Production VS Composition

[herodotus]

Is an obsession with sound quality, timbral diversity, and with production skills generally destroying peoples compositional skills?

Or does the obsession with production technique mark a new vista in music history?

Or something else?

Or the other way around?

Discuss.















This will probably end in hpc, but oh well.

[Barf]

Sometimes I get obsessed with production, sometimes with composition

[the_nihilist]

In electronic music, the two are one in the same... production techniqes are compositional elements in many genres.

When it comes right down to it, though, the foundation of a great song is not going to be particular sounds or production techniques. The songwriters arrangement and compositional skills are what build the song, and ideally good production is just icing on the cake.

Perhaps the best evidence of this is gathered from old videogame music. The composers of the music had possibly the crappiest production values of any modern form of music, squeezing everything they could out of extremely limited equipment. Out of it came some of the greatest music I've ever heard in my life, and it's all pretty much raw compositional skill.

Or to put it another way, Kraid's Theme is gonna be awesome whether you just listen to the original, do a metal cover of it or make a haunting string arrangement.

Gonna have to watch this thread for a bit, but that's my thoughts for now.

EDIT: After too many edits, I just cannot get that last f**ker to link properly.

[bullshark]

I think this "professional quality tools available to a desktop near you" thingy as really blurred the line between composer, arranger, producer, engineer etc; for better or for worst.

It's a great advancement but at the same time it takes a fair amount of self-discipline to be able to achieve anything with it. How often have I started composing something new, then switched to "hmmm, I wonder how this sound would be like..." and, 3 hours later find myself still tweaking "that" sound without my composition having moved forward one single inche.

My point? I guess it would be that it still requires self-discipline, work, effort, time and dedication to get that finished piece of music that other will enjoy listening to just like it did before the desktop revolution. The package is simply more convenient and available to a wider audience.

[shamann]

Is an obsession with sound quality, timbral diversity, and with production skills generally destroying peoples compositional skills?

Or does the obsession with production technique mark a new vista in music history?

I don't think it is either. I think a lot of the obsession with production we see around here comes from folks simply learning advanced techniques for what is newly available to them. We simply didn't have to care about polishing things in the studio back when we couldn't have affected the outcome.

But I know guys who do nothing but practice their guitar playing. Don't care a bit about what mics they use for what, and in fact rarely if ever record anything. Maybe they care about what strings they use. But if you are a recording musician, chances are you are going to obsess a little over the recording tools you use. On the other side though, I'm effectively a recording musician, but don't give a damn about hyper-glossy production, in part because I think perfect recording qualities are also qualities of conformity.

It's a bit like that Bob Dylan thing from last week, he talks about music records not sounding like they used to, but there are guys out there recording (in a civil war re-enactment sort of way) with the same, exact gear set-up engineers had 30 years ago. I've even heard records from the past 10 years that were done entirely on old magnetic coils. Just as today is part of the golden age of analog synthesizers (more manufacturers, better quality, more models today than ever before).

It takes all kinds, and I think we're getting the full spectrum of recording these days, which also includes the extreme of obsessive super-polish.

[Ildon]

Lots of great points here! I can't really speak for other genres, but in games I hear lots of horrible, but very nicely produced music. The main thing I have to keep in mind when I submit work to game developers is the production quality of my work. That does kind of make me upset.

I'm going to get slammed for this - hard - and if you get offended by what I'm about to say... tough. I'm not directing this at anyone here. I'm directing this at some Japanese composers who come to mind, and lots of pop music.

I think people can get too obsessed with production to try to compensate for not knowing enough about composition or not being very good at what they do. It's easy to learn how a compressor works, but it isn't easy writing a truly beautiful song that touches people's hearts. Get my drift?

I have nothing against production or anything, though. If you have fun producing stuff... power to you, and if you're a solo artist, you should know how to produce your work... but obsessing over it rather than working more on your composing technique, which is ultimately more valuable, in my opinion, is not really smart, unless you really want to be an engineer.

Not sure if I made myself clear here, but yeah. Ah well.

[Sascha Franck]

Is an obsession with sound quality, timbral diversity, and with production skills generally destroying peoples compositional skills?

For me, unfortunately, a defenite "yes" would be the answer.

For me, the most productive composition (or arranging) times have been when I had small, rather limited setups, namely a multitrack (tape) recorder, some drum machine or sequencer and a very limited mixing environment (two FX sends running into one multi FX unit and one reverb).
When the hardware sequencer (or drum machine) was replaced by an Atari and some multitimbral soundmodule, the dilemma started. All of a sudden I could basically do everything whereas before the productional process simply had to be pretty much straightforward.

Things got even worse when everything moved inside the computer. And it got worse again when computers became reasonably fast enough to fool around with all the gizmos KVR is all about. I found (and, of course, still do) myself faced with myriads of options.
Don't get me wrong, I love it! A lot! I can spend entire days constructing weird (or not so weird) synth and sampler patches, mad guitar amp simulation sounds and the likes. And, as I am also teaching some classes ("computer based whatever musical thingies"), the knowledge gained along this process even helps me in earning my living.
But it doesn't help my compositional skills much at all.
Sometimes I do get inspired to write the occasional song sketch - but these moments are getting rare.

These days I'm trying to put some discipline into things. I don't save each and every 4 or 8 bar pattern anymore, I also delete a lot of older stuff without backing things up anymore.

