Chord/Scale Request in the Piano Roll and the MU.LAB Loop System

[sunhome]

After using the language "cheating" and "silly" it shuts down conversation a bit

Sorry if my tone is a bit aggressive, I don't mean to.
English is not my native language and... well, the main reason is that I take music very personal
I do...
I consider music one of the most beautiful and important things, almost a religion for me.

You said sorry that's good enough for me

[Juan Mendoza]

Cheating? In that context making use of midi in general is cheating too, isn't it

Writing MIDI is not much different than writing notes for an orchestra or ensemble to play it, so, no.
Cheating is:
- Writing a song in F major without willing to learn that you have to put Bb.
- Making all of "your music" out of pre-made loops, having no idea what notes, what instruments or who wrote the music, but call it "yours"
- Recording a guitar solo slow, then stretching it to be faster than light speed and pretend that you are the next Malmsteen.
- Putting your voice through a autotune plugin forced to a scale and pretend that you knew what you were singing.
- having a program composing instead of you.
Then you are just a kid fooling around but pretend that you're a composer, you are a computer user pretending you're a musician, you're an amateur pretending that you are a professional and last, you are an ignorant pretending that you are a educated informed specialist

If you want to write music, at least learn the flats and sharps, or at least have the balls to take a chance and learn from your own mistakes.
But these days people are afraid of learning and ignorance is a well desired prestigious title.


Me is sad.

uuffff, way to far though

so then, a pro synth user should call you a noob or a cheater if you use presets? or if you don't know how to create a cello using sine waves or something else? or if you don't know fm synthesis or you're not a master with compressors? or even, should Jo call us all noobs or cheaters for not being able to code our own music tool? (this last is absolutely hilarious)
I don't think so!

Each person has it's strong points and his weakness, who's better? I'm not the one that's gonna answer this.

It's clear that it's important to know at least some basics for music writing, but does that make you a musician or a composer? NO NO NO

I'm tired of hearing virtuous musicians with years of conservatory that can't create something original!, no mather how many years of score writing or piano lessons. On the other hand, there are tons of musicians out there creating amazing songs (and even earnig respect and money with it) with just some basic knowledge about music theory. The last 50 (or more) years of common music history demostrate this!

Music is music since the prehistoric times when there was nothing to write or theorize about it. In my opinion, you only need ears, creativity and a musical soul to make music, maybe not a bethoven piece, but maybe an aphex twin one

Anyway, i understand your words, they come from passion an love for music, that's clear to me, and that's awesome

[sorohanro]

Guys, as I stated before.
Knowledge is a plus. If you don't have it in one domain, don't be afraid to experiment and even fail and learn from that, but don't use it as an excuse for laziness and relay your creative work on a program that make the composing job.

Then, I ask , where are you in "your artwork" ?
As people says in sport ~winning is not important, participating and having fun is the real goal~ with approximation something on this line...

I don't really want to make any sex joke... well, actually I want but I pretend that I'm a civilized person
So... if you'll ever want a baby, what you'll do ? call the friendly neighbor or milkman while you rest and watch a game on tv ?

-so, you don't have a tape recorder and you use a virtual one.
-so, you don't have the real instrument and you use a virtual one.
-so, you don't have a melody and you use a virtual composer/ arranger.
-then you'll let the virtual composer to have all the fun, composing for the virtual audience while you go take a nap

Anyway,
don't take what I say as how it sounds try to understand what I want to say.

[liquidsound]

Ok! loosen up! Let's have a party.... Who's going to have the guts to write it?

[liquidsound]

I wrote this one!

http://www.zebrasynth.com/songs/Sonic%2 ... ernity.mp3


Cheating! Cheating! Cheating! Cheating! Cheating! Cheating! Cheating! Cheating!

BTW: Just the Great Zebra 2.5!

[pljones]

Being lazy isn't the same as cheating. Cheating includes claiming something as yours when it isn't. Lazy is when you have the ability to do something yourself but choose not to. They're not the same thing.

You can be lazy and write a completely original piece of music that captivates the souls of audiences world wide. (Lazy because you chose to record a simple rhythm then loop it rather than play it continuously. Maybe that's what made it captivating? Lazy because you didn't re-record the second chorus when you messed up but ran it through Autotune... and gave it something unique by doing so.)

