on genre and belonging

[foosnark]

An embarrassing personal truth I figured out yesterday and didn't mention yet: the "belonging" I was talking about is really more like legitimacy. (Even if it's kind of a fake legitimacy, but then isn't it usually?)

If your creative work is transgressive, it's easy to be seen as (and even start to see yourself as) naive rather than individualistic. As when people dismiss Rothko or Pollock with "a 3 year old could have done it."

If it was just Rothko doing his thing and there was no wider abstract art movement, (more) people would have thought he was just some drugged-out weirdo who painted rectangles, and his work would probably not have gotten exposure... where most people still look at it and go "that's stupid" but it will really speak to some percentage of people. To me a Rothko is way more interesting than any hundred meticulous portraits of nobles or bowls of fruit.

I shouldn't stretch the metaphor too much. But calling a track "glitch hop" or whatever gives it a bit of context and a license to be unusual. It makes the track part of a thing, lending it legitimacy of a sort. If you don't like it, it could be because you don't like glitch hop. (And if you do like glitch hop but not that track, your judgement is more relevant than if you only like country & western anyway. (You barbarian.))

(And less about legitimacy, but I think genre tags also help indicate that I make lots of different things under the same artist name, and you won't necessarily like or dislike them all categorically.)

[GeckoYamori]

Newer genres are prescriptive, older ones seem more descriptive.

Most electronic music smacks of electronic music. It's music "about" music. The creator is often thinking about pads, bassline, hook, melody, drop, blah blah blah, and it shows. Completely uninspiring. "Hello, my name is X and I'm a certified Electronic Music Producer and Tutor." Oh, god, just shoot me now please!

I'm not sure what to make of this mindset. I don't see anything wrong with it. All I care about when it comes to music are its building blocks. Melodies, harmonies, timbres and rhythms. That's what inspires me to create music, and to be honest it kind of bothers me a bit that many musicians treat these things moreso as a means to an end. I've found myself to be a minority even within musician circles, where there seems to be a lack of sincere interest and passion when I want to discuss things like composition, arrangement, songwriting etc.

[jancivil]

An embarrassing personal truth I figured out yesterday and didn't mention yet: the "belonging" I was talking about is really more like legitimacy. (Even if it's kind of a fake legitimacy, but then isn't it usually?)

If your creative work is transgressive, it's easy to be seen as (and even start to see yourself as) naive rather than individualistic. As when people dismiss Rothko or Pollock with "a 3 year old could have done it."

I would never see myself through the lens of someone else's ignorance. That is a matter of self-confidence and self-knowledge.

And Rothko was not following a school but did, in fact make his own thing. There is no way to extract that from the context of abstraction in art, no one creates in a vacuum. "Legitimacy" in terms of a market, a venue to sell those paintings, yes, that requires some context, and some lingo about it and an apparatus in literature, writing about it. But the real label for a Rothko is 'Rothko', isn't it.

[DJ Warmonger]

I've been DJing for well over 7 years now, playing very different styles every now and then. I need to classify tracks to genres just to manage all that stuff and provide consistent mix. Consistent does not need to mean boring and monotonic, consistent can also be evolving or based on contrast.

For that reason I really hate when someone introduces track as belonging to very different genre. If I'm looking for particular style, I need to know the style correctly. Especially for trance - everybody claims it's always trance, whether it's techno, house, dance, hardcore, even ambient. This is confusing and simply makes harder to manage the sounds.
This doesn't mean at all that track can't draw sounds from different styles or genres, it's even more interesting. What I really aks for it's PRECISION. Don't say something is something else when it's not.

[foosnark]

I make music for headphones. If a DJ ever wants to play something of mine... good luck to them.

Especially for trance - everybody claims it's always trance, whether it's techno, house, dance, hardcore...

Without further research that I'm uninterested in doing, I doubt I'd have a godo success rate in identify any particular track as being one of those vs. another.

It's all relative though. I had a friend who called Skinny Puppy and Venetian Snares "techno."

[robogone]

It's all relative though. I had a friend who called Skinny Puppy and Venetian Snares "techno."

Ten years ago I think there was still a lot of resistance in the US to electronic music, and I heard similar things much more often back then. Everything was either 'techno' or 'house' with the two words being interchangeable anyway.

[ontol]

[HaganeSteel]

Genre is also about learning.

Music is a very strange art, and everyone says the same thing: There are no rules.

There are rules, though. Those rules are just different from person to person - genre to genre.

