Future of Music

[whyterabbyt]

So how do pragmatists choose the right instruments, right arrangement without trying out first everything like perfectionists would do? How do they stop and be content with what they have?

By being pragmatic.

What do you mean by "it'll sound like old music but with a slightly different hi-hat pattern"? and also "For people who think punk changed things, it'll potentially sound like anything."?

Its clear. Re-read.

[vurt]

whats wrong with a bit of decadence and moral decay?

Can you define a bit of decadence and moral decay?

"let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die..."

Can you open up eat, drink and merry in relation to morality? Does it entail cheating and betrayal of trust? Because the latter feels like new age. I went through excuciation betrayal of ex partner so Im mending my heart and transforming with music nowadays. I dont see how moral decay and breaking trust could ever be good or desirable.. Otherwise I love making love to my partner..eating, drinking and being merry with her..

breaking trust no, of courde, thats shitty.

but moral decay can mean different things to different people.
some people for example are in open relationships, no betrayal, but to you thats still moral decay.
but why? if theyre not hurting anyone?

some people think marijuana is part of the moral decay, some see it as medicine...

[whyterabbyt]

but moral decay can mean different things to different people.

I dont think it means 'new age' to anyone else, though.

Though maybe the overuse of shakuhachi was a big clue.

[vurt]

but moral decay can mean different things to different people.

I dont think it means 'new age' to anyone else, though.

Though maybe the overuse of shakuhachi was a big clue.

whale song is known to lead to infidelity.
scientific fact!

[vurt]

and yoga is a misspelled orgy.

[vurt]

some might argue that dance music, by encouraging drug use, was adding to the moral decay and is a little bit decadent

[whyterabbyt]

Moral decay as a 'thing' doesnt exist. 'Moral decay' as a description exists solely for the purpose of attempting to indicate that the person using the description is inherently morally superior to the people being described. That's why fascists like using it so much.

[vurt]

yup, its a judgement
the new age remark, makes me think this is probably a religiois issue too, so best to keep for hpc.
especially as it has no bearing on music production.

unless you have an "a,md,s,r" envelope?

[kritikon]

New music will be a new Daft Punk done exactly the same as the old Daft Punk, but in 3/4 time. Technowaltz. Obvs innit.

[foosnark]

What elements you take form live and what elements you record in studio?

It might be important for me to say the music I make tends toward drone, dark ambient, and something a bit like "Berlin School" with minimal sequencing. I don't write lyrics, I don't sequence everything in advance -- really I don't even plan song structure in advance except in the most general sense. It all comes out of improvisation. So it's an approach that wouldn't work with some genres, but some of the general concepts might apply.

During a setup phase, I will patch and tweak synths, add effects, assign faders to the mix levels. I don't rely on presets, I design everything myself for that particular piece of music. I just keep adding parts, tuning and balancing them to work together, until it feels like I have enough to work with. Some parts are drones or are manually played, and some have basic loop sequences or algorithmic/generative sequences.

The "plan" is informal, but includes things like: start with a particular voice. Save the most intense voice for the climax of the song. Never use parts 3 and 4 together. Stick mostly to D and A on the keyboard with occasional F# or C. Turn down the volume on the Lyra-8 halfway before I turn up the Hold knob. Just before bringing down the VCA for part 2, crank up its delay feedback, and then back off after several seconds.

Once I feel I'm ready, I'll start recording. This is the "live" part -- within the setup I have created and the planning I've done, I just improvise. Sometimes all that means is bringing parts in with faders, adjusting a timbral control or two and maybe starting/stopping sequences. Sometimes I've got controls to transpose a voice. Sometimes I'm playing a part on a keyboard or the Lyra-8 or 0-Ctrl.

I don't record individual channels, just the entire full mix, so there's no going back to change mix levels or re-record one particular part. Once I'm done, if I liked the take, I'll unpatch my modular synth.

I do all of the above in a single session that takes maybe 2-4 hours, sometimes less.

The editing phase might go through several sessions or it might be brief, depending on what I think is needed. I'll adjust fadein/fadeout, fixing any clicks/pops/glitches, and EQ. If I have to, I'll cut and splice sections if I feel a section wasn't good. Sometimes I'll manipulate more heavily here and it becomes part of the creative process itself.

[herodotus]

and yoga is a misspelled orgy.

!

That explains so much

[jancivil]

That whole thing of punk changed things was a concoction of rock journalists who knew f**k all about music to inform their writing, so so since it’s much easier to write lifestyle and fashion ya do that. Robert Christgau is the shining exemplar for this shite. He literally knows not one thing about music. Ask him!
Many people fell for it hook, line and concrete block.

“DAFT Punk changed things” is laughable. Herbie Hancock‘s Rockit, the model they took on and never took anywhere further musically was released a decade before DP was even a group. They are the perfect example of being wholly derivative where the appeal is just surface. I think some of it sounds good, but innovation this was not.

[jancivil]

That's why perfectionisnt dont finish anything. In any endeavour. Pragmatists do.
The problem is not the number of tools, its you.

So how do pragmatists choose the right instruments, right arrangement without trying out first everything like perfectionists would do? How do they stop and be content with what they have?

Some people get their musical shit together FIRST, and the ideas will tend to out, because the ideas have their own integrity, and so are formed thru a type of intelligence you (more a universal ‘you’) have yet to develop; an idea has a certain integral relationship to the instrument(s) perhaps... or it’s an abstract, musical idea... people with a genuine interest or even a calling are very unlike you at this point. The ‘abstract’ idea (ideas are informed thru experience with extant music, cluing you in), will have potential manifestations which accord with musical components; of style, of range, of idiom, of many things which lend to the decisions in arrangement. The idea, otoh, can happen on the instrument in real time, and completely/fully formed. It may be that a saxophone idea is clearly that, or the thing you came up with on a keyboard is impossible on the horn.

No offense, but objectively you clearly have no idea. It is not really a property of “perfectionism” to want to “trying out first everything“ in the first place. It’s the absence of information and sense one obtains in the discipline.

As to this universal you, ie., you’re not alone in this, people with “everything” before you due to technology have this notion to “produce” and want the de rigeur ten years even the very talented musician expects as preparation, then the years it takes to get a handle on mixing, to not be true.

Why, exactly, do you think you’re ready to create music, and to self-produce? What preparations have you made which would give you the confidence? (as opposed to a delusion)

[whyterabbyt]

That whole thing of punk changed things was a concoction of rock journalists

You weren't here. It changed things, whether you want to handwave it away or not.

[jancivil]

“This is also a moral question you know. Should one give in to degeneration and moral decadence? Correct my perspective if it's too narrow when it equalize future and modern with moral decline etc.. “
it’s plainly an ahistorical (ignorant) view. Who has time for this stuff?