technology available. I've spent hours literally since then burning CD's and printing sleeves for people who have been constantly phoning up to buy copies. They enjoyed it, appreciated it, got something meaningful out of it. So, what's wrong with using it?
Nothing.
I appreciate real musicians too, using CW equipment as a means of producing music and I look forward to hearing your uploads - I really do.
But don't knock the composers - they have a place in music too - even humble hobbyists.
Welcome to Planet Z and enjoy the company of everyone who is willing to help you produce better music in whatever form you record it.
There is a wealth of experience here to be shared - don't knock it - contribute to it.
just as I thought, this thread had matured into a full blown "moment of truth"s, really great topic I think.
anyhow, I just hope mikem isn't blamed for the boundry between real recording music and sampled music. The boundry is already there, and the way I see it, mikem just pointed to it. So, it's no one's fault really. This thread isn't a flame war, and I hope mikem doesn't take it too personally. We're all talking on a very wide scale here, and it's good that we can share ideas about such borderline issues. PlanetZ is one of the very few places on the net that this happens with style and integrity, so I hope many people feel welcomed to add into the discussion.
When I first came to the Z forum, I was totally out of electronic composition or things of the like. I said openly I didn’t like Trance and related music, because I thought this music was superficial, very repetitive, etc. Well, lots of people complained against my arguments telling me I was closed; they said for me to open my mind to the new, to understand that, a one chord song can also be as fun as a complex composition.
As I always do, I listed sincerely to the advices, I opened my mind fully to them and started listening to all those electronic songs without any prejudice, shutting my mind up. Being quiet “up here” helped a real lot and I discovered new sensations and frontiers I must say, that I didn’t know and I didn’t consider before it.
After a while, I got into what they would say to each other about their own music, and I tried real hard to understand their concepts and workings in dance related music. One of the hardest concepts for me to understand was the “knob” VS “playing instruments”. I couldn’t understand this much love for it…
As I want to be constantly and continuously growing in my understanding and gathering of areas in composition, I decided to DO IT myself! I composed an album of almost 70 minutes of Trance music, seriously. For doing it, I went through listening to what people would do, but found nothing I would definitely like in this style, nor in any other style directly related with dancing. Of course I like many things, but nothing would truly full me of joy, and would make me come back over and over again like it happens with classical, jazz, ethnic and particularly, fusion music.
Nevertheless, I went into it, and studied the structures, the way they would build this kind of music and started composing myself trying to be there. Then I posted my first musical impressions to the music forum and experts would tell me (no surprise) I was rather in the wrong way if I wanted to make people dance… I was recommended to go to dance parties and experience live, what happened there as well as listening to good DJs and dance composers… I did.
I came back and started composing again, but understood I would “never” be able to compose Trance music “that I myself could truly enjoy” while it was “absolutely” suitable for the likes of dance-related composers and listeners. I definitely have not the talent for doing it, period. Well, it was a bit disappointing because I couldn’t please with my music, to those into Trance, I would have liked to but it was not possible. I realised that the only way to compose Trance music as people like it, would be to do it as a recipe or method, not involving myself emotionally at all, or it would turn again to be something other, i.e., doing it as a cold job, let’s call it a musical crime… he he…
I did the songs fully again, changed almost entirely ALL the “timbres” of all instruments, changed the use of FXs and particularly, drums! The only thing I kept were the melodies, but even them changed by force through the process.
I listened to several well known DJs and the so, and it was real hard to keep listening to them for more than 10 minutes, I would feel like waiting for a bus that never comes, a bit impatient for it to be there soon. I found DJs music bored, sometimes very, very heavy to follow, some even extremely unpleasant. What I disliked most is some cases was the use of excessive drums, disproportionate use of reverb in final masters, utterly similar timber sounds in mega-synths-like patches, no melodies or head-torturing ones, and extremely reiterative “small” or “null” use of harmony.
Seen that these music would never impact deeply after doing a great effort to get into it, I decided to do something I myself would like to dance with, and came up with a mixture of Trance and Fusion together, which I called stylistically Trance-Fusion music. It’s sort of painted with some jazzy things here and there.
It took me fourth months to finish the album; I called it Acoustic Paradise and posted quite a lot of it into the Z music forum. Well, some didn’t like much, others liked it a lot, and I myself love it.
Conclusion:
My experience gave me lots of things… I opened myself to something I definitely don’t like, but doing so I started liking many new styles of music related to Trance that I before didn’t even consider to bother listening: house, disco, techno, hard-techno, industrial, atmospheric-techno, trip-trance, and many, many more I don’t know their names. I understood much better, what is the reason, the plot behind the scene, for all those composers in the Z that are into it. I understood the qualities of those composers that devote their lives to this particular kind of music and have learned a real lot from them. I’ve learned to appreciate music entirely made with samples and with absolutely no instruments, something I was definitely closed by dull principles, to anything machine-like sounding. I discovered lots of talented people and very nice works of art here in the Z, in dance music that truly deserves to be highlighted.
What’s the outcome musically?
I like now, some trance music, some techno, house, etc., and I can appreciate a whole new world, and perhaps most importantly, I can add, emulate or include, as you prefer to say, those sties, sounds, working flow techniques and tricks, to my own compositions.
Now I can tell that dance music is not my cup of tea, no doubt about it, but now it is understandable and I am open to it, it is fantastic to be able to ENJOY SOMETHING NEW which is so widespread around the world, so there is plenty to hear. Through this interesting experience I have totally overcome the stage of “this music” against “this other music”, and I am glad.
It would be nice for those who say jazz and jazz-fusion is a mess or is just boring music, for instance, to get into it deeply and compose an entire album to see what happens… It gives you the right to tell cos you are experiencing something by yourself that needs no explanation or translation, this would need some instrument skills anyway, you’ll never regret it.
The important thing after all, is that whatever music you do, do it with your heart and your hands: half inspiration and half transpiration!
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Nestor on 2004-04-19 13:40 ]</font>
Diversity is good when collaborating! In that way, one can learn from the other new things. On the other hand, if everybody worked in the same way and produced the same results, then there is no reason to collaborate... (from a "studying together" point of view)
This time I would suggest to go with something classical, as many of us have been concerned about doing classical emulations or recreations. That would be a huge challenge again, and would also be a little school on "how to" on classical orchestration.
There we would be quite limited by the offering of instruments that SCOPE has, cos it is not paked with emulations of real orchestras and the so, but we could simply use samples, and without restrictions. Just for the sake of perfection and realism in the way to orchestrate a song.
We all have different samples to make classical music, and so, we all will come up with different sounds.
I suggest the following:
Take a melody that could be suitable for classical building up, and then post it as a MIDI file. Then every one has to do an arrangement on it, building some classical orchestrations. I love the idea, I don't know about you.
If there are a few in this, I will open a new thread in the anoucements forum, and will post there so to have a long conversation, despite the fact I have almost no time at the moment. What do you thing so?
It is a nice idea that you have Nestor! The only problem with that is that it will exclude those people who have no knowledge and/or interest in classical orchestration.
But I like the idea of orchestrating a given melody.
I suggest the following:
- we all take the same melody derived from a simple traditional folk song (be it irish, greek, arab, portuguese, chinese or whatever)
- all the participants to the "collaborative" project form groups of 2-3 people
- each group has to come up with an orchestrated version of the melody
- the way each group is going to work will depend on the individuals consisting each group; that way, the members of the group can share ideas and knowledge
- we then discuss and compare each orchestrated version and we choose the best one
)