We also want to place ourselves in a genre so we can continue learning about music.

Genres setup barriers and teach us what to do, how to do it, what not to do, and how to avoid it.

Notice how I said "teach" and not "tell". You choose what sounds good and what you want to learn. Fitting ourselves into genres teaches us how to refine it.

I don't belong to a genre - I sort of invented one called Hyper Canvas Core (:hihi:). I just say I write "game" music, but that's a blanket term used to describe what I do, not really my musical style.

My music teacher, though, has largely been Naoshi Mizuta. I used to call what I do "Mizutaism".

Because I know all of his tricks, I know what he struggles with. There are quite a lot of things about his work that I disagree with and would never do, but he's still given me a platform upon which to grow - something reasonable to aim for.

As a result, I very much view him as my musical parent or big brother figure.

That's also what genres do.

[Reason101]

We, as humans, prefer to have things put into categories. It helps our brains navigate through the complex and diverse world. So, musically, you know to skip over Folk and go straight for the Dubstep.

However, there are inherent problems with this:

1. We humans are also artists, and artists seldom fit purely into one category, unless you are the inventor of your own category. We aim to be unique, and unlike any genre that has already existed.

2. As artists, we are the last people that should be classifying our music. The best person to determine proper classification is the person for whom the music is made: the listener. Therefore, before classifying your music, might I humbly suggest asking as many people as you can, who are listening to your music, to explain to you what it sounds like or whom it sounds like. Then you'll get a better understanding of where your music fits in the audio gene pool.

3. While we like these categories when we listen to music, we dislike it when we have to put ourselves into a category. As the user, we love it. As the creator, we hate it. If you want to appeal to many users and try being successful, you have to give the user what they want. You have to check your ego at the door and HONESTLY classify your music. If your goal is to make music for the sake of making music, and not care who's listening or how many thumbs up you get, then forget about genre altogether. Because it's not important.

Just my take on it.
Rob

[vurt]

We, as humans,
Rob

what about those of us who are not 100% human?

[Reason101]

what about those of us who are not 100% human?

Are we talking animal, plant, or alien from alpha centauri?

[DJ Warmonger]

We humans are also artists, and artists seldom fit purely into one category, unless you are the inventor of your own category. We aim to be unique

The only way to agree with that is to assume 90% producers are not artists.

I humbly suggest asking as many people as you can, who are listening to your music, to explain to you what it sounds like or whom it sounds like. Then you'll get a better understanding of where your music fits in the audio gene pool.

That's an interesting idea. As a DJ who was known of unknown and unusual tracks, I rather tend to impose my own classification on others. But as a producer, I may ask the people what do they think (and some opinions do differ).
On the other hand, whether I try to reproduce specific style closely or merge different styles, the result may vary from desired. Be it good or bad. The goal is to produce a track which still belongs to genre, but remains original and outstanding. Tune similiar to thousand of other ones won't be noticed, and even then - only by blind luck.

[Reason101]

The only way to agree with that is to assume 90% producers are not artists.

I'm speaking here of musicians, not producers. Producers are artists as well, but with a different set of skills. A producer is usually hired to take a musician's artistic work and make it sound the best it possibly can. As such, they are provided with the artwork, and sometimes do not have a say in what that artwork is.

That's an interesting idea. As a DJ who was known of unknown and unusual tracks, I rather tend to impose my own classification on others. But as a producer, I may ask the people what do they think (and some opinions do differ).
On the other hand, whether I try to reproduce specific style closely or merge different styles, the result may vary from desired. Be it good or bad. The goal is to produce a track which still belongs to genre, but remains original and outstanding. Tune similiar to thousand of other ones won't be noticed, and even then - only by blind luck.

Again, I'm talking about you being the musician composing your track. Not a DJ nor a producer. All three are artists, with different sets of skills. Of course a DJ is going to impose their classifications on others. That's what DJs do. They play others' works. I think with a DJ, it's all about being a master of timing, beats, finding the right music to play, and meshing it together well. Transitions are an art form.

With Producers, the skills become mixing and mastering.

In the case of a DJ, you wouldn't ask your audience how good the song sounded. You'd ask your audience if you made the right selection of sounds, had good transitions, kept them moving all night long, etc.

In the case of Producers, you would ask the track composer whether or not they liked how things were mixed and mastered.

But if you're an original music composer, you would ask your audience for their opinion on your composition. And that helps you figure out how it is classified.