Music production and arrogance

[kx.001]

a lot of musicians overestimate their fretwank jam abilities.

fixed

[mellotronaut]

a lot of musicians overestimate their fretwank jam abilities.

fixed

not fixed ... you're a guitarcentered monofocalist like some whales, who aren't even slightly better fretted than humans.

[jancivil]

Note Well, I said in place of becoming a musician at all. What is not arrogant about that idea? What is difficult about my statement?

Your statement is not difficult, it's just wrong.

This argumentativeness puts me in mnd of the argument clinic from Monty Python. You have an opinion that differs from mine. It occurs to me you are willing to elide what I actually said in order to gainsay it.

Take hip-hop for example. One may be a musician and make great tracks, like The Roots, but one may not play any instrument at all and make great tracks too and achieve a good deal of mastery at cutting and mixing phrases recorded by musicians beforehand, like DJ Muggs for example. Or to take it to territory you possibly know better, Negativland - would you call them musicians or producers?

The things that are good about hiphop are results of people that got busy with rhythm on the for-real side of the equation. Don't be daft.

I'm just saying we have some branches of 'music' that don't need musicians 'at all'.

Think about it. If everyone - and it is going to become more and more true - decides that musical work is NOT NECESSARY, which you just formulated, the essence is more and more diluted. If all the tracks that are being cut up get deleted in a great catastrophe, we're going to have to again rely on people with the balls to play bass and drums. You aren't going to get around the problem, you're only using language to dodge reality.

I understand your take on this, I used to to think like you, but I changed my mind.

You're going wrong. IMO.

[Zombie Queen]

I mean, the amount of effort put in making a piece of music, is irrelevant.

For most musicians it is not irrelevant (because they want to be better than other musicians).

Better in what? You mean like, faster than Satriani (or whoever is fast these days)...

[herodotus]

If you stroll around the streets, clapping your hands and gibbering some cheap lyrics, you are making MUSIC!

You say that as if it were obvious. But if you look at an actual definition of music in a dictionary, you'll see that it isn't obviously true at all:

mu·sic [myoo-zik]
noun
1.an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.

Note the words: 'significant forms'. I don't want to be a fascist or anything, but one might reasonably wonder if "Clapping your hands and gibbering some cheap lyrics" qualifies as 'significant'.

[jancivil]

Now let's start some discussion about what is REAL music.

Then we clearly can see WHO is arrogant...

you would do well to get a definition of "arrogant".

I offered one you could use.

You are additionally tossing up a straw man to bash. This tack reveals a defensive posture about the status of your own musicianship, and that you are hoping to disguise that you understand there is music beyond the loops kind of EDM you have got defensive and arsey about previously, with some attitude. 'lol' FTW.

I don't have time for music critics myself. I think some of it shows a form of arrogance. My sense of my own 'importance' has nothing to do with criticism. To music, how important am I? It wouldn't occur to me. I don't require posterity, or import. I can be ignored and it doesn't affect my critique of what I do. Once again, I approach MUSIC with the utmost humility. I don't need to pretend I'm equal to people that have gotten more out of it than I. When I was ten, I didn't need to pretend my Monkees records were 'just as good' as what my father wanted to share with me.

Why do you need to "produce"? why do you need to argue for doing less, which is essentially what I have of you in these arguments. You're just reactive, in place of being reflective. You're really just kind of disrespectful to music to my view. which is a form of arrogance.

[herodotus]

Music is defined by the matter of effort. Either is the quality of it.

means: Music isn't defined by the matter of effort. Neither is the quality of it.

right, imo.

I don't think that there is any simple effort:quality ratio or anything like that. But effort is still a sine qua non of art. Not all music has to be art, just as not all language has to be literature, but when we are talking about music-as-an-art, effort is pretty much built into the definition.

[jancivil]

I mean, the amount of effort put in making a piece of music, is irrelevant.

For most musicians it is not irrelevant (because they want to be better than other musicians).

I want to be as good as I can be. It seems like you want to assert that is something to be ashamed of with this reactive posturing.

I was competitive as a youth that way. I did not expect to be better than the people I was trying to live up to any time soon, if ever. I was competitive with Jim Ryan in my naborhood in a sense, he started earlier, had probably a better ear to begin with, etc... but it's perhaps more like golf as a sport, you try to par or do better than par for the course.

the amount of effort in musicianship pays off, you aren't going to get rid of it with language. As far as a piece of music, it may not be relevant when one has enough going on to do something at once or with great facility. But getting to that place meant gaining some chops.

