Real Musicians Don't Cheat

[skipscada]

... a legitimate thought that must've crossed nearly every musician's mind: with the wealth of stuff out there, is there any real need to add on top of that?

Being truly original is very hard and not always desirable. The social aspect of music, keeping tradition alive, music as something to bring people together across boundaries of time/place etc needs familiarity. Just think about dancing, where a certain rhythm goes with a certain dance (polka, tango ...). That predictability is lost in a lot of innovative music, making it useless for any sort of dancing except the Freestyle Freakout or the Awkward Shuffle. Stock, standard beats that we turn to again and again are practically a necessity, but the problem with pre-recorded loops is that the interaction with other instruments/parts is lacking compared to a human being playing along with other human beings, and the potential for musicality is much lower. Repetition and rigidity can be exploited musically, but are limiting. A sample can spark creativity like a particle of dust helps water molecules to form a drop, but it won't be a drop unless there's a lot more water than dust.

I have much more tolerance for synth presets. Traditional instruments could be viewed as instruments with only one (or a couple, depending on articulations) preset.

just picking and listening to music can be more or less creative. getting into new stuff requires attention. it's the creative act of shaping and enrichening your understanding of music, increasing your appreciation.

Musician vs DJ = writer vs editor = artist vs curator?

[Gonga]

The equivalent for that would be an architect using part of the design of someone else's building in their own.

If I look around in Munich (or any other big city in the world except Disneyland), most buildings look similar. So architects seem to partly use the work of others. Otherwise every building would look completely unique, and there wouldn't be so many buildings that look the same...

Even several hundred years ago in Italy, "Trulli" which nearly look the same with some different ornaments:

pic of somewhere nice

That's cool. I was just pointing out that incorporating someone else's creative idea to realise a creative idea is logically different from using someone else's physical product to realise a creative idea.

I don't buy the cheating argument this thing is opposed to at all, by the way. It's an argument that the whole is just the sum of its parts, and if someone believes that, I feel pretty safe ignoring their judgements on the whole.

Well-said. I don't know of any musician I've ever heard that didn't build on music that came before, and the major composers all used melodic and harmonic ideas "borrowed" from previous works, often of other composers. Zappa was particularly brilliant at this. But to primarily use whole audio sections of other's works, greatly risks low creative / artistic / craft value. That's not to say it would have no entertainment value though, and if done with intelligence and creativity, could itself be a valuable creative endeavor also (any success garnered is evidence of this). My listening has not provided me with such an experience though. I personally find that when I hear repeated loops my own experience of the music generally or usually takes a steep nose-dive.

[ghettosynth]

I personally find that when I hear repeated loops my own experience of the music generally or usually takes a steep nose-dive.

Bias confirmed, amiright?

[Gonga]

Definitely some bias there. My background is a player. I have taken lessons on and played (in school days) drums, piano, cello, every brass instrument in the band at the time (including both sousaphone and tuba, both baritone horn and euphonium, trumpet, cornet, fluegelhorn, etc.) including screech trumpet in the school jazz band, etc., and since then classical guitar and electric bass, many different keyboards and synthesizers. My main instrument has long since been synthesizer - and I know little of the technical aspects. I am a player and improviser. If someone were to get up on stage and start doing nothing but triggering loops and shit, I would be gone.

[tapper mike]

If you are a player then at sometime or another hopefully you used a metronome.

I've used em and hated em. Mostly because the accent always falls on the one. Actually I've found my timing on a metronome works better if I set it for half time and count on the two and four.

If you are a player then you should be able to tap a tempo. Then use the tempo you've tapped out to create something. It's hard but not impossible as someone comping from the analog world to work out ideas if you are familiar with the beat and have some idea about key/progression.

[nasenmann]

... a legitimate thought that must've crossed nearly every musician's mind: with the wealth of stuff out there, is there any real need to add on top of that?

Being truly original is very hard and not always desirable. The social aspect of music, keeping tradition alive, music as something to bring people together across boundaries of time/place etc needs familiarity. Just think about dancing, where a certain rhythm goes with a certain dance (polka, tango ...). That predictability is lost in a lot of innovative music, making it useless for any sort of dancing except the Freestyle Freakout or the Awkward Shuffle. Stock, standard beats that we turn to again and again are practically a necessity, but the problem with pre-recorded loops is that the interaction with other instruments/parts is lacking compared to a human being playing along with other human beings, and the potential for musicality is much lower. Repetition and rigidity can be exploited musically, but are limiting. A sample can spark creativity like a particle of dust helps water molecules to form a drop, but it won't be a drop unless there's a lot more water than dust.

good thoughts, though i've given up on the "truly original" idealism in the hardcore sense long ago.
again, for me it boils down to: is the journey worth it?
we set goals for ourselves, like making music that moves everyone's heart, or everyone's booty, or makes people's head explode with energy and complexity. or making dat truly original music that only you yourself and 3 other people on the world are meant to understand.
if it's worthwhile or not isn't necessarily determined by whether you ever reach that goal. you might sort of reach it but then realise that others have done pretty much the same thing but better.

what makes it worthwhile is all the stuff that happens in between.

just picking and listening to music can be more or less creative. getting into new stuff requires attention. it's the creative act of shaping and enrichening your understanding of music, increasing your appreciation.

Musician vs DJ = writer vs editor = artist vs curator?

yeah kinda. but musician vs listener too. but scratch the vs. making music comes from listening. every music maker is a listener first and foremost.

guess i just wanted to blur the lines a bit as far as the definition of creativity goes.