In addition, I can't spend much time only fooling around anymore. As of lately, my "original" profession (being a guitar player that is) has become more and more important again. I'm touring, having to prepare for some highly sophisticated stuff (right now for a musical, I'll gladly post a screenshot of the most ridiculous sheets I ever had to read...), playing other commercial gigs etc. This seems to help a bit as well, as when I'm sitting at home, in front of my DAW, I usually have my guitar on - so I'm trying to capture the ideas running in during the breaks of practising.

I'm not sure what my future as a composer/arranger will look like, but it became pretty much clear to me that caring too much about the productional side of things might not be my cup of tea. I'm gonna start working a bit more intensive with some singer soon and I may as well just concentrate on recording proper guitar tracks. The latter certainly being what I'm best at.
Whether any of it will help my composing skills is something I'll have to wait and see...

[bluedad]

it's always about the 'song' to me. I'm finding I don't wear the producer hat very well, except in those rare occassions where the production is part of the compositional process.

[cron]

In electronic music, the two are one in the same... production techniqes are compositional elements in many genres...

I don't think production = composition applies exclusively to electronic music. I'd say it applies to absolutely everything produced after the time when music was most often distributed as recordings rather than performed live.

A recording is concrète by definition, thus composition and production have been inextricably linked for many many years, in my opinion.

[kuniklo]

Is an obsession with sound quality, timbral diversity, and with production skills generally destroying peoples compositional skills?

I think it's more a matter of inhibiting their development than destroying them, but, essentially, yes.

Let's face it you're lucky if you're a good songwriter *or* producer. By trying to be both you're most likely setting yourself up to fail. I've given up entirely on the production part. I go as far as a rough mix - setting levels, some obvious basic eq, then I hand stuff off to a friend for polishing. It's the composition part I enjoy anyway so I'm happy to let go of the rest.

[the_nihilist]

Lots of great points here! I can't really speak for other genres, but in games I hear lots of horrible, but very nicely produced music. The main thing I have to keep in mind when I submit work to game developers is the production quality of my work. That does kind of make me upset.

I think if you're looking towards presenting music on a professional level, your production had better be way up there, because you're competing with established industry vetrans for contracts, and you've gotta offer stuff that has more subjective value as incentive. A badly produced track is just going to stand out like a sore thumb. I'm not saying you have to sound like Jesper Kyd, but going through and getting a really top-notch collection of samples and plugins is not a bad idea.

I think people can get too obsessed with production to try to compensate for not knowing enough about composition or not being very good at what they do. It's easy to learn how a compressor works, but it isn't easy writing a truly beautiful song that touches people's hearts. Get my drift?

That's really something that has to be decided on an individual level. I decided that I wanted to know more about composition and music theory, because I wasn't satisfied with what I could write. Other people may feel fine about using unmanipulated loops and arp presets. It just boils down to the fact that the more you know about composition and arrangement, the less likely you are to write crap. Of course, this isn't true in all cases, but at the very least it expands your pallete to an immense scope...

I don't think production = composition applies exclusively to electronic music. I'd say it applies to absolutely everything produced after the time when music was most often distributed as recordings rather than performed live.

A recording is concrète by definition, thus composition and production have been inextricably linked for many many years, in my opinion.

Exellent point. Though then you get into the question of production vs. performance, which would need a whole new thread to argue about.

[snooky]

In electronic music, the two are one in the same... production techniqes are compositional elements in many genres.

When it comes right down to it, though, the foundation of a great song is not going to be particular sounds or production techniques. The songwriters arrangement and compositional skills are what build the song, and ideally good production is just icing on the cake.

Perhaps the best evidence of this is gathered from old videogame music. The composers of the music had possibly the crappiest production values of any modern form of music, squeezing everything they could out of extremely limited equipment. Out of it came some of the greatest music I've ever heard in my life, and it's all pretty much raw compositional skill.

Or to put it another way, Kraid's Theme is gonna be awesome whether you just listen to the original, do a metal cover of it or make a haunting string arrangement.

Gonna have to watch this thread for a bit, but that's my thoughts for now.

EDIT: After too many edits, I just cannot get that last f**ker to link properly.

that metel cover is great - a tad cheesy, needs a vocal

[rp314]

As a question of method (subjective aesthetics) there is no right or wrong IMO.

As a matter of "objective" aesthetics, i.e., judging the results, a preoccupation with "production values" too often masks compositional laziness and disregard for form.

[kuniklo]

As a question of method (subjective aesthetics) there is no right or wrong IMO.

As a matter of "objective" aesthetics, i.e., judging the results, a preoccupation with "production values" too often masks compositional laziness and disregard for form.

Well said!

[Sepheritoh]

/Seph's theory department

Well, without a composition, no song exist. The process of composition can become very technical in itself. I would not say it is an requirement to spend as much time on a composition than Beethoven would have, but having no composition means there simply is no music. It does not even have to be in audio format yet.

So, composition is the pre-requisite.

Production is all about presentation. The better it is presented, the more like it is to be taken note of. A very badly performed song will sound like crp and no-one will take note of it, doesn't matter how good the song is. Just think for yourself how many badly presented beatles songs or renditions of Stairway to heaven you've heard being sung in the local bar.

So, great presentation will make people take note.

No amount of overproduction can hide bad composition. Today's pop music is proove thereoff. People are impressed for a short time only and soon see through the frills and the song is forgotten after a month or so.

On the other hand, a song can survive despite lack of production. The song "Happy birthday" survived a few years even though it is being sung by many unproffesional people that make it sound really bad. There are many other reasons why this is so, and this essay does not attempt to uncover those reasons.

Conclusion is that composition is the start and without composition nothing musically exist.

/end of Seph's theory department