"no true scotsman" syndrome

[thecontrolcentre]

I've been mixing live playing with sequenced riffs and beats for 20 odd years now. Have had the odd bad reaction from audiences. Usually from "shirts" dancing with a pint in their hands. Most people don't care one way or the other. They just wanna dance.

[SODDI]

There are electronics other than the arpeggiators and sequencers commonly thought of.

There is the Ussachevsky loop utilizing two tape recorders. It was an avant-garde technique in the 60s until Robert Fripp and Brian Eno adopted it as partners ("No Pussyfooting") and individually (Eno - "Music for Airports", Fripp - "Let the Power Fall") and used it as much of a improvisational compositional tool as anything else. Fripp has hybridized it using digital delays, and he does perform live using this technique. Amazing, thrilling concerts.

[SoundGoddess]

As a separate thought, was it cheating for Tchaikovsky to write music that was then performed by an orchestra because Tchaikovsky didn't perform it himself? I would suggest that if someone calls your approach to creating music cheating, to just say that you don't claim to be being a musician when you are working on your project, but a composer/producer. It's the difference between being a screen play writer/director and being an actor.

Yeah that was pretty much how I feel, and I get frustrated how writers often get given less attention than directors and actors...which is probably why a lot of the famous scriptwriters direct and produce and whatnot as well.

Also, one more thought. I think when people talk of 'real', it's not necessarily always used as a put down of electronic music as 'fake'. I know I use 'real' as a label for that which isn't 'virtual'.

Yes I'm aware of this; I'm not offended when someone says that the CGI they saw in a movie isn't "realistic" because it's not using "real" actors, or whatever. But if they start saying that it's not a "real" movie because it uses CGI "tricks", then that's a bit different than saying that they just have a preference for old-school special effects. Or the example from another poster in this thread where they won't let you register to perform music, because a laptop isn't a "real" instrument. Tell that to Ge Wang

[Arglebargle]

I'm proud to make crappy fake digital non-music.

[SoundGoddess]

I've been giving a lot of thought to this topic lately, since my brother asked me 'isn't it cheating to make one instrument sound like another instrument?' As someone who wants to produce electronic music that is essentially progressive/post rock, I've been wondering how rock audiences might react to my music being programmed.

Prog rock circles would likely have been among the first to latch on to programmed music in the 70's.

This is true. I also think Post rock fans are likely to be open to electronic music, so I've probably worried too much about it. On the other hand I also know that I'm not going to get away with creating a virtual John Bonham...

If you're going to make a virtual soloist, don't try to copy someone else's style, invent something that is not similar to anything that's already out there, and people will likely be more receptive to it.

[SoundGoddess]

I'm always interested in what happens when two worlds collide. I like sequencing, and bouncing a real performance off of it. There's something that's very intriguing about a metronome-like beat offset by a lurching solo. There's also something to be said for meticulous sound design at the computer balanced by a hand-held recording of an instrument played out in the woods at night. These opposites rubbing against each other generate friction, and friction is what piques my interest.

This is what piques my interest too...what do you think of the Jeff Mills video I linked here? He's a techno producer who managed to work with an orchestra to re-create several of his songs while he's working the drum machine...

Know what I really like about metronome-like beats, and loopy-like electronica? It keeps the part of my mind busy that is constantly craving stimulation from ADHD, so that I can focus on other things that are less stimulating. If nothing else the "trace" created by trance music made me a much better programmer, because I could focus on writing code while the music was entertaining the part of my brain that likes jumping around.

[SoundGoddess]

So with computer music, people will probably have the feeling that the resulting music is rather the machine's achievement, and not yours. And to a certain degree, they might be right. (Please don't stone me ...).

No doubt, talent is impressive...who doesn't wish they had the skill to just do something from scratch without needing powerful tools?

But I don't think it's too healthy to put savants on this big pedestal and make them the "real" artists, as if this meme of people being creative or having talent has to be someone with OCD that has no ability to focus on anything else.

I'm sure, as 3d printing becomes commonplace, people will start saying that sculptures made with a 3d printer aren't "real". Yet the sculptures I've seen from 3d printing far exceed anything that more than the 1 in a billion has the patience or talent to realistically pursue.

http://www.fastcodesign.com/3017624/now ... inted-room

The problem is that when you start putting some artists on a pedestal because their talent is in one area, the other people become afraid to explore their own creativity, because they think they can never get anywhere because they don't let their life revolve around it.

The pyramids certainly are impressive, but they were built on the backs of slave labor over thousands of years...is that something to celebrate?

I can still be impressed when I see someone build some big crazy structure in MineCraft, even if that's not "real". Nobody's going to throw money at them over it but maybe it gives them a sense of accomplishment that is important to their overall sense of well-being.

I love Van Gogh paintings...I enjoy painting myself, it's a lot of fun. But it doesn't seem like the most practical way to focus my energies and talents...music OTOH has so many different areas that intrigue me.

