Thoughts about music making in this internet age

[SampleScience]

I feel that a lot of musician (DJ, producer, whatever) think that the more equipment they have the better the music will be. But take a look at Brian Eno's kit list & you'll see that he use just a couple of really flexible instruments to create his music.

I think that it's not the equipment that can make your music sounds interesting, I think it's the intention that you had while creating it. So basically if you want to make for example a "futuristic" or complex sounding tune you don't necesserly needs synthetisers or even a computer, it could be done with a guitar & a few pedals.

If you clear your mind from preconceptions on how things should be done & start from nothing then all the possibilities are there, you just need to break the automatist & be creative.

I have made a track a long time ago just using a broken sounds system, a Yamaha RX21 & a cheap casio keyboard & musically it's more interesting than most of my current tracks. not better sounding for sure but still I think that's one of the only track I have truly created something by doing things from another perspective.

(Sorry for the bad english, I'm french speaking)

[snooky]

well, it's quite the opposite for me..the more tools I find for the sounds I make, the better it gets....it's all how you use them:
"to make music, or to make your friends go -wooooha, that's sick dude!"

[lawapa]

I have had that same feeling. Too much and you seem to get lost in the process to little and you run out of ideas. What is the right mix? What ever keeps you guessing/on your toes.

[keyboardmatt]

i don't care about my music as much as i care about my tools, i guess thats not a good thing, well it might be if it makes ME happy.

[emdot_ambient]

It depends on what you do and how you work. Obviously, radical music doesn't take high tech IF you have the patience to do it. How many people would make computer aided music nowadays if you had to go through the torture and hell that the music concrete masters did? Listen to Tod Dockstodder and you'll hear more creative sounds than most get out of their plethora of soft synths, yet he was largely using tape manipulation of acoustic sounds. Took AGES to do anything. It took dedication, patience and creativity. Now? Who spends months on one piece of music, patiently crafting and sculpting each event?

I'm not saying you have to do that to make creative music, only that technology has made radical sound manipulation eaiser but it hasn't done anything to make people more creative.

Like I said, it depends on what you do and how you do it. More gear helps some, hinders others. Limitations are generally a good thing, if you know how to push yourself beyond the obvious boundaries of the limitations you have.

Eno limits himself by taking the deep, not broad approach: he has little gear, but understands and explores it very deeply. A lot of other people take the broad but shallow approach, learning only the most obvious and quickest features of a lot of gear.

In short: Having LOTS of stuff obviously isn't required to be creative . . . but sometimes it helps.

[birrbits]

Too much and you seem to get lost in the process to little and you run out of ideas. What is the right mix? What ever keeps you guessing/on your toes.

amen

[ross g]

when eno made his classic "solo" records, he had access to the best well-equiped studios and engineers money could buy (for the time), not to mention great studio musicians and stars like fripp, can, etc...people act like he worked on a damn porta-studio....he did show how someone with minimal training and good ideas can produce great art, and the point is well taken, but a lot more than a minimoog and a broken ems went into his music....




rg

[emdot_ambient]

when eno made his classic "solo" records, he had access to the best well-equiped studios and engineers money could buy (for the time), not to mention great studio musicians and stars like fripp, can, etc...

If you're only looking at his stuff up to Before and After Science, yeah. And he's continued to have access to great collaborators. Can't count them as equipment, though.

But on his Fripp & Eno work it was basically guitar, EMS synth and FX. Of course that synth was not something you'd find in every project studio at the time, but compared to what's readily available now . . . Well, it ain't Reaktor is all I'm saying.

And from then on he's been mostly about very simple gear. His own work was often just DX7's and/or Piano plus maybe voice. His work with Harold Budd was largely piano and minimal synths. Sometimes tape and other things like Kaos pads come into play, the odd generative music program and the like.

You can't compare him to BT by any means. He's probably only got as many plug ins as a minor deity. BT has more that God Almighty.

[P.T.]

Look at all the varied and creative music made over the years with a bass, drums, and a guitar or two. Throw in the occasional piano or organ.

Gear is never a valid issue.

[nibbzious]

Who spends months on one piece of music, patiently crafting and sculpting each event?

Then I can only say you're looking in the wrong places, because people frequently do spend months and months on a single instrument part.

[ClownOthorns]

These days, I find myself spending more time testing and messing around with new software then I do in the actual act of writing music.. Then again, my music is pretty experimental anyway. Sorry, I forgot where I was heading with this... bbye!

[herodotus]

It depends on what you do and how you work. Obviously, radical music doesn't take high tech IF you have the patience to do it. How many people would make computer aided music nowadays if you had to go through the torture and hell that the music concrete masters did? Listen to Tod Dockstodder and you'll hear more creative sounds than most get out of their plethora of soft synths, yet he was largely using tape manipulation of acoustic sounds. Took AGES to do anything. It took dedication, patience and creativity. Now? Who spends months on one piece of music, patiently crafting and sculpting each event?

I'm not saying you have to do that to make creative music, only that technology has made radical sound manipulation eaiser but it hasn't done anything to make people more creative.

Like I said, it depends on what you do and how you do it. More gear helps some, hinders others. Limitations are generally a good thing, if you know how to push yourself beyond the obvious boundaries of the limitations you have.

Eno limits himself by taking the deep, not broad approach: he has little gear, but understands and explores it very deeply. A lot of other people take the broad but shallow approach, learning only the most obvious and quickest features of a lot of gear.

In short: Having LOTS of stuff obviously isn't required to be creative . . . but sometimes it helps.

The words you speak have iron in them, for all to hear.