Follower or Leader?

[Locus M]

I would also have to add that IMO no-one can be as musically creative as they could be unless they "master those arbitary physical and mental skills".

Now that is more like it. If just everyone would remember that IMO or IMHO or IMFAO, we might not get so pissed on each other, because it would not sound like some self-divinated jerk continually tries to overrule our personal point of view by over-generalising his own.

[whyterabbyt]

Now that is more like it. If just everyone would remember that IMO or IMHO or IMFAO, we might not get so pissed on each other, because it would not sound like some self-divinated jerk continually tries to overrule our personal point of view by over-generalising his own.

thats a good point. although i think its still legitimate to challenge people's stated opinions in some circumstances. say, when those opinions constitute actual prejudice rather than mere disagreement.

[Locus M]

Now that is more like it. If just everyone would remember that IMO or IMHO or IMFAO, we might not get so pissed on each other, because it would not sound like some self-divinated jerk continually tries to overrule our personal point of view by over-generalising his own.

thats a good point. although i think its still legitimate to challenge people's stated opinions in some circumstances. say, when those opinions constitute actual prejudice rather than mere disagreement.

Of course, but given the IMO precaution, the confrontation could be more focused on the issue, less on personal matters, and in general more civil and humble because we are implying hypothetical stands until logic, experience or empirical evidence tells us something else. Not that this is an easy quest. Not even within science from which the ideal originates. But we could put an effort into it and see where it will take us.

[whyterabbyt]

the confrontation could be more focused on the issue, less on personal matters

are you new here, then?

[captain caveman]

Although it has to be said in the case of modern art, that unless the artist in question has been trained/schooled as an artist then throwing a pot of paint at a canvas can't be construed as more than that just an act.

of course it can.

unless, of course, you buy into the notion that only those who have 'authorisation' as artists should ever be accepted as such.

If they know how to paint and choose other forms of expression using paint then it is no longer a random act and may well be deserved of some chin-stroking, discussion and general flute-chinking.

the fallacious assumption you have made is that assuming the act is random solely on the grounds that it has been done by someone who is not 'trained/schooled as an artist'. the legitimacy of the act is not determined by the training of the person who undertakes it, though.

I am using an example where we know that an act is random. Is it art? Anything can be perceived as art but at what stage does paint become art? When does noise become art? I believe it is in the sculpting and the skill of the sculptor. To have a body of work that demonstrates ability before an artist embarks on doing what could be seen as something more creative, or at least outside of traditional rules, is vitally important and is what seperates artists from spray-painted chinchillas jumping around a room full of blank canvases and/or a room full of switched on synths.

In the case of music, to understand the rules of music before breaking them is the only thing that makes for me the more avant-garde vaguely digestable in the same way as modern art.

Again, there is the assumption that it is a single set of rules which prevail. I dont happen to subscribe to the priveleged, 19th century, european notion of which rules those are.

I could go and put four soundscapish Reaktor ensembles and a long Absynth patch on right now and while it may sound okay, it would mean absolutely nothing to me (and, I would hope, anyone else), I could take a picture of my unmade bed or throw some ink on my neighbours cat too but in the same way that wouldn't make me an visual artist.

No, it wouldnt. You described a sequence of actions without motivation; artistic intent was clearly missing, and its pretty much a prerequisite. IMO.

But what I am saying is that knowing rules allow people to break them - without rules there is only randomness. There are sets of musical rules from around the world which can be learned, expanded upon, merged or broken. There are beautiful noises and soundscapes all around us that can be sculpted into a palettable aural experience, the results of which don't have to follow any rules. But with only the end result to hear/see - was it a painted chinchilla or an artist that made it? Was there feeling and art driving it or was it a random act?

The counter argument could be - who cares? But it is perfectly possible for any of us to put 20 minutes of random VSTis together in a cold-hearted experiment and have the listener spend more time listening to a track than it took to put together. The listener could well have an experience and really that's all art is there for, but does that make the experiment art?