Cheating when it comes to music you've put anything into is hard to define. Any creativity is something to be valued. Otherwise anyone using the twelve notes of the Western scale is cheating! They're just reusing the notes and putting them into some different order...

- Writing a song in F major without willing to learn that you have to put Bb.
->> If you write a song in F major, manage to avoid Bb and still have it sound in F major, is that cheating or clever? If you use B rather than Bb and still manage to have it sound in F major, is that cheating or clever? If you weren't trying to use a Western scale and were too lazy to experiment with microtuning, is that cheating or lazy? I don't get "cheating" here? (And finally, how do you talk about someone who doesn't know the notes of a key writing in a particular key? Maybe they intended to be using one of the Modal scales and you misinterpreted their intent?)

- Making all of "your music" out of pre-made loops, having no idea what notes, what instruments or who wrote the music, but call it "yours"
->> When someone first plays an xylophone at age 2, is that cheating because they have no idea what notes are, what instruments are? Does it matter who drummed James Brown's Funky Drummer piece to make it classic? Is it cheating to make a collage of sound without having to care about the source of each piece? That makes no sense to me. (Sample clearance is a separate issue to do with the law, not creativity or musicality.)

- Recording a guitar solo slow, then stretching it to be faster than light speed and pretend that you are the next Malmsteen.
- Putting your voice through a autotune plugin forced to a scale and pretend that you knew what you were singing.
->> The "pretending" on these, I'll give you as cheating.

- having a program composing instead of you.
->> How do you start the program? Who knows when the composition is ready? Who judges if it's "music", even? Unless someone says "I wrote this myself", rather than "This program wrote this under my control", again, how is this cheating? (Though a guitarist might say "This is me" when they post a sound file, when it's actually the sound of their guitar. Is that cheating?)

[Nielzie]

-so, you don't have a tape recorder and you use a virtual one.
-so, you don't have the real instrument and you use a virtual one.
-so, you don't have a melody and you use a virtual composer/ arranger.
-then you'll let the virtual composer to have all the fun, composing for the virtual audience while you go take a nap

Although I disagree I do understand your opinion and even slightly your attitude towards virtual composers/arrangers, but I can't understand what is wrong with your first 2 points.. What's wrong with virtual instruments and recorders?

Jo, you'd better stop developing Mu.Lab, you make it too easy for us recording and making music

And don't even think about coding a midi quantization feature in there, that would be the ultimate cheat!

[Improviser]

Ok! loosen up! ...

+1

To me, computers, midi, notation programs, sequencers, etc, are tools ... sometimes there's even a clue in the name (Mutools).

I feel free to use them any (legal) way I choose and, as a 'hobbyist' music maker, if the end result sounds satisfying to me, I wouldn't be worrying too much about what others may think of my methods of achieving it.

Using the tools, we can create music and get some enjoyment out of life (after all, we're probably not going to get out of it alive !)

On that cheerfull note I shall now go and relax, with a some lunch.

Les J.

[pljones]

]-so, you don't have a tape recorder and you use a virtual one.

Uh - why use a tape recorder? You should always perform live if you're a real musician, surely?

[liquidsound]

There is a thin line here....
It is true that there are users taking ready made loops and then call the "Composition" My Music...
But there is also a skill called "Collage" (A paste-up made by sticking together pieces of paper or photographs to form an "artistic image") which is made out of Ready Made pictures etc.

Now, there is a bad and a Good Collage and here again the thin line...
WHEN a collage becomes an artistic expression? When it's good? Then we need to judge... and here again...
Who's judging?

Pljones has a point, but there is also a thin line...

[pljones]

but there is also a thin line...

I agree it's hard to define when something becomes art rather than simply "copying" or "messing about", whatever the medium. For me, there need to be two things: intent to express and, to a much lesser extent, a potential audience.

[liquidsound]

but there is also a thin line...

I agree it's hard to define when something becomes art rather than simply "copying" or "messing about", whatever the medium. For me, there need to be two things: intent to express and, to a much lesser extent, a potential audience.

