Do you have to play an instrument?

[tee boy]

A friend of mine who did learn all the stuff once listened to a piano-piece of mine and said "you know putte, what you play there is actually ´wrong´, from the educated musician point of view .. but i love it, and could never ever have such an idea to play something like this cause i´d know its ´wrong´ to play it".

THIS happened to me EXACTLY the same way countless times in my old band.
Our singer (who was the main songwriter as well) allways came up with something "wrong" - but in the end we allways kept the "wrong" parts because they just sounded great.

A prime example: A lot of you may know a stock open position C major chord on guitars (3rd fret A string, 2nd fret D string, open G string, 1st fret B string, open high E string). When you move the fingered notes up a whole note (two frets that is ;o)) while keeping the open strings, the chord spelling becomes: D-F#-G-D-E, resolving in a D-chord with both the major 3rd and the 4th present.
In all theoretical explanations this is a "you better omit it!" situation - but does that particular chord sound great or what (it even does when you don't arpeggiate it but strum it)?
Same thing about that B major chord (7th position, E-barré-type thingy) with the high B and E strings ringing open...

Indeed mate, that is a superb chord. And there are so many progression which can be worked using the G string drone, and they all sound fantastic too!

[visa tapani]

Eno has done complex and sophisticated orchestral compositions that rival Ravel and Debussy?

Who ever said so? It's odd that the only meter you can think of for musical merit is the complexity of an orchestral composition. Why are you limiting yourself to classical music?

AFAIK, he's never composed anything remotely close to the sophistication of Ravel or Debussy.

Well, AFAYK only, this is just your subjective viewpoint. It is indeed clear that you think that classical music is somehow more sophisticated than, say, ambient, but it's no universal truth.

Riiiiiiight. This is just getting too absurd. Their early records never really strayed from the path Kraftwerk had set almost five years earlier, and their later releases were more of synth-pop, and rather unremarkable at that.

Have you actually heard Sakamoto's B2 Unit album? Do you know much about Sakamoto at all? Have you listened to his opera? His classical works? His jazz works? His various film scores?

Well you just don't follow the conversation at all, do you? In the parts you quoted I was talking only about your hilarious assertion that Sakamoto is the Godfather of electronic music.

Well, let us. Brian Eno vs Ryuichi Sakamoto. What conclusion should I draw?

Ok, lets. Can Eno compose operas? Grand and complex orchestral works? Award-winning film scores? Is he well-versed in Bossa Nova, jazz, french impressionism, classical, and various musical styles of various ethnic cultures and time periods? Can he play any instrument as well as Sakamoto can play the piano/keyboard? Has he explored as wide a range of musical styles as Sakamoto has in his career thus far, and incorporated as many into his own works?

Irrelevant, irrelevant, irrelevant, irrelevant, irrelevant and irrelevant. In my books Eno is a far more significant musical innovator than Sakamoto even if he doesn't bounce from genre to genre. Thus I disagree that unlike Sakamoto, Eno has hit or will hit a "glass ceiling" with his musical ambitions or that his works are not "comparable to the masterworks of someone like Sakamoto".

Just to clarify here, as this seems to be rather unclear: I agree with you that to write, say, a proper symphony is practically impossible without training in musical theory. I'm in no ways against music theory and I'd encourage people to get all the training they can get (I've followed that advice myself).

What I strongly disagreed in your post were these two sentences:

...that lack of understanding of scales, chords, harmony, rhythm, structure, melody..etc will become a handicap, because he [one without knowledge on musical theory] will hit a glass ceiling eventually and cannot break through it until he learns music theory.

and

I think musicians without theory knowledge make some interesting stuff, but hardly comparable to the masterworks of someone like Sakamoto.

And now suddely while defending this exact statement you suddenly narrow it down to a very narrow line of music which
(I am sure) will let most of the people you are communicating with here icecold.

Well put. I greatly appreciate classical music and adore Debussy for instance. Yet I feel Lunatique is taking the conversation to an odd direction.

[dystonia_ek]

But remember the absurd title of this thread. Making music without a musical instrument. Would be pretty difficult without even touching a chord instrument like the piano or the guitar.

I've made music with stones, gravel, sheets of safety glass, corrugated cardboard, shortwave and vlf radio, blowtorches, bones, ceramic bowls. But I get the impression that the people arguing for virtuoso instrumentalism here have a pretty narrow definition of 'music', generally. I also find there's a pretty solid Western bias going on on that side of the argument - there have been many cultures on earth that got by musically without chord instruments (does something like a bullroarer or a digeridoo count as a musical instrument? if not, does that mean that Australia's indiginous people didn't actually have music - they just naively thought they did?)...

I'm not saying that a musical education is useless. Just that it tends to trap people in a certain perception of the nature of music, what 'works' and what 'doesn't', what's 'permitted' and 'forbidden', etc... training teaches you to think in patterns that you end up assimilating so completely that you become unaware of them. And these patterns become stagnant too easily.

