Follower or Leader?

[eduardo_b]

Actually with respect to such genres as techno and EBM, it is seldom the pioneers that arouse me, but the followers who develop and refine the art through, lets say, 90% cliché and 10% invention.

An important point. Others take the originality of the pioneering work and quickly change it many time over, and, as you note, possibly improving and often not.

[eduardo_b]

I'm not sure if we are discussing cover songs, or creativity, or inventing new styles of music, so I'll pick one.

Creativity - I play in a blues band, and we only do "covers." But we interpret every song differently. In fact, we interpret it differently every time we play. Is that copying or being original? I think both. But we want to learn "how" to play the blues, so we do what we do.

For my own music, I have to do my own stuff, but I know that it is a combination of everything I have played... with me in the middle.

So it's the variations that make each time a unique experience. Makes it difficult to pin down definitive performances with bands that do jam and morph the same songs each time. None of it is "original," but as with remixes, they are variations -- sometimes better or not depending on one's point of view and how the band is feeling that night.

[dirty oscillators]

I understand that. But many people actually like certain kinds of music -- music that sounds similar but by different artists. That's the rational behind Pandora. If you liked that, you may like this. I see a desire for new, but not necessarily innovative or original, music among typical listeners. Some people have very broad taste, but many stick to what they know and like...and can easily be put off by a favorite artist heading off into new territory. Looking at people's CD collections can be quite revealing.

what you're talking about is marketing, not art.

Then music isn't art when people like certain genres? Not following you here. Are you saying true art is always innovative, and that which is not is also not truly art?

you're twisting my words around here. what i was saying is that you are looking at music from a marketing standpoint, not from a purely artistic standpoint.

[eduardo_b]

but you also don't believe the tools to create music are important, so why does it matter if there are a zillion guitar bands out there?

I made it very clear in another thread that the tools are not and cannot be as important as the person using them. Give a professional photographer an inexpensive camera, give an amateur the professional's camera, and the work of the former will be vastly superior to the latter. It's the vision that matters far more than the tools. This is widely known and understood, not something I made up.

uniqueness is enough to keep me interested. originality is not over rated in that if an artist shoots for originality the end result has a more unique quality than someone who thinks it's over rated, as you do.

There's originality, uniqueness, variation. They are different, and the latter two are by far the more common. The originators are iconic in their respective fields, but few and far between. If we limit ourselves to only that which is original, we will have relatively little to experience in each artistic field of endeavor. That's all I'm saying.

[dirty oscillators]

but you also don't believe the tools to create music are important, so why does it matter if there are a zillion guitar bands out there?

I made it very clear in another thread that the tools are not and cannot be as important as the person using them. Give a professional photographer an inexpensive camera, give an amateur the professional's camera, and the work of the former will be vastly superior to the latter. It's the vision that matters far more than the tools. This is widely known and understood, not something I made up.

i never said you made it up. where did i say that? my point was that if the tools don't matter, then why would you infer there are too many guitar bands which is contributing to lack of originality?

There's originality, uniqueness, variation. They are different, and the latter two are by far the more common. The originators are iconic in their respective fields, but few and far between. If we limit ourselves to only that which is original, we will have relatively little to experience in each artistic field of endeavor. That's all I'm saying.

it sounded to me like you were saying originality is over rated, meaning we shouldn't care enough to go for that since we are all doomed to be unoriginal (except for the rare cases which are few and far between)... right?

[eduardo_b]

I understand that. But many people actually like certain kinds of music -- music that sounds similar but by different artists. That's the rational behind Pandora. If you liked that, you may like this. I see a desire for new, but not necessarily innovative or original, music among typical listeners. Some people have very broad taste, but many stick to what they know and like...and can easily be put off by a favorite artist heading off into new territory. Looking at people's CD collections can be quite revealing.

what you're talking about is marketing, not art.

Then music isn't art when people like certain genres? Not following you here. Are you saying true art is always innovative, and that which is not is also not truly art?

you're twisting my words around here. what i was saying is that you are looking at music from a marketing standpoint, not from a purely artistic standpoint.

I hardly think so. Pandora had a large number of editors classify a large number of factors for music and then used these to code songs. Thus, it became quantifiably possible to select similar music out of the vast catalog of songs available. These became personal profiles of those who use the site. According to these people, it works quite well. If you liked this, you may like these as well.

It's not marketing, it's what people want and prefer. Many, perhaps most, of the songs and artists may be new to the listener using this system, but are rarely original. They are variations on preferred music styles. Yes, marketing takes preferred music styles into consideration when targeting audiences, but that doesn't alter the art itself. Not understanding where you see marketing coming into the presence or absence of originality.

[robogone]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logorrhoea

[eduardo_b]

but you also don't believe the tools to create music are important, so why does it matter if there are a zillion guitar bands out there?

