What makes us so special???

nate_dennis

nate_dennis

Well-known member
Didn't know where else to put this . . . . so . . . .

I spend a lot of time thinking about the . . . . . ethics(?) of music. Maybe not ethics, I don't know . . . maybe the integrity. Here are my thoughts. (That's all they are. Just observations, not gospel truth.)



Music is a form of art. For a moment, let us consider other forms of art.



Sculpture

Film
Literature
Painting
Graphic Design/digital media

Theater



There may be/probably are more, but this will work for now.



How many of these other forms of art concern themselves primarily with ease of production and editability? I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, but definately not as often. If a sculpture sucks, they re-do it. The artist doesn't say, oh well, I'll edit it later.



How many other forms of art focus PRIMARILY on being widely accepted? Sure we have grocery store romance novels. But those are the minority. Most literature is written to be legitimately good. Yes you have department store framed "art." But is that the majority? I don't think so. But so many musicians/songwriters concern themselves with being marketable first.



Yes film is editable after the fact, but no editing is going to hide bad acting. There is no Auto-Act.



So my point in all of this is to ask . . . what makes us so special? Why do we as a community of artists (which is not to say everyone, I'm talking generics here) focus on ease of production/editability, acceptance, marketability? Why are so many of our "artists" unable to write or play anything. Hell, why are so many unable to even sing?



Feel free to discuss.
 
I'm special because I rock and that's about it. I know how to edit I just don't want to. I know how to repeat a hook twice at the end of a 3:30 minute made-for-radio pop song but I just don't. I like to have my studio set up to be as easy as possible so I can just turn on, turn up, and go. Musician by instinct, production only by necessity. The only 'tricks' I like to use are tricks to make the mix sound as listenable as I can. Compression and EQ and such is like a painter making sure he uses the best paint and brushes he can get so his creation is as clear as possible. He doesn't use 'auto-fix' like on some computer paint program. I think production work can paralyze the instinctual creativity of just playing music. The more you edit and chop and paste, the more you find that needs editing and chopping and pasting... Why not just copy and paste the drum part over and over and write everything in blocks of 4, 8, or 16? Oh yeah, they already do that it's called pop music. Pop music is not art any more than a romance novel. It plugs into a formula, not an inspired moment of origionality. I piano player performing his own composition would be much better served with just a pure pristine recording of himself doing it than by programming a sequencer to play it via MIDI. Something about soul I guess.

Don't get me wrong I have my share of fun plonking around with samplers and drum machines for fun, or playing cheesy chord sequences that we've all heard a million times for 'chorus' parts when I'm goofing around too, but I am not about to claim I'm working on a 'piece of music', just 'messing around making a beat' is more like it.
 
Interesting ideas, here, but I think you are giving "us" way too much credit.

Almost ALL forms of art are made for wide distribution and appreciation. Sculpture? Many pieces are displayed outside, where EVERYBODY who passes by can appreciate them. Film? Generally shown in large (sometimes HUGE) theaters, which are often packed. Literature? One word- paperbacks. Painting? Museum admission is usually modest, and low-cost prints are readily available for purchase. Graphic Design/digital media? About as available as it gets- gee, this is so umbiquitious I don't even know where to start. Theater? Shakespeare, that man of letters we think of as so high-brow- wrote his plays for wide appreciation, and the common man watched and enjoyed them at least as much as the king and his court.

Further, not all music qualifies as "art." Much of popular music is nothing more than commercial drivil. Britney Spears- artist??? Give me a freakin' BREAK. And it is no coincidence that she, and many of her ilk, use... AUTO-TUNE. The only reasons it "works" is because sound is mostly a 2-dimensional media, at best, and because idiots swallow that shit. You write "so many musicians/songwriters concern themselves with being marketable first." That, my friend, is the antithesis of art. You are right about one sentence: "The artist doesn't say, oh well, I'll edit it later." The ARTIST gets it right, the first time- after lots and lots of PRACTICE. If you don't believe me, try "composing" in a professional studio. The engineer will either kick you out on your ear, or just roll his eyes and mutter "Hey, it's your money- and the clock's running."