[Hink]

If you are a player then at sometime or another hopefully you used a metronome.

I've used em and hated em. Mostly because the accent always falls on the one. Actually I've found my timing on a metronome works better if I set it for half time and count on the two and four.

If you are a player then you should be able to tap a tempo. Then use the tempo you've tapped out to create something. It's hard but not impossible as someone comping from the analog world to work out ideas if you are familiar with the beat and have some idea about key/progression.

I have been using a metronome for so long it doesn't distract me at all and I use it quite often. I think years of playing with a metronome and a drum machine it has made it difficult for me to play with a live drummer. If the drummer can hold the tempo I am okay, but it drives me nuts if I play with a drummer that wanders.

Just curious, if you like the accent on a different beat why not just make a loop and use that for a metronome?

[DSmolken]

Being truly original is very hard and not always desirable. The social aspect of music, keeping tradition alive, music as something to bring people together across boundaries of time/place etc needs familiarity. Just think about dancing, where a certain rhythm goes with a certain dance (polka, tango ...). That predictability is lost in a lot of innovative music, making it useless for any sort of dancing except the Freestyle Freakout or the Awkward Shuffle.

I avoid innovative music, but I imagine the most popular dance at innovative music shows is the Stand There With Arms Crossed While Wearing A Black T-Shirt.

[hibidy]

You guys do realize this is a joke thread, right?

[ZenPunkHippy]

You guys do realize this is a joke thread, right?

I can see the headlines now:

KVR Forum: Joke Thread Turns Serious Shocker

Does this qualify for the paranormal thread?

[xNiMiNx]

Of course its a joke thread, everyones using predefined languages and alphabets, no ones made their own.

[Sendy]

Of course its a joke thread, everyones using predefined languages and alphabets, no ones made their own.

jEg taph s%++querl trnanaiig@@@@.

stet

[jancivil]

I personally find that when I hear repeated loops my own experience of the music generally or usually takes a steep nose-dive.

Bias confirmed, amiright?

can't speak for Gonga, but then again you are making a general statement aren't you. For the kind of thing I would address, I can tell if someone has a two bar, or now it's one bar loops repeated over and over again. It isn't about an ideological bias at this point. It's completely the f**k DULL. If you love some dullness in your life, who am I to say don't love it.

I'm sure not going to trawl or even browse this thing to find out, but I don't know who has made a case against repetition or building on tradition, or using typical things that form basis of styles. I know I didn't. My album project right now is all about engaging repetition. As a guitarist, the first bands I was in were three chord rock 'n roll, 12-bar blues exercises. I don't know what's hard about saying 'get your chops together first' for people.

This is a joke thread? Then why is the OP arguing? The meme showed a reduction of the point 'loops are cheating' to absurdity. Again, if one arrives at a self-conscious thing (such as one of us said at least once here 'Not everything I do is built on just loops'), which is the storyline of the meme: 'loops use is cheating', they are on the verge of knowing something about themselves. I don't care what you do. When you try and form rhetoric to justify bullshit, this is a forum after all, I don't mind calling bullshit.

I wonder if you see this kind of 'joke' with graphics arts people. Do they think learning how to draw is a bunch of nothing, because you can grab somebody's template online? It's really just so stupid.

[jancivil]

I don't buy the cheating argument this thing is opposed to at all, by the way. It's an argument that the whole is just the sum of its parts, and if someone believes that, I feel pretty safe ignoring their judgements on the whole.

Not sure what that argument is. My initial response to it was this is fallacious reductio ad absurdum because the premise is straw. That isn't just me, it really does do that fallacy.
I don't know who has said 'the whole is just the sum of parts', either. So you don't respect your straw man, fine with me.
But where is this synergy, of being more than just a sum of parts, through what? What have you stated, that to say, 'get involved with the parts and the whole will gain' = 'the whole is just the sum of parts'? That's some bullshit.

Have you ever provided all of the parts to a produced track? I think one would not have this sort of statement having done. I say that my drumming informs the lead guitar part even if I laid the latter down before anything else, so that when I come to it as drummer I have a synergy going on already (there is an integration of parts at a molecular level) and that I expanded my musical personality by taking on both roles and taking both roles seriously for years. Here is more than the sum of parts because of real involvement in the parts. I think what you said is just words.

I would say that if the parts are not yours, that you were never involved in making parts, selling me on this being your product is going to be a tough row to hoe.
See, a producer meant someone that was involved in the making of the record. Now it kinda sorta says you wrote (some will actually say 'composed') something, that even it it was a bunch of stuff you copped off a CD you bought or took off Computer Music 'zine, 'here is my track, Producer x'.
Now there is a point where one can use prerecorded everything and make one's own decisions, *compositionally* but I'm addressing something which I think we're all clear on.

If you're going to toss 'architecture' at us, "Tricky", there is a word for this, 'PREFABRICATED', you aren't doing architecture, don't kid me. Architecture will happen when you make your own tala and the composition proceeds organically from your involvement with a structure, rather than slapping some loops around you bought.

I did say that people that are involved with the making of parts are making compositional decisions that someone that never does will not make. I did argue that involvement with the parts is enriching, and fun. But no, many people want to have bragging rights to product and just la-de-dah do as little as they can, let's leap to a destination rather than enjoy a journey. But those that choose to do this? You aren't cheating me.

[jancivil]

if you want to be a drummer you need to take the test

1. 2+2=