The Death of Mistakes

I was watching a documentary last night about the origins of Funk...and James Brown, Sly, etc were mentioned as the pioneers, and that Funk is where Hip Hop spawned from, and how sampling came about...mainly from the fact that few people were learning how to play, and sampling was the solution that allowed those "musicians" to be creative without having to actually play instruments.
Why learn to play when you can sample someone else playing, and then build on that with other bits-n-pieces...and you end up with new music.

DAWa are extended that perspective for many newbs. It's more about assembling a track and the finished song than it is about recording and mixing it.
The whole DJ remix crap where guys who can't play not one are putting out albums made from remixes, samples and sound design using synth patches, etc.

But this is where it's at now...there's no undoing it or going back to more traditional/formal performances and recording.
Not saying everyone is doing it...but it all about the computer and digital slice-n-dice.
 
mjbphotos said:
Certainly singers are using autotune live all the time now. TC Helicon devices are everywhere.
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I would expect that singers using devices such as the Voicelive often utilise the pitch correction features, but that is not their only use, and some of the attractions are harmony generation and assorted vocal effects.
 
miroslav said:
I was watching a documentary last night about the origins of Funk...and James Brown, Sly, etc were mentioned as the pioneers, and that Funk is where Hip Hop spawned from, and how sampling came about...mainly from the fact that few people were learning how to play, and sampling was the solution that allowed those "musicians" to be creative without having to actually play instruments.
Why learn to play when you can sample someone else playing, and then build on that with other bits-n-pieces...and you end up with new music.

DAWa are extended that perspective for many newbs. It's more about assembling a track and the finished song than it is about recording and mixing it.
The whole DJ remix crap where guys who can't play not one are putting out albums made from remixes, samples and sound design using synth patches, etc.

But this is where it's at now...there's no undoing it or going back to more traditional/formal performances and recording.
Not saying everyone is doing it...but it all about the computer and digital slice-n-dice.
Click to expand...

It all depends on how one defines 'musician'. I think there are (at least) two broad definitions:

1 Musician: someone who plays a musical instrument.

2 Musician: someone who makes music.

Music is just organised sound. You can create organised sound by playing an instrument with a modicum of skill, or you can create music by assembling 'found sound'. Music is defined by its affect on a listener, not on its source.

I've heard musicians (who play real instruments) who were not musicians (because they weren't making music, they were making noise).

I've heard non-musicians (i.e. they didn't play an instrument) who were musicians (because they created beautiful music).

However, I expect the dominant view to be the first definition, i.e. a musician is not a musician unless they play musical instruments (no matter how bad they might play), and that music is not music unless it is played on musical instruments (no matter how bad the sound).

My personal view is that music is defined by the affect on the listener, and I don't care what has been done, nor how it has been done, to create that affect. I am happy for others to hold different views.
 
gecko zzed said:
It all depends on how one defines 'musician'. I think there are (at least) two broad definitions:

1 Musician: someone who plays a musical instrument.

2 Musician: someone who makes music.
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I don't have a problem with the use of non-traditional methods to create music....I just think there's a greater validity to the music when it's made by someone who actually understands what they are doing, even if it's cutting up samples from music created by others...rather then when someone purely by mistake, by accident, is assembling a bunch of sounds and going..."Gee, that sounds good, I'm a musician now"...just because it has some positive effect on people.

You can find a 5th grader that can finger paint with a certain amount of interesting creativity that may be pleasing to people...but I doubt anyone would seriously consider him a "painter".
People might say, "The kid has some talent"...OK, but that talent needs to be developed and controlled so that it can be executed at will, with confidence and purpose...not just as happy mistakes and accidents that end up pleasing people.

These days...we have a lot of "finger painters" making music, and digital technology has made it easy for them NOT to learn/develop or need much skill or even talent...it's just "sound design" derived from trial and error...from those mistakes and accidents.

Probably any/every teacher would say that it's OK to try something new, to break away from the norm, from traditional approaches...BUT...you first need to learn what the norms and traditional ways are.
Before you can understand how to do Post Rock...you need to understand Rock...etc...etc.
You need to know how it sounds when the source hits the mic on-axis before you can decide to record off-axis....or something like that. :D
 
Was that the BBC documentary "One Nation Under a Groove," Miro? That's a good one. It's on Youtube.
 
miroslav said:
These days...we have a lot of "finger painters" making music, and digital technology has made it easy for them NOT to learn/develop or need much skill or even talent...it's just "sound design" derived from trial and error...from those mistakes and accidents.
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This is the crux of my gripes against sims and sample users. Again, before anyone gets fucking butthurt, I understand that not everyone can use real amps or drums or whatever. But fuuuuuuuck, if this site is any indication of where things are and where they're headed, the art and skill of recording actual sound from actual instruments is very near dead or will be very soon. And no one cares. People make entire mixes without making a single actual sound until it's time for vocals. And they don't care. As long as they get their shit "recorded" and out there polluting the cosmos, that's all that matters.That's fucking terrible to me.
 
And they don't care. As long as they get their shit "recorded" and out there polluting the cosmos, that's all that matters.That's fucking terrible to me
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I agree, guess I am old school, not a big fan of samples and loops, to me the enjoyment is playing and creating music. Not that I haven't put stuff out there that sucked, but it was real suck.:D
 
Depends on the music though. For electronic music, Trip Hop, Hip Hop etc. that's totally fine. Or for any stuff that doesn't have the goal to sound "real" or whatever.
I only have a problem with imitating "real" instruments. Like, a orchestral film score. With no real orchestra. Sucks imo.
And cool mistakes are cool.
 
gecko zzed said:
It all depends on how one defines 'musician'. I think there are (at least) two broad definitions:

1 Musician: someone who plays a musical instrument.

2 Musician: someone who makes music.
Click to expand...
Side-noting: Every once in a while, I get tapped to play [one or more instruments] with a local "youth" (and I use the term loosely, as they're anything but rookies) orchestra.