"categories strain, crack and sometimes break, under their burden - step out of the space provided"

[dystonia_ek]

Maybe you have to know a lot about musical theory to compose something like 'Daphne & Chloe' or
'the miraculous mandarin' but likewise you have to be very much interested in musical theory to be able to enjoy it.

For me this kind of composition (which you praise so much) is just another kind of wanking (just like Malmsteen).

Amen.

(IMO, one Ligeti or Xenakis is worth a thousand Ravels or Debussys.(Debussies? Oh shit. They had an education, didn't they... OK, substitute one Akita and one MacKenzie.)

[donkey tugger]

Same thing about that B major chord (7th position, E-barré-type thingy) with the high B and E strings ringing open...

I may have used that one occasionally.

[VicDiesel]

Maybe you have to know a lot about musical theory to compose something like 'Daphne & Chloe' or
'the miraculous mandarin' but likewise you have to be very much interested in musical theory to be able to enjoy it.

Complete bull.

Most of the people going to classical concerts (and I mean most of the ones who go there to listen, rather than to be seen ) know diddley about theory. You don't have to know anything about theory to recognise that one composer has talent by the thimble while another has it by the bucket.

V.

[René]

Sascha Franck wrote:
Same thing about that B major chord (7th position, E-barré-type thingy) with the high B and E strings ringing open...


I may have used that one occasionally.

Git Kama-Sutra eh.

-René

[donkey tugger]

Sascha Franck wrote:
Same thing about that B major chord (7th position, E-barré-type thingy) with the high B and E strings ringing open...


I may have used that one occasionally.

Git Kama-Sutra eh.

-René

What you trying to say there boy? That I've been shagging the guitar? Hmm, beats a Deigo Maradona blow up doll anyday!

[tee boy]

Sascha Franck wrote:
Same thing about that B major chord (7th position, E-barré-type thingy) with the high B and E strings ringing open...


I may have used that one occasionally.

Git Kama-Sutra eh.

-René

Why not talk a walk on the wild side and add a b9? Sounds great, very ethnic. The chord is - B, F#, C, D# and open B, E.

[donkey tugger]

Sascha Franck wrote:
Same thing about that B major chord (7th position, E-barré-type thingy) with the high B and E strings ringing open...


I may have used that one occasionally.

Git Kama-Sutra eh.

-René

Why not talk a walk on the wild side and add a b9? Sounds great, very ethnic. The chord is - B, F#, C, D# and open B, E.

...and strum it while taking yer first pinky on and off the low E string, instant New Order stylee classic!

[Sascha Franck]

Why not talk a walk on the wild side and add a b9? Sounds great, very ethnic. The chord is - B, F#, C, D# and open B, E.

Apart from the fact that a C would make up for a B/b9 of whatever sorts, could you tell me how to finger this?

[BONES]

How are you supposed to have a large knowledge of chords if you can't play them?

Why do you need any knowledge of chords? I hate chords. I can play notes and hear what works and what doesn't without any specific knowledge. I learned chords from a book once but that knowledge disappeared from my memory many years ago. Yet I write infinitely better songs now than I did when my brain was full of such arcane knowledge. I used to be able to play with both hands whilst singing but now I am like Bernie Sumner from NEW ORDER, I can do one or the other. As for both hands - I can play the same thing with left and right [octave up/down or two different synths] but there's no way I could play chords and a melody any more. Yet, to reiterate, I write infinitely better songs now than I ever have, even though I am horrified at how many of them are built on the same 3 notes.

[flugel45]

I was thinking about this... Can you really make decent music without being an instrumentalist? If you make music, isn't a fundamental aspect to have practical and theoretical knowledge?

With someone like Squarepusher it is really obvious that he plays instruments. There are loads of undergrounds acts though that just don't seem to even be able to make a melody. I think that I can tell with a producer whether they play drums or not, there just is a difference. I feel that's why people like Chemical Brothers, Fat Boy Slim, DJ Shadow, Dj Premier and Squarepusher are in another league as such, they understand drums and therefore make better beats than Roni Size, Goldie and others...

I dunno I just see if anyone is feeling me on this one? I'm not saying that people should be Miles Davis or Steve Gadd but some basic instrumental skills aren't that hard to aquire and to my mind are essential.

Unless you're tone deaf (or an asthmatic), you can play the kazoo, so what are you going on about?

And no need to spend $5.99 on the professional model. Wax paper on a comb does the trick nicely. (Best if the wax paper is gotten straight from the box. No good using the piece your wife wrapped your sandwich with. Even a small amount of mayonnaise on the lip will identify you as an amateur).

There, that's settled. Next question...?


JD

[donkey tugger]

Why not talk a walk on the wild side and add a b9? Sounds great, very ethnic. The chord is - B, F#, C, D# and open B, E.

Apart from the fact that a C would make up for a B/b9 of whatever sorts, could you tell me how to finger this?

The same way but just move your little finger up 2 frets!

[Sascha Franck]

I write infinitely better songs now than I ever have, even though I am horrified at how many of them are built on the same 3 notes.

Wouldn't like listening to the other ones then...