So, with a little scrutiny, I see that we, as musicians, are collectively less artist than the other groups you mention. Shame on us.
 
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Yeah...I'm just special. I think my mother told me that once a long time ago when I was about 5-6 years old. :)

Don't kid yourself about the other art forms not doing any "editing to perfection".
Sure...a sculptor may not be able to edit an existing piece...but there might have been a few earlier attempts that now sit in a small rock pile.
Same thing for painters....they don't always nail the painting with the first brush stroke.

Thing is...music is now mostly a digital medium once it's tracked...so...it's easy to edit. When musicians were recording direct to an acetate record or a 2-track tape....it was a one shot deal, though of course, they could always go back and re-record if they didn't like the result...and that's just another form of editing.
The fact the music has entered a digital phase and it's cheap/easy to acquire a basic recording rig...everyone wants to be a Rock Star at some point of their lives, especially in the teen years and early twenties....
...so today a lot of folks are *dabbling* in music/recording and often having to edit things into some level of perfection.

I don't see editing as anything bad...if the person editing is the same person who actually played/recorded the tracks.
It's when you get a lousy player who then is "propped up" by a slick engineer/editor to a point where the player now sounds 10 times better than what he ever could have done on his own...that's the Milli Vanilli syndrome.

I do all my own tracks for my music (except drums)...and I'll play 3-5 solid takes of something as needed and then edit/comp for a single "best" take. It's much easier than to do 100 takes and pray you nail it one time perfectly...:rolleyes:
 
Art in any form is a hoax. Art is not real, and the whole notion of "artist" is man-made pomposity. Art can't be defined objectively, so it's not to be taken seriously. Things happen in nature all the time that are infinitely more beautful and/or interesting than anything some jackass human can come up with. Music is just music, a scuplture is just a sculpture, a movie is just a movie. They don't need to be romanticized into something they aren't.
 
"Nobody loves me but my mother...and lately she's been jivin' too."

A great blues lyric...not sure where it came from. :D
 
While I think some of what you say is true I think you make some sweeping generalizations that are over simplified

Sure we have grocery store romance novels. But those are the minority. Most literature is written to be legitimately good.
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Have you looked at the best seller lists. Tom Clancy, Vince Flynn, Dr Laura, Bill O'Riely, David Baldacci, the Twilight Saga and so on. good or not is a matter of personal taste however these were clearly written with mass distribution in mind and are by no means art for arts sake. Writers, Novelists etc probably don't write books with the intention that no one ever read them. IMO (just like us) even the amateur home writers secretly hope to be discovered and published, which would mean their manuscript would have to be proof read and edited at the publishing house. They'll send back notes to the writer to make changes etc and even before it goes to the publisher I'm sure the writer has done several read throughs and self edits. Once the book is printed and distributed it can't be re edited but once a CD is pressed and distributed nor can a song
Heck if you type out your book in word and spell check isn't that some form of blasphemous Auto spell editing

Yes film is editable after the fact, but no editing is going to hide bad acting. There is no Auto-Act
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True but that doesn't stop studios from releasing hundreds of cookie cutter, terribly put together, badly acted movies every year for mass consumption.
Also the amount of editing even in non Avatar type movies is astonishing, touching up, re color, remove things in the landscape, re do dialog, re shoot scenes and on and on. Post can be a longer more arduous process than the actual production even in a fairly simple, live action movie
The movies that do well are very often not the ones critically acclaimed for their artistic vision

If a sculpture sucks, they re-do it. The artist doesn't say, oh well, I'll edit it later.
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I've heard many sculptors say the piece was already there, they just had to pull it out of what ever the medium is, That's the ultimate form of editing
Again sculpture that is mass consumed (IE popular) is rarely cutting edge artistry, it's a nice realistic statue, not a dog poop with a couple of sparklers in it that the artist claims is a depiction of the human condition. Sure dissected cows in Lucite gain press for the shock factor, but relatively few people "waste: their time going to see it in person