A few weeks ago, it was screaming rock guitar for a couple Queen tunes. (yes, it was quite awesome)

Other times, it's been miscellaneous percussion, acoustic guitar, piano once or twice, even samples on a few occasions (cannons & bells for the 1812 for instance).

I "know" the pieces and play my parts. I never took lessons for anything (except trombone - and don't even ask me to pick one up anymore), I can't read music, I have no idea how to transpose scales or anything I haven't figured out myself about theory.

On the wicked rock stuff, the director and the conductor usually want me out front, all the way downstage, doing the "rock" thing. The kids seem to really dig it, the audience seems to dig it - and I admit, on some occasions, it's more 'fun' than I've had on stage since I was making a living at being on stage.

But during rehearsals, I always come to grips that although I can "play the instrument" - I'd almost be ashamed to be called a "musician" next to those kids. I may have a handle on many things musical, but those (I'll say "young adults" instead) know the science behind it.

Conductor looks at me after going through something and says "How's that - Anything you want to go over?" and I say "the bad-da-dump, bad-da-dump thing after the neer-neer-ne-ne-neer" part..." and he looks down at the score, then up at the orchestra and says "3 before 47 right before the D" and off they go.

Don't get me wrong -- I know I have a certain innate musical understanding - and that helps me in my current job greatly (editing and rearranging dozens and dozens of tracks for dance companies that won't be satisfied unless it sounds like it was "written that way in the first place" can take plenty of musical instinct).

But those kids -- Those are "Musicians" (with a capital "M"). And I'm just a guy banging on a gee-tar.
 
miroslav said:
"Mistakes" are also overrated quite a lot.

On the opposite side of the DAW "anal-precision" crowd is the "everything-is-gold" crowd, where just because they played it and recorded it, it needs to be kept no matter what.

The "happy mistakes/accidents"...the real keepers...are often far and few in-between the mistakes that shouldn't be kept. ;)

Spending more time on improving the performances and the mixing will always yield more consistent results than hoping for "mistake magic"...IMO.
Of course, when you hear that happy mistake/accident, and it actually makes things sound better than they would if you edited it out...then just go ahead and keep it. :)

I think most of the classic Rock/Pop bands that recorded before the DAW age, where trying very hard to play as best and as perfectly as they could. I don't think anyone was thinking that sloppiness would enhance their performances and the recordings.


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Yes I have to agree with Miro here....
 
You're probably right. Digital technology has made it easier to fix minor misalignments in the mix. I think it takes away the human element personally.
 
Yes, auto tune is used live. The other day I saw Disturbed on some late night show performing Sound of Silence. It was auto tuned to death. You could clearly hear his vibrato, but the note never changed.

I think there is a difference between playing something differently than you intended to and a "mistake". Attacking something differently in the moment without intention can create something unexpected and good. I'm not sure I would call that a mistake.

Playing sloppy and looking for "happy mistakes" is a lazy cop out.

I do not mind editing to tighten up a first or last note to add more impact to the mix, but it drives me nuts when I have to quantize an entire song because the drummers feel sucks so bad that there is no other choice. Back in the old days, we would have replaced the drummer with a studio guy, because the finished product was more important than the ego of the guy who didn't put the practice time in to be able to perform his parts.
 
Farview said:
Playing sloppy and looking for "happy mistakes" is a lazy cop out.
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I don't think it's as black and white as that. Playing loose could be misconstrued as sloppy. Sometimes precision isn't what you want. Sometimes it is. It depends on what kind of music, and what kind of feeling the song needs to be the most impactful emotionally.

I do agree that LOOKING for happy mistakes isn't going to get you anywhere. Happy mistakes will just happen when or if they happen. If you are trying to MAKE them happen, it'll probably suck. You should LET them happen. Correct/re-record them if they don't work out, but there's no reason to be afraid of mistakes, esp. in this day and age. You can always record another take. Sometimes you'll end up going back after the artist has gone home, and something that was a mistake adds something interesting that you can expand upon further later. When the artist comes back, I've had a few times where I pulled up a mistake and was like, that's actually cool, and the artist was like "Oh wow! That's cool, actually!" and we ended up re-recording it PURPOSEFULLY with the mistake to "perfect it".

Hell. . . there was one time that I had an error in my DAW and a melodic part got re-assigned to a drum kit. . . When I played it, it actually sounded like a really awesome drum pattern, ended up working perfectly, so I just re-saved it and built another song off that. . . the original melody wasn't even used for anything because the drum part was way better.

Then again, we're talking about the difference between someone who's skilled making a mistake, or someone who's entire performance is a mistake. If the person sucks, they just suck.
 
If the song feels right, it isn't sloppy. That's how you can tell the difference between loose and sloppy.
 
Farview said:
Yes, auto tune is used live. The other day I saw Disturbed on some late night show performing Sound of Silence. It was auto tuned to death. You could clearly hear his vibrato, but the note never changed.
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THIS one?

Not sure I agree that that was live autotune. There are too many subtle pitchy variations in his performance to have been done live IMO. Now, did they pre-record that and use some correction later? It would not surprise me at all. But the dood is quite an accurate singer to begin with. Plus even with Melodyne Editor it can be a bit of a struggle for it to read correctly with singers with that 'grindy' timbre in their voice. It tends to read it incorrectly. I couldn't see attempting that in a live situation.

Just saying. Not starting an argument in any way. :)
 
I just figured that if they did it in post, they would have pitch centered the vibrato instead of flat-lining it.
 
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