"no true scotsman" syndrome

[SoundGoddess]

Does anyone else get annoyed with this idea that only live music played with physical instruments is "real" music? This seems pretty elitist to me...

I totally understand how various production techniques add more "life" to digitally-produced music...and I certainly can appreciate talented people who do performance arts...

But I don't understand how me spending hours memorizing a Chopin piece and performing it live on piano in front of an audience is somehow "real", yet spending the same amount of hours creating original compositions by arranging midi notes around in a piano roll is somehow "fake" or "cheating" because I'm using a computer to generate sounds.

When I listen to someone like Philip Glass, I don't think to myself that the songs of his which are clearly digital don't qualify as "real" music, simply because someone wasn't recorded playing a physical instrument.

So we talk about various production techniques, instead of saying that xyz makes your music sound more "real", why not just say it makes your music sound more "live"? Or that you're just giving it an "analog" feel? Or just simply that you're doing it because "it makes it sound better"...

I guess I just get tired of this assumption that there's something wrong with digital music or that the entire point of using various filters to make your music sound more interesting is to emulate recordings of physical instruments as closely as possible.

[debra1rlo]

In 2012 I returned to playing live after about a 5 year absence, and in that time I have joined other projects to where I'm in 7 bands now. 2 of these bands use a computer for much of the backing and to be honest I have noticed no animosity from audiences or other bands. On the contrary, we've gotten a lot of love from everyone,

In addition, I've noticed one of the most prominent and successful bands on the local hardcore punk scene not only uses a computer for backing tracks but have incorporated the computer into a makeshift cardboard robot that also cracks wise between songs. I think that's a big indication of a change in attitudes because hardcore punkers have traditionally had the same attitude that you described.

Sorry to hear you're encountering that bias, but take heart that attitudes appear to be changing, albeit slowly.

[HaganeSteel]

Well, that's how everything is when it's new.

I wouldn't get offended. Eventually it'll be as accepted as everything else.

In the future, Hatsune Miku and her ilk are going to take over pop music. I think composers are going to produce music using voice synthesizers, create virtual pop star avatars/identities for themselves, and a pop artist's career will basically be one giant roleplay over the internet, and touring will consist of 3D CG versions of said identity that will appear on stage and be mocapped back stage.

And then everyone'll be like, "but that's not a real person! How could you be a fan of something that isn't real!" all the while missing the totally obvious that I don't need to explain.

And the benefit of this is that the people who write the music end up becoming the pop stars themselves, rather than being ghostwriters, while also maintaining their ghostwriter status and everyone ends up winning.

And then we'll be here again. And people will be like, "Why don't people accept what I do!" and it's because it's new!

Some guy with a thick beard sitting behind his computer roleplaying a female pop star and getting paid to do so sounds weird and threatening and off-putting to us now, but it's already starting to happen - many Vocaloids already have their own Twitter accounts, complete with messages "they" write.

That's how computer music feels to some people who didn't grow up with it.

Being able to change with the times is a talent not everyone has.

[Tricky-Loops]

In Bavaria both sides are still pretty separated

- on one side there are the real musicians with accordion, tuba, trumpet, hackbrett, maybe guitar who get the live gigs in the villages...

- and on the other side there are the computer musicians (with a keyboard or guitar only and tons of software), and they're hiding in dark cellar rooms...

It's pretty sad. Where I live, there aren't any concerts with electronic music (except some times in Munich), and people are not so open to it, they want to see live musicians with folk music...

However, I'm working on some ideas how both sides could finally come together...

[SoundGoddess]

In the future, Hatsune Miku and her ilk are going to take over pop music. I think composers are going to produce music using voice synthesizers, create virtual pop star avatars/identities for themselves, and a pop artist's career will basically be one giant roleplay over the internet, and touring will consist of 3D CG versions of said identity that will appear on stage and be mocapped back stage.

I don't have a problem with this at all. That movie s1m0ne didn't do so well at the box office but the concept made a lot of sense to me.

A couple years ago they brought Tupac back from the dead to do a concert, through some of this 3d tech you mention.

Frankly I would love to get in on this kind of stuff myself.

Being able to change with the times is a talent not everyone has.

I'm with you there. Thankfully this is the talent I'm most natural with...

I just started doing ChucK programming and it excites me greatly...I'm feeling kind of how I did about the internet in the mid 90's, like I'm on the ground floor of something again.

Western music theory is all based on the ideas of composers arranging symphonies of string and wood instruments...mathematically base12. but I want to play around with notes, scales, and chord progressions in other bases. I'll probably start with base17 to see what I can come up with...the concepts of chords and scales are good, and structure is good, but chopping frequencies into blocks of 12 seems kind of arbitrary, and it's so ubiquitous that nobody really seems interested in challenging it in any way.

