Improving music/keyboard skills... what to do

[Tricky-Loops]

It creates a community that; listens more, buys more music/VSTs/instruments/synths, attends more concerts. The more people we have involved with the arts, the more supports the arts gets.

While I'm all for capitalism, no it doesn't increase music sales nor does it increase concert ticket sales. Needing and talented musicians usually scrape by for the most part while mediocrity and sex appeal rise to the top.

We need a communistic society with a central music agency that defines "needing and talented musicians" and makes a law that only these "needing and talented musicians" will be aloud to get on the stages while the mediocrity of musicians with sex appeal finally disappears.

[jancivil]

IMHO everyone who creates a song or instrumental, is a musician. ...construction kits...

I don't like this elitist fuss... Either I like the music or not.

Again, it isn't elitist at all. Just like enjoying any activity that can be done at a professional and highly trained/practiced level. There are tons of people who write music who are NOT musicians. There is a ton of good music made by non-musicians.

Basically you are taking a word that had a meaning. You wish that it applied to you. So, you start chipping away at its context. By the end it completely dismisses those that have achieved. I think that is sad and selfish.

I think you're exactly right. It is sad to see this. One can have an idea about oneself that isn't really true, you know. The revealing thing there is 'either I like the music or not'. Musicians and non-musicians tend to like different music and there is a reason for it.
It isn't a humble opinion, really it isn't. What you are hoping to do, is by the mere saying so vaulting yourself up to pretend to be peers to people that cared more than you care, frankly.

I really don't care about people who (pre-)judge about others without even knowing them...

I know what you said, which is consistent with what you've said before, and I am remarking on that.

At your level of development, you could be more humble about things. You've been contentious to a degree of disrespect too often. To me, it doesn't matter, but you don't get it. If you cared deeply you would be very humble towards music. I always was. Be patient, respect what music is, rather than trying to knock it down to your size. Really, dude. Stop talking and start listening.

[SJ_Digriz]

I really don't care about people who (pre-)judge about others without even knowing them...

Who has pre-judged. I haven't seen a single post targeted at an individual.

[SJ_Digriz]

I like to look at tv programs about mathematics and physics, and I have read whole books on astrophysics; & I think I get the gist. it doesn't make me a mathematician.

LOL, I usually use the mathematician analogy. Just because you can add, subtract, multiply and divide, it doesn't qualify you as a mathematician. You can be brilliant with a TI-84. You push all the buttons to make beautiful formulas that solve all kinds of crazy problems. Guess what, you're still not a mathematician.

[Tricky-Loops]

I like to look at tv programs about mathematics and physics, and I have read whole books on astrophysics; & I think I get the gist. it doesn't make me a mathematician.

LOL, I usually use the mathematician analogy. Just because you can add, subtract, multiply and divide, it doesn't qualify you as a mathematician. You can be brilliant with a TI-84. You push all the buttons to make beautiful formulas that solve all kinds of crazy problems. Guess what, you're still not a mathematician.

Better use a TI-84 to work and solve all kind of crazy problems than being a professional mathematician sitting in a moistly small flat without job...

[SJ_Digriz]

Better use a TI-84 to work and solve all kind of crazy problems than being a professional mathematician sitting in a moistly small flat without job...

That is a fact Although, there are probably a few reclusive mathematicians who might disagree.

[V0RT3X]

I say ignore all this nomenclature, grab a keyboard and start learning the stuff you need for what you want to do.

[Tricky-Loops]

I say ignore all this nomenclature, grab a keyboard and start learning the stuff you need for what you want to do.

Or grab some samples and make music like Madeon... I've seen so many people with music study on the university, big expensive studio and "daddy-pays-it-all" attitude, and all they've been creating were some boring independent rock songs that a 10-years-old could have made, too. They call themselves "professional musician", but they can't earn anything with their nasty "music"...

[tapper mike]

Somebody didn't see numb3rs
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-10-26/livi ... =PM:LIVING

[robogone]

I say ignore all this nomenclature, grab a keyboard and start learning the stuff you need for what you want to do.

And if you want to call yourself a musician that's fine. The only people who will object are the usual suspects who put on the blinders and peddle their elitist bullshit here.

[tapper mike]

I say ignore all this nomenclature, grab a keyboard and start learning the stuff you need for what you want to do.

Or grab some samples and make music like Madeon... I've seen so many people with music study on the university, big expensive studio and "daddy-pays-it-all" attitude, and all they've been creating were some boring independent rock songs that a 10-years-old could have made, too. They call themselves "professional musician", but they can't earn anything with their nasty "music"...

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Top_ten_riche ... _the_world

Show me the ones that started out with a silver spoon in their mouth. Show me the ones that didn't rise on their musical abilities? Even Celine Dion studied music.

Think Sheryl Crow got this house because of her looks?
http://www.tmz.com/2012/10/01/sheryl-cr ... se-16-mil/

This is her new farmhouse
http://blogs.babble.com/famecrawler/201 ... -for-sale/

Think Lady Gaga doesn't know music theory or just fell off a truck?
Gaga began playing the piano at the age of four, wrote her first piano ballad at thirteen, and started to perform at open mike nights by the age of fourteen,

After high school, her mother encouraged her to apply for the Collaborative Arts Project 21 (CAP21), a musical theatre training conservatory at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.[12] By age seventeen, after becoming one of twenty students to gain early admission, she lived in an NYU dorm on 11th Street.[22] In addition to sharpening her songwriting skills, she composed essays and analytical papers on art, religion, social issues and politics, including a thesis on pop artists Spencer Tunick and Damien Hirst.