So without knowing previous works and being able to see/hear skill in them it is impossible to judge whether something has been cobbled together by someone with no feelings either way, or it has been a labour of love/hate. So with off-the-wall stuff IMO the artist has to have a pedigree (yes, I know ), or absolutely anything, generated by anybody has to be considered as art and respected as such.

I would also have to add that IMO no-one can be as musically creative as they could be unless they "master those arbitary physical and mental skills".

Which is a bit like saying 'noone can be as happy as they could be with a lot more money'. Its an assumption that the result is totally interdependent on fulfilling the condition...

I wouldn't agree. Without knowing the traditional rules of music the ability to create a lot of genres is restricted whereas knowing them allows you to create all forms of music - a lot of which may well have nothing to do with them.

[Voidoid Surrealist]

Here's the thing, though; music is still an art form, a means of artistic and creative communication. And its not the ability to play an instrument, or read notation, or remember rules of harmony, or any of those lucky mechanical or mental abilities that allow one to create art. Its the ability to formulate and express an idea, the concretisation of something innate to being a human, in order to provoke a response, a reaction in an observer. That might be facilitated by dexterity with some clumsy arrangement of wood and wires, or it might not, but it certainly doesnt require it. It requires something else. And if you dont get that, you probably dont have it.

If I was more of an asshole than I already am, I'd quote this over and over every time more elitist nonsense gets spewed in this thread until some people finally get it, but out of courtesy, this one reminder will have to suffice.

[yellowfever]

If I was more of an asshole than I already am....

I stopped reading after this bit

[whyterabbyt]

I am using an example where we know that an act is random.

well that's a problem, because you didn't talk about the act being random, but that the act was of performing an action which had a random result, and there's a very large difference.

Is it art? Anything can be perceived as art but at what stage does paint become art? When does noise become art?

when it is perceived as such. it has always been perception which has defined art.

I believe it is in the sculpting and the skill of the sculptor.

if that is the case, why was Van Gogh not recognised as an artist during his lifetime? His skill cannot have changed after his death, but the perception of his work did.

To have a body of work that demonstrates ability before an artist embarks on doing what could be seen as something more creative, or at least outside of traditional rules, is vitally important

Only for those who require that the term 'artist' has to be validated by proving that set of innate physical abilities in the first place. For the record, though, far fewer art students can paint or draw well than you think.

and is what seperates artists from spray-painted chinchillas jumping around a room full of blank canvases and/or a room full of switched on synths.

There's no separation. If one of our students submitted the latter as a piece of work, it would be examined for its success as a piece of work, whether or not they had shown a body of work that informed it before then. The success of the submission, though, will be based entirely on how they justify its submission.

But what I am saying is that knowing rules allow people to break them - without rules there is only randomness.

That's another fallacious line of reasoning. If someone does not know 'the rules', there is no reason to expect that their actions are entirely random,
nor that they do not create sets of rules of their own, whether those rules overlap with existent ones or not. The rules of harmony didnt come on stone tablets, they were created from listening. And you'd expect that we can all do that...

Thus it is entirely possible to judge whether two colours look good together without having been taught colour theory. Aesthetic judgement does not require knowledge of a set of arbitrary rules, nor does ignorance of a particular set of arbitrary rules imply completely haphazard aesthetic decisions.

The listener could well have an experience and really that's all art is there for, but does that make the experiment art?

It doesnt matter whether it is or isnt for a given example. The point is that its being generalised that it never can be. And thats just not true.

So without knowing previous works and being able to see/hear skill in them it is impossible to judge whether something has been cobbled together by someone with no feelings either way, or it has been a labour of love/hate.

Yes, it pretty much is. Isn't that interesting?

So with off-the-wall stuff IMO the artist has to have a pedigree (yes, I know ), or absolutely anything, generated by anybody has to be considered as art and respected as such.

I think you'll find that the audience willing to actively entertain the off-the-wall stuff care far less about that than the people who would write off the material on arbitrary grounds. As the actual audience, I think they get more say than you...

I wouldn't agree. Without knowing the traditional rules of music the ability to create a lot of genres is restricted whereas knowing them allows you to create all forms of music - a lot of which may well have nothing to do with them.