I made it very clear in another thread that the tools are not and cannot be as important as the person using them. Give a professional photographer an inexpensive camera, give an amateur the professional's camera, and the work of the former will be vastly superior to the latter. It's the vision that matters far more than the tools. This is widely known and understood, not something I made up.

i never said you made it up. where did i say that? my point was that if the tools don't matter, then why would you infer there are too many guitar bands which is contributing to lack of originality?

I don't know where you got the too many thing. What I said was that few of them are going to be originators, yet they have fans and can be appreciated for their music.

There's originality, uniqueness, variation. They are different, and the latter two are by far the more common. The originators are iconic in their respective fields, but few and far between. If we limit ourselves to only that which is original, we will have relatively little to experience in each artistic field of endeavor. That's all I'm saying.

it sounded to me like you were saying originality is over rated, meaning we shouldn't care enough to go for that since we are all doomed to be unoriginal (except for the rare cases which are few and far between)... right?

I didn't say originality should be ignored or overlooked. I said it isn't the primary criterion upon which to judge music. One, because there aren't many true orignators, and, two, it's not as if being original is automatically better in terms of quality or appeal. The leader versus follower thread title. I think you're reading too much into my original statement.

[robogone]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloviate

[xoxos]

for some reason i am unable to read these posts. there's a mystic aura around them.

[debra1rlo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logorrhoea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloviate

for some reason i am unable to read these posts. there's a mystic aura around them.

[dirty oscillators]

http://www.cbslang.com/dictionary/alligator-station

[robogone]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... n%20jailer

[Lunatique]

Creativity does not exist in a vacuum, and anyone who thinks they are being so highly original is probably wrong, as we are the culmination of our influences. Even the seemingly most original and innovative works take a little from here and a little from there and put them in a different context. There are so very few creative works that are revolutionary--most are evolutionary. If originality and innovation is the most prized characteristic creative people are after, then an overwhelming percentage of us will fail miserably because as civilization goes on, the chances for truly innovating will become slimmer and slimmer. Our ancestors had it easy back in the day, except people were so ignorant and brain-washed by religion and superstition back then, you'd probably be burned as the stake for being too innovative.

I sometimes feel that when people who get obsessed with doing something no one's done before, it is often a symptom of lacking the knowledge/ability to excel in established conventions. Of course, this is a generalization and there are exceptions, but it's something I've noticed in many cases. The problem with a symptom like that is if one does not have the knowledge/skill to even make something worthwhile in established conventions, that means he's lacking all the necessary skills to make "music" in the way that human beings have come to know music--lacking the ability to play an instrument decently, compose a decent melody or harmonic progression or rhythm...etc. People like that will often gravitate towards the really obscure genres that does away with as many musical conventions as possible. When you don't need to deal with conventions you've failed in, your chances of success all of a sudden goes up dramatically. Once again, this is a generalization. There are definitely people who are well-versed in conventional styles of music and have solid knowledge/skill in established conventions, yet is fascinated by obscure and unconventional musical experimentation and gravitates towards them. I think there are generally three types of people trying to do something totally off the wall and different:

1)People who are already knowledgeable and skilled in established musical conventions, and looking to try something new and exciting.

2)People who never bothered learning the musical conventions and right off the bat gravitated towards the unconventional because it's simply their personality and taste.

3)People who wanted to excel in the established musical conventions but failed, then looked to unconventional genres that seems to be a lot less demanding in terms of necessary knowledge of music theory, instrument performance, compositional skills...etc. When there are no established rules, you can't really fail/suck at it, right? Anyone can proclaim genius and originality, and there's no yardstick to assess whether anything they do is any good. Unfortunately, the soundscape/noise/ambient arena is full of people who would be considered bad in any established conventions of music, and the only time they don't suck is when they work in a style where quality is difficult to assess. There are certainly people who are really good working in that arena too, and for me personally, I can tell the good ones from the bad ones. The good ones actually compose soundscapes that have interesting progression and layered complexity that's actually musical and expressive and takes you on a journey of high's and low's and sparse and dense "movements," while the bad ones just drone on and on without any thought or purpose--just a blanket of random noise. (Yet even here subjective taste is still prevalent. My preference for expressiveness and a sense of musical progression may be something an experimental person completely hates and wants to get away from altogether, so random noise is just what he wanted. )

So in the end, to me, whether someone is highly original or not is not the main issue; I only care if they are any good according to my personal standard for excellence.

[MotorMind]

95% of all music uploaded to any online MP3 service is just very bad. Anyone should be glad if they manage to belong to the 5% who make anything worthwhile.

You forgot to add: IMFAO: In My F*cking Arrogant Oppinion. Sorry for you that you only like exactly 95% of ALL music uploaded to ANY mp3 sevice. However do not be surprised if your oppinion apply to no one else than yourself.

Well, I just revised my opinion. I'm flexible like that. It's actually closer to 98 %

It's all okay, since making music is a great pastime and beats watching television anytime. And it's because most everybody believes they can make it to the top 2% some might actually produce something worthwhile. The ones who don't are either too original or too derivative. The truth is in the middle.