'Most musicians'? It occurs to me you are willing to fight musicians as a non-musician, in favor of non-musicianship. Why are you so important? It really is a form of arrogance what you are doing in these arguments. You could be humble and realize that the people that can be musicians are doing something you can't be arsed to do. Then what you require as if to replace the fact is a posture by some language. Which you aren't skillful with either.

[Zombie Queen]

This argumentativeness puts me in mnd of the argument clinic from Monty Python.

Sure. I am right and you have different opinion, which means you are wrong. You can't escape logic.

If everyone - and it is going to become more and more true - decides that musical work is NOT NECESSARY, which you just formulated, the essence is more and more diluted.

Not the essence. The means. And the means are in fact irrelevant, at least for me.

we're going to have to again rely on people with the balls to play bass and drums

I don't see them going anywhere, so what's the problem. You talk like you think 'the real music' is gonna vanish because people are 'producing'. We only see expanding means of expression, some of them don't require musical abilities as we knew them. There are just more tools to choose from. I don't think I'm the one dodging reality here.

I understand your take on this, I used to to think like you, but I changed my mind.

You're going wrong. IMO.

I only trying to stay open minded.

[Tricky-Loops]

If you stroll around the streets, clapping your hands and gibbering some cheap lyrics, you are making MUSIC!

You say that as if it were obvious. But if you look at an actual definition of music in a dictionary, you'll see that it isn't obviously true at all:

mu·sic [myoo-zik]
noun
1.an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.

Note the words: 'significant forms'. I don't want to be a fascist or anything, but one might reasonably wonder if "Clapping your hands and gibbering some cheap lyrics" qualifies as 'significant'.

Still waiting for the definition of the other 50,000 dictionaries all over the world...

Seriously, all dictionaries are made up of helpless attempts to classify something that isn't able to classify. If I clap my hand, I make music, without being a fascist...

[jancivil]

This argumentativeness puts me in mnd of the argument clinic from Monty Python.

Sure. I am right and you have different opinion, which means you are wrong. You can't escape logic.

what logic is that? What evidence is there for the rightness of an opinion? Are you taking the piss completely??

[jancivil]

If you stroll around the streets, clapping your hands and gibbering some cheap lyrics, you are making MUSIC!

You say that as if it were obvious. But if you look at an actual definition of music in a dictionary, you'll see that it isn't obviously true at all:

mu·sic [myoo-zik]
noun
1.an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.

Note the words: 'significant forms'. I don't want to be a fascist or anything, but one might reasonably wonder if "Clapping your hands and gibbering some cheap lyrics" qualifies as 'significant'.

Still waiting for the definition of the other 50,000 dictionaries all over the world...

Seriously, all dictionaries are made up of helpless attempts to classify something that isn't able to classify.

that is the stupidest thing I've seen today. All words are up for grabs because you can't handle them.

[thecontrolcentre]

Now let's start some discussion about what is REAL music.

Then we clearly can see WHO is arrogant...

music is intentional noise made by humans or by whales

So, THAT is ARROGANT to say that whales make music as good as humans...

Only if you're a whale ...

[mellotronaut]

Music is defined by the matter of effort. Either is the quality of it.

means: Music isn't defined by the matter of effort. Neither is the quality of it.

right, imo.

I don't think that there is any simple effort:quality ratio or anything like that. But effort is still a sine qua non of art. Not all music has to be art, just as not all language has to be literature, but when we are talking about music-as-an-art, effort is pretty much built into the definition.

i've got a lot of applause for something that needed just half an hour and not much effort, while something, i put a lot of effort in, remained almost unnoticed. there must be something else in music that lets the strings vibrate.

[jancivil]

we're going to have to again rely on people with the balls to play bass and drums

I don't see them going anywhere, so what's the problem. You talk like you think 'the real music' is gonna vanish because people are 'producing'. We only see expanding means of expression, some of them don't require musical abilities as we knew them. There are just more tools to choose from. I don't think I'm the one dodging reality here.

that is known as a thought experiment. It ought to be something you think on for a moment.

You are misconstructing what I've said. Do you somehow believe I don't understand new tools? That is beside the point. Which you don't seem ready to address.