The greatest proliferation of genres I seem to come across seem to derive solely from microscopic evolutions in tempo and instrumentation, so that's not particularly convincing argument, to be honest, particularly since such a large part of that proliferation comes from the 'untrained'.

If you're saying 'you need to know what a polka is to be able to write a polka' then, yes, that's true. If you're saying 'if you know your chords you can write a polka', then thats blatantly false. I kind of also challenge the assumption that 'creating within a genre' is automatically desirable in the first place.

I'd also question whether many of the 'right' kind of musicians have actually made much proper study of experimental music in the first place to be given the right to comment on it. Given the logic they're wielding, I think they should be forcibly prevented from using any of the modern synthesis or recording technologies until they have, for example, a proper knowledge of Pierre Schaeffers' research on the taxonomy of sound structures, or Xenakis' work on stochastic process. If they don't know the rules, they shouldnt be considered musicians, after all...

[brok landers]

Every day I'm here I see a truck load of people clamoring to figure out how to sound like this that or the other band. So what I want to know is are you a leader trying to find your own sound by experimentation, trial and error, imagination and good old creativity or are you a follower who cant stand the fact you suck and the only thing you can figure is that to be good is to sound exactly like your idols or who ever is the flava of the month.

I know that at times my tracks can have an essence of something that's been done before. And many of you have that element as well. But there is an extreme difference between sounding like another artist/band when you are attempting to be unique and creative. When attempting to create a certain style/genre of music its understood that your influences will show at times in your music as well. But there are multitudes of bands in the same genre that don't sound the same as well.

But I'm talking of complete emulation here. Because I'm getting sick of the "How to sound like "X" Threads!

thinking in either categories makes you fail, imo ...
i never try to reinvent the wheel, i just use what i want the way that i want ... or like i said: it's not the new thing that counts, but the good one, whether it's been there before or not ... the key is to constantly stay open to everything and to keep on learning ... i still do, every day, after all the time im in the biz now ...

[Lotuzia]

Do you really choose who you are ?

Fish

[captain caveman]

and is what seperates artists from spray-painted chinchillas jumping around a room full of blank canvases and/or a room full of switched on synths.

There's no separation. If one of our students submitted the latter as a piece of work, it would be examined for its success as a piece of work, whether or not they had shown a body of work that informed it before then. The success of the submission, though, will be based entirely on how they justify its submission.

That's very interesting - so it's the description of the work that is the deciding factor on whether it is good enough and not the piece itself? I mean without the explanation the piece could be a spilt ink pot or a bin that the janitor forgot to take out. I thought great art reached out and grabbed us?

But what I am saying is that knowing rules allow people to break them - without rules there is only randomness.

That's another fallacious line of reasoning. If someone does not know 'the rules', there is no reason to expect that their actions are entirely random,
nor that they do not create sets of rules of their own, whether those rules overlap with existent ones or not. The rules of harmony didnt come on stone tablets, they were created from listening. And you'd expect that we can all do that...

Thus it is entirely possible to judge whether two colours look good together without having been taught colour theory. Aesthetic judgement does not require knowledge of a set of arbitrary rules, nor does ignorance of a particular set of arbitrary rules imply completely haphazard aesthetic decisions.

The listener could well have an experience and really that's all art is there for, but does that make the experiment art?

It doesnt matter whether it is or isnt for a given example. The point is that its being generalised that it never can be. And thats just not true.

So without knowing previous works and being able to see/hear skill in them it is impossible to judge whether something has been cobbled together by someone with no feelings either way, or it has been a labour of love/hate.

Yes, it pretty much is. Isn't that interesting?

So with off-the-wall stuff IMO the artist has to have a pedigree (yes, I know ), or absolutely anything, generated by anybody has to be considered as art and respected as such.

I think you'll find that the audience willing to actively entertain the off-the-wall stuff care far less about that than the people who would write off the material on arbitrary grounds. As the actual audience, I think they get more say than you...