I get the same sense from music that I got from going in to web development...on a single day I might have been doing photoshop, html, xml, linux system admin stuff, sql and database design, css, javascript, etc...all very different skillsets, which combined take on a new life of its own. I probably won't ever bother becoming a master of photoshop, because I was using it as a tool to produce a specific result, so I'll still be impressed when I see how a photoshop expert whisks around doing stuff, but then they can't build a web site from scratch that can handle 100,000 simultaneous users, without needing to hire anyone to fill in the gap of knowledge in one area or another. So I just get a little frustrated, when my skill of combining forces of many divergent things to produce results that usually take groups of people is not taken very seriously because I'm not insanely talented in one particular area specifically, because, "gee whiz, the computer did all the work", lol.

[dmbaer]

This is a fascinating discussion. It makes me recall a group of folks I used to hang out with who were passionate about Baroque music played on authentic period instruments. To a degree I shared their point of view. A Handel or Vivaldi orchestral piece is almost always more invigorating when played by, say, the Baroque Philharmonia than by, say, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

But their passion gave them blinders. They would get all snooty if I were to suggest that Bach played on a piano by the likes of Glenn Gould not only had merit but was more thrilling than any harpsichord performance I had heard up to that point. They would likely condescendingly say something to the effect "well, that sort of thing is OK if you like transcriptions!".

Well, what's wrong with transcriptions anyway? If a transcription illuminates aspects of a masterpiece in a way that gives one new insights, all to the better. Liszt wrote piano reductions of the Beethoven symphonies that will help you to hear things in that music you likely missed before.

And let's not overlook what Walter Carlos did with Switched On Bach. Viva transcriptions!

I finally came around to the opinion that great music is indestructible. An inept transcription or performance of a masterpiece is merely a bad reflection on the transcriber or performer, not the music or its composer. There's no cheating in music. There are results that fall flat and there are results that can soar and raise peoples' consciousness. If the latter, it doesn't matter how the music was created.

[Lode_Runner]

I've been giving a lot of thought to this topic lately, since my brother asked me 'isn't it cheating to make one instrument sound like another instrument?' As someone who wants to produce electronic music that is essentially progressive/post rock, I've been wondering how rock audiences might react to my music being programmed.

Prog rock circles would likely have been among the first to latch on to programmed music in the 70's.

This is true. I also think Post rock fans are likely to be open to electronic music, so I've probably worried too much about it. On the other hand I also know that I'm not going to get away with creating a virtual John Bonham...

If you're going to make a virtual soloist, don't try to copy someone else's style, invent something that is not similar to anything that's already out there, and people will likely be more receptive to it.

Sorry, I should have been clearer in how I worded that. "A virtual John Bonham" was really meant to mean a virtual drummer of John Bonham's high standard, rather than a direct clone of John Bonham's style. I think people are more open minded than ever about electronic music production methods, when it's used to do something people can't do, or at least isn't trying to mimic the best of what people can do. I think that with the exception of a few purists, people are generally okay if a drum machine sits unnoticed in the background keeping a beat, but are still likely to get all "that's cheating" if you program a complex fill or a drum solo. I think I'll probably just do it anyway

[SoundGoddess]

Sorry, I should have been clearer in how I worded that. "A virtual John Bonham" was really meant to mean a virtual drummer of John Bonham's high standard, rather than a direct clone of John Bonham's style. I think people are more open minded than ever about electronic music production methods, when it's used to do something people can't do, or at least isn't trying to mimic the best of what people can do. I think that with the exception of a few purists, people are generally okay if a drum machine sits unnoticed in the background keeping a beat, but are still likely to get all "that's cheating" if you program a complex fill or a drum solo. I think I'll probably just do it anyway

Yeah, it just seems like people feel threatened by electronic stuff, as if it's watson playing jeopardy, like as if the computer can do all that then why bother being great at the "natural" things?



Well, I just see electronic music as providing someone with ways to do more than they could have done otherwise, rather than being a "shortcut". It's opening the doors for people who are talented in some areas and not others, to still leverage areas they're not talented with (like playing the drums) without having to waste lots of time trying to find a drummer to collaborate with or buying lots of drum equipment to play it themselves, when they really want to be working on the melody or the lyrics or whatever.

It seems like in hip hop, a lot of people recycle beats, even at the very top, because the genre is much more focused on the lyrics than on someone having skills with a drumset.

I'm sure people might find this really offensive:


but...is he trying to trick people into thinking he's a brilliant pianist, or is he just trying to make something that sounds good? yes it's "cheating"...but it depends on what you do with the "hacks" moreso than if the hacks in and of themselves are "bad".

[Arglebargle]

I don't get what is cheating about that, or even why he would call it cheating. It's his personal technique for getting something that he likes.

[SoundGoddess]

I don't get what is cheating about that, or even why he would call it cheating. It's his personal technique for getting something that he likes.

yep...i'm right there with you...i'm sure when the printing press came around people who wrote books by hand considered it cheating...or when word processors came around people who used typewriters considered it cheating...etc.

but i like efficiency, efficiency makes me more creative, why do things the "hard" way just because that's what is the norm of the day, when something new comes along to make it easier?

what i remember when i was studying to writing, is that people don't care if you spent a decade writing your novel or a week writing it, if the story is good and it resonates with the reader then you've achieved your goal with it...i see music much in the same light.