Absolutely, and....
an honest heart

[sorohanro]

@pljones
You read words instead of trying to understand the message.
Or maybe my English knowledge is poor and I can't make myself understood.

Being lazy isn't the same as cheating. Cheating includes claiming something as yours when it isn't.

Now that's what I was trying to say.
Sometimes people want to gather all the credit but they are not willing to put effort, so, that's the combination of the two.

- Writing a song in F major without willing to learn that you have to put Bb.
->> If you write a song in F major, manage to avoid Bb and still have it sound in F major, is that cheating or clever? If you use B rather than Bb and still manage to have it sound in F major, is that cheating or clever? If you weren't trying to use a Western scale and were too lazy to experiment with microtuning, is that cheating or lazy? I don't get "cheating" here?

You didn't quite read what is all about... again, you're catching words without catching phrases or ideas.
We were talking about a plugin that actually steals the freedom you're talking about

We were talking about a plugin that force all the midi notes to a particular scale, so if you choose F Major you play B and by default it's moved to Bb.
That's why I ranted about "learn the flats and sharps".

With that plugin there can't be "f you use B rather than Bb and still manage to have it sound in F major" and neither microtuning.

(And finally, how do you talk about someone who doesn't know the notes of a key writing in a particular key? Maybe they intended to be using one of the Modal scales and you misinterpreted their intent?)

Well, let's imagine a very possible situation:
You don't know theory and you make all your tracks in C major, by ear.
Then you post on internet your music and someone on a music forum says:
- You n00b, all your songs are in C major, you'r a n00b, you suck you don't know any theory.
Then you put the plugin, force all the notes to be in G# hypolocrian, slam random notes which will be forced to be correct, post the song and say:
- Beat that... who's the n00b now ? I'm the next Chuck Norris of music !!!

If for you creativity means that your melodies are created by a plugin...

- Making all of "your music" out of pre-made loops, having no idea what notes, what instruments or who wrote the music, but call it "yours"
->> When someone first plays an xylophone at age 2, is that cheating because they have no idea what notes are, what instruments are? Does it matter who drummed James Brown's Funky Drummer piece to make it classic? Is it cheating to make a collage of sound without having to care about the source of each piece? That makes no sense to me. (Sample clearance is a separate issue to do with the law, not creativity or musicality.)

Man... you just refuse to see the context and to see the idea.
Am I against sampling ? well I wouldn't say that...really...

But taking a bass loop made by someone else, taking a synth loop made by someone else, taking a synth lead made by someone else and mashing those together and call it "my music" doesn't show much creativity...

- having a program composing instead of you.
->> How do you start the program? Who knows when the composition is ready? Who judges if it's "music", even? Unless someone says "I wrote this myself"

That's exactly the case I'm ranting against

(Though a guitarist might say "This is me" when they post a sound file, when it's actually the sound of their guitar. Is that cheating?)

Well, if that guy feels that the sound he made using his guitar shows about his soul more that his image, then is correct.
When you show a photo to your friends you say "That's me there" rather than "this is a digital reproduction of an image representing my external appearance " .. or ? maybe you say so

[sorohanro]

-so, you don't have a tape recorder and you use a virtual one.
-so, you don't have the real instrument and you use a virtual one.
-so, you don't have a melody and you use a virtual composer/ arranger.
-then you'll let the virtual composer to have all the fun, composing for the virtual audience while you go take a nap

Although I disagree I do understand your opinion and even slightly your attitude towards virtual composers/arrangers, but I can't understand what is wrong with your first 2 points.. What's wrong with virtual instruments and recorders?

You didn't catch the idea.
I didn't presented all as a bad thing. Just using repetition as a rhetoric element. All is pointing out to the last line, which push all the concepts to absurd, but some people think that is actually normal...

[Nielzie]

Still the bottom line comes down to this:

You don't have to take years of conservatory, score writing or piano lessons to make music with digital instruments, tools and workstations.

In the eyes of some conservatory educated musicians it's probably an inferior way of creating and composing, but that doesn't make it a fact either.

There is a market for electronic music and there as there is a market for classical and jazz music.

And there is both:

No thát's cheating