I wouldn't agree. Without knowing the traditional rules of music the ability to create a lot of genres is restricted whereas knowing them allows you to create all forms of music - a lot of which may well have nothing to do with them.

The greatest proliferation of genres I seem to come across seem to derive solely from microscopic evolutions in tempo and instrumentation, so that's not particularly convincing argument, to be honest, particularly since such a large part of that proliferation comes from the 'untrained'.

If you're saying 'you need to know what a polka is to be able to write a polka' then, yes, that's true. If you're saying 'if you know your chords you can write a polka', then thats blatantly false. I kind of also challenge the assumption that 'creating within a genre' is automatically desirable in the first place.

I'd also question whether many of the 'right' kind of musicians have actually made much proper study of experimental music in the first place to be given the right to comment on it. Given the logic they're wielding, I think they should be forcibly prevented from using any of the modern synthesis or recording technologies until they have, for example, a proper knowledge of Pierre Schaeffers' research on the taxonomy of sound structures, or Xenakis' work on stochastic process. If they don't know the rules, they shouldnt be considered musicians, after all...

Believe it or not, I am not entirely disagreeing with you.

The great and frustrating thing about this one little life we all have is that there is no rewind button. It's impossible for me, having studied classical piano, to go back and live my life without it and then A/B between the two mindsets at this point in my life. The thing is that it is equally impossible for someone who hasn't had training to know what's it's like to have that experience, but the difference is that I can open a VSTi and twist the knobs on a MIDI controller with the best of them.

The Unknown Unknowns as Herr Rumsfeld put it.

Anyway I'm knackered, sorry I couldn't elaborate more.

[Reverend Rhythm]

Anyway I'm knackered....

[whyterabbyt]

That's very interesting - so it's the description of the work that is the deciding factor on whether it is good enough and not the piece itself? I mean without the explanation the piece could be a spilt ink pot or a bin that the janitor forgot to take out. I thought great art reached out and grabbed us?

not quite. the description of why they made the work the way it is is the deciding factor as to whether they have been good enough. its not the work that is judged, its them.

its an art school; its pretty much presumed that the 'technical' skills have been, or will be, adequately acquired during their stint as students. what they are being taught to do is think about the rationale, the process, the context; to develop the skills of an artist, not the skills of a painter, or sculptor, or jeweller... the honing of mechanical skills is a byproduct, not the aim, of the process.

[Locus M]

the confrontation could be more focused on the issue, less on personal matters

are you new here, then?

The things that dreams are made of!

[herodotus]

A few notes:

There is a classic divide here. On the one hand, we have those who think there is a necessary relationship between music making and certain traditional skills. On the other hand we have people who don't think the aforementioned traditional skills are necessary. There are nuances on both sides, but I think we all understand the basic distinction.

Now there is another classic divide which is often confused with the first one. This divide is an aesthetic one. This one is a bit trickier, because taste is so individual, but in the largest sense it is more or less analogous to the first distinction. In other words, there are those who identify music with certain traditional sonorities and structures, and those who don't.

Now what I personally find really annoying is that so many people who do identify music with certain traditional skills also assume that anyone with said skills is going to gravitate toward the traditional structures and sonorities, and that the only people who are going to make the more 'experimental' music are going to be those who lack these skills. There is often an even more annoying assumption that most if not all experimental music is a form of bitter petulance, as if it's creators really wished they could sound like Sheryl Crow or John Mayer or Prince or Kenny G but just didn't have the skills.

Now the easiest corrective to this latter is a little history lesson. Because some of the most radical producers of avant-garde noise and dissonance and unintelligible structures were the most intensely trained musicians of their generation. Just listen to some of Pierre Boulez's music and read his biography on Wikipedia. All of the regulars at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse were graduates of the Paris Conservatoire or some similarly rigorous institution. I wonder, could the traditionalists here really tell the difference between the electronic 'noise' produced by these highly trained musicians and the noise produced by some amateur playing with Reaktor?

Would they like to submit to a blind test in this regard?

And if they couldn't tell the difference, would this be an indictment of 'noise music' or of their listening skills?