I think there is something about music, but it's not high art and you don't need some BS degree in modern arts to get it. It connects to a different part of our brains. whether it be a highly artistic concept piece or a total auto tuned no talent fluff recording, when you hum it you can hear all of it again inside your mind, the strings, the drums, the guitars. It's all there along with the emotions that you may associate with it. Doesn't matter if you understand music theory, are tone deaf, young, old, happy, sad. It just works.
I see no reason not to edit music. I think you need to get it as right as you can up front but even a mix decision to pan something left is editing, cos that's not necessarily what happened in the actual performance which is mostly mono tracks straight down the middle. For others to enjoy it at it's best it needs to be edited to allow definition and highlighting of the important parts at the very least

Seeing my 3 & 6 year old girls singing along with some god awful Disney record in the car or in their rooms, and totally forgetting about who got one more M&M or what it was they were yelling about, and just feeling the music, being really into it. helping each other remember the words and the melody.

It's not art, but it is fucking MAGIC!
 
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When I think of a musician I think of the ability to make music. A rock musician is much different than beethoven slaving away with a quill and an oil lamp into the night. I think a recording should be a recording of what it sounds like the artist doing. It is a different sort of beast than composing - because as a rock (or rap or whatever modern genre style music) artist you kind of encompass everything from writing the song, lyrics etc, writing the music riffs, playing the riff, singing the song, looking the part, and having some sort of stage presence that people would have an incentive to want to see you 'live' (even if 'live' means a backing track and a dance squad and light show) It's a package deal if done by a rock 'artist'. This is not the same as being a session musician brought in to a studio to play what you're told by some guy who has hired an army of minions to feed his brainchild project.

Wanna get really ugly as a 'producer' you have your 'artist' aka figurehead who is seldom actually in charge, a couple of guys with keyboards making cheesy pop beats, a team of lyricists, a PR guy, marketing, costumes, lights, engineers, session musicians to fake it along with a backing track for live appearances on late night TV etc etc etc. The idea of something like 'Lady Gaga' or 'Brittney Spears' as being an individul person gets a bit lost. Britney Spears just happens to be the name of the poster girl for the Britney Spears Brand Popular Music Production Corporation. Meanwhile, you have antisocial guys like Trent Reznor or Aphex Twin who do actually do all or most of their writing and producing and engineering themselves because they are either perfectionist control freaks or just hate working with others. I would think of Trent Reznor as an artist even though I don't like his work, but I wouldn't call Brit or her lead producer or head engineer even the same category. Really that's just a matter of semantics, you say artist I say robot following a program whatever.

Mariah Carey was "Artist of the Millenium". Just to put it in perspective, shouldn't that award have gone to her plastic surgeon?
 
10' legs and small body on top, with a crotch you can drive a Mack truck through! :D

Who did they use for the model...?...I want to meet her. ;)

Now THERE'S a band I want to be in! :rolleyes:
Can you imagine what those guys feel like playing that stuff...???

Eh...I guess it's a gig...no different than playing "Freebird" for the millionth time to a bunch of drunks! :laughings:
 
wheelema said:
Small brains and fucking huge egos. I'm talking size of Uranus egos, and... yeah... that simile is deliberate.

Now here's a REAL artist!

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haha why not?? ;)

I think someone should play that whole clip backwards so we could pick out the demonic messages hidden in the song!
 
wheelema said:
Small brains and fucking huge egos. I'm talking size of Uranus egos, and... yeah... that simile is deliberate.

Now here's a REAL artist!

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Yeah, but she's crap without autotune...

Cute technology aside, I'm struggling that there are actual human beans in the audience cheering for it... and waving glowsticks...
 
miroslav said:
Who did they use for the model...?...I want to meet her. ;)
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Sailor Moon. I don't think you'd find the experience very fulfilling.

sailor-moon_06.jpg
 
Without the embracement of romanticism, all artform is dead...and all those particitpating in music, painting, acting, etc are romantists, no matter how much they detest the term..or deny it.
 
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