What about Norah Jones?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norah_Jones

How much do you think the average LA studio musician makes?

According to May, 2010, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, musicians nationwide earn an mean hourly wage of $30.22. This equates to an average annual salary of $62,858 when factored out across a year of standard 40-hour work weeks; however, session musicians rarely work standard hours. Musicians in the profession's top earnings percentile, such as seasoned studio musicians, average $60.02 per hour, according to BLS figures. This equates to an average annual salary of $124,842 per year -- a figure echoed by the music industry career website CareersinMusic.com, which states that talented, in-demand session players can earn up to $100,000 or more.

Read more: Pay Scale for a Session Musician | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/info_12024023_pay-s ... z2B1eyA9nD

How much did that loop you found cost you? Well if you found it in your software and you purchased a big label daw they had to factor in how much that loop cost them. The guy who actually performed it was prolly a real professional musician. You know one of those guys who can read music and studied music. I bet he made more money then anyone who ever pulled it out and said this is going to make me rich.

You see this place?
http://www.flashkit.com/loops/

I know more then a little bit about Flashkit because I've been there for going on 12 years and a super moderator for the last 10. When the loops area was originally built we had a studio guy. You know one of those guys who plays his own instruments and can sight read and is paid for recording. Anyway the owners of the site paid him $60,000 for 300 loops roughly 200 a loop. Think you could create a seamless 15 second track with multiple instruments by your own playing ability? no prefabricated tracks. Sit down at a set of drums and go. Then comeback and create an original bass part from scratch then come back and create keys, pads and guitar parts. When you've got it all down and spit and polished. Well that's 1 down and 199 more to go and they all have to be original, unique and be cross genre? I know he made more money then internet.com (the parent company at the time) made off of advertising. And I bet he made more money then all the flash designers that used his loops in websites.

Think I'm kidding? -
http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?828607

[V0RT3X]

Don't get me wrong, I mean it is good to dedicate yourself to music as an artform. Im going back to music lesssons again because I want to understand more.

[ghettosynth]

IMHO everyone who creates a song or instrumental, is a musician. It doesn't matter if he/she don't knows the circle of 5th (maybe a drummer?) or can't play guitar or uses only samples. Even if someone uses parts of songs by others (think of Madeon), or just some construction kits, it IS a musician.

I don't like this elitist fuss, if someone is a good or bad musician. Either I like the music or not. And if I don't like it, that doesn't mean that someone isn't a (good) musician. For example, I don't like hardcore-distorted guitars from trash metal - but nevertheless, the players can be good musicians.

Again, it isn't elitist at all. Just like enjoying any activity that can be done at a professional and highly trained/practiced level. There are tons of people who write music who are NOT musicians. There is a ton of good music made by non-musicians.

Basically you are taking a word that had a meaning. You wish that it applied to you. So, you start chipping away at its context. By the end it completely dismisses those that have achieved. I think that is sad and selfish.

Actually, the meaning that the word has is not what you want it to be. That is the fundamental problem with these threads; trained/working musicians feel that the word means more than it really does.

From the Oxford dictionary:

Definition of musician
noun
a person who plays a musical instrument, especially as a profession, or is musically talented:
your father was a fine musician
aspiring rock and pop musicians

To inject more into the word requires that we modify it with some adjective such as trained, formally trained, classically trained, professional, etc.

Compare that with the definition of a mathematician.

Definition of mathematician
noun
an expert in or student of mathematics.

That's what YOU want the definition to be for "musician", but that isn't the case. That's where the confusion comes in. One doesn't have to be an "expert" to label themselves as a musician, the common understanding of the word has a much lower bar.

Now, of course, most of us here, including many of those with substantial training, are simply amateur musicians and that, to me, is where the real distinction lies with respect to any stricter definition. If you aren't making your living with music, then your identity is not well defined, now is it? Like many here, you are a musician, yes, and something else. In a nutshell, the distinction comes off as elitist because the definition, and common understanding, of the word is much lighter than some people want to believe.

To the OP, think in parallel, not serially. Start making the kind of music that you want to make, and start studying music in some way that works for you, at the same time. Six months isn't enough time to get from point A to point B and so much about making techno is about, wait for it, technology. Best to learn both simultaneously. I suggest watching videos of producers walking through how they made their tracks. It will help to frame what you need to know in the proper light.

[Hink]

when I die generations of my family and friends will remember me as a musician. Those who choose to remember me otherwise should feel free as I'll be dead and wont care what they think. When I take my last breath I know that those who matter will know me for who I am and the rest can kiss off

[mrgrim3]

IMHO everyone who creates a song or instrumental, is a musician. It doesn't matter if he/she don't knows the circle of 5th (maybe a drummer?) or can't play guitar or uses only samples. Even if someone uses parts of songs by others (think of Madeon), or just some construction kits, it IS a musician.

I don't like this elitist fuss, if someone is a good or bad musician. Either I like the music or not. And if I don't like it, that doesn't mean that someone isn't a (good) musician. For example, I don't like hardcore-distorted guitars from trash metal - but nevertheless, the players can be good musicians.

Again, it isn't elitist at all. Just like enjoying any activity that can be done at a professional and highly trained/practiced level. There are tons of people who write music who are NOT musicians. There is a ton of good music made by non-musicians.

Basically you are taking a word that had a meaning. You wish that it applied to you. So, you start chipping away at its context. By the end it completely dismisses those that have achieved. I think that is sad and selfish.

You sound like an elitist ass bro , sorry if it offends you but you're being very uppity about this and come off as arrogant.