[SoundGoddess]

However, I'm working on some ideas how both sides could finally come together...

Can you tell me more about what you're working on in that regard?

This is the kind of stuff I find inspiring:


I like live music just fine, I think it's great, I just don't see it as being and better or worse than computer music...just a different approach...and I want to bring people together too.

[elassi]

Kati Maya & HaganeSteel...

To put it simple: there's a certain thrill in watching two chess computers make their sophisticated moves. No question.

But I'm not sure I'll admire it.

[dalor]

Does anyone else get annoyed with this idea that only live music played with physical instruments is "real" music? This seems pretty elitist to me...

Got told that so many times I stopped counting. I don't bother arguing against it anymore. "If you can't play an Instrument you can't be a Musician". Urghh..

[SODDI]

Philip Glass' music is all played, it just sounds digital.

Well, maybe Riesmann used some arpeggiators occasionally, but nope, that's real keyboarding.

[SoundGoddess]

Does anyone else get annoyed with this idea that only live music played with physical instruments is "real" music? This seems pretty elitist to me...

Got told that so many times I stopped counting. I don't bother arguing against it anymore. "If you can't play an Instrument you can't be a Musician". Urghh..

Yeah to me that's along the lines of "if you can't code assembly language, you can't be a computer programmer"...well I made a living as a programmer and I never bothered learning assembly beyond understanding it conceptually because it just seemed way too tedious to me...

I just think that electronic music should be less of an underdog and more appreciated in its own right instead of seeming like "cheating".

[SoundGoddess]

Philip Glass' music is all played, it just sounds digital.

Well, maybe Riesmann used some arpeggiators occasionally, but nope, that's real keyboarding.

there's no way you're going to convince me that he was sitting at a keyboard playing this out by hand for 20 minutes instead of using an arp for the majority of it:


I doubt Glass is as talented at keyboard/piano as Gershwin was, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate his music or consider Gershwin more "real" somehow...


The fact that Glass does live performance and is talented in that area doesn't negate the point that I was making...he also does digital music.

[SoundGoddess]

to be honest I have noticed no animosity from audiences or other bands. On the contrary, we've gotten a lot of love from everyone,

Sorry to hear you're encountering that bias, but take heart that attitudes appear to be changing, albeit slowly.

Bias, yes...animosity, no, I wouldn't say that anyone has ever been mean to me about it...more like I get taken less seriously. There does seem to be a bit of gender bias as well; seems like women in the music industry who don't fit into the singer/songwriter/performer role are taken less seriously.

[ZenPunkHippy]

The fact that Glass does live performance and is talented in that area doesn't negate the point that I was making...he also does digital music.

I've seen a performance by the Phillip Glass Ensemble, around 8 or 10 performers, the majority of it played live on keyboards hooked up to sound modules.

So there is a digital element, and they might be using arpeggiators for some of it, but they are definitely not holding down individual keys for several minutes at a time to perform each part.

As for the main topic: I love electronic music and absolutely appreciate the skill required to write and produce a track or album. It is certainly an advanced skill, but it's very a different skill to a concert pianist or a soloist playing some other instrument to a very high level, which has a distinct human element to it.

And that's what some people are complaining about - it's not as human as a real, live performance. The machines are taking over, etc.

Whether it's better or not is for the listener to decide ...

Peace,
Andy.

[Phil999]

it's all about music. Not how it's done.

If you can control the synthesiser, be it analogue or software, in a musical, interesting way, you can create good music similar to a virtuoso on a real instrument.

The problem: anyone can push a button. Anyone can load a preset. Therefore most of home studio music are just primitive attempts to good, interesting music. Also, when played live, the audience often doesn't know what this guy behind the laptop is doing. Is it pre-programmed or is it played live? Where do the sounds come from? They come from the speakers, but how are the sounds produced?

In the early years of electronic live performances (not counting the very early years), some bands used to put a tape machine behind. When the reels were spinning, the audience knew that the backing tracks are from tape, and the performance of the instruments and the voices were live (real).

I think it is possible to create electronic music that is worth a comparison to music produced on real instruments. It just hasn't appeared yet, with very few exceptions. In a few decades I assume there will be some examples.

[ZenPunkHippy]

there's no way you're going to convince me that he was sitting at a keyboard playing this out by hand for 20 minutes instead of using an arp for the majority of it

This is part of a live performance of a piece from Einstein On The Beach (which is around 4 hours in total). As you can see (in this particular piece) the arpeggiator like sequences are played live: