Jump to content


Please note: You can easily log in to MPN using your Facebook account!

I wonder why they call it GarageBand


Recommended Posts

My kid showed an interest in GarageBand today.  I told her to download it, we could make some music together.  While it’s installing she says, “I wonder why they call it GarageBand?”.   I reply, because in the old days kids used to make music with amps and drums and their parents would send them to do that in the garage.  “Why?”  Because it was too loud. “Oh, didn’t they have headphones?”.  Well, they did but… Anyway, back to maybe writing a tween hit.  

  • Like 2
  • Haha 3

Yamaha CP88, Casio PX-560

Link to comment
Share on other sites



You're a good dad for not saying "Because 'Twenty Cases of Dismemberment and Their Resolution Under British Law' is too long."🤭

  • Haha 2

 "I want to be an intellectual, but I don't have the brainpower.
  The absent-mindedness, I've got that licked."
        ~ John Cleese

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On another note, it's sad and discouraging how much today's kids are NOT interested about what's happening on stage music wise. After 40 years of MTV and Tic Toc reign, musicians are less than a wallpaper for younger generation...

I would be happy if my daughter was interested in making music altogether.

 

 

 

Be grateful for what you've got - a Nord, a laptop and two hands
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Same here.  Neither of my kids showed the slightest interest in being in a pop/rock band, sitting in a garage or other space making music with friends (which of course is how I spent every weekend in high school!)   One of them was really into Band and playing trumpet, which was great in a different way, but now that he's in college he never plays.

Heck neither of them--nor any of their friends from what I can tell--really listen to music much at all.  

This sounds negative--and I hope I'm wrong--but live music is  a dead thing walking in some ways.  Tracks (and the acceptance of them) and overall disinterest have killed it.  Few people really care to watch musicians and singers actually performing live music, and at our gigs the ones that do are almost all older folks.   Oh well, I'm still playing and I've had many years to enjoy it, I can't change society so I'll get it while its here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is pretty sad. My daughter went to a Waldord school (called Steiner schools in Europe) and there, everybody plays a musical instrument, starting with a pentatonic recorder in 1st grade and progressing to orchestral instruments in the later grades. She was a decent violin player by the end of high school though not seriously into it. I can't listen to her current playlists since she's into what everyone else her age is, but once in a while I'll hear an old Sergio Mendes track, or Dave Grusin's solo piano score from the movie The Firm... so there's hope! I had thoughts of selling her violin, but we're gonna keep it - you never know!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I should mention that despite my negativity posted above, one thing that does happily surprise me is the massive (to me) participation in Band that still happens in middle and high schools (around here at least).  I couldn't believe how many kids were in both my kids' middle school bands, and I also couldn't believe how good those kids were after a very short amount of time.

Being a band director?  Yeah, that's gotta be one of the toughest jobs there is, for probably way too little pay.  It's like herding a ton of cats, while trying to teach them to play a lot of very hard-to-learn instruments.  The logistics of Band are crazy.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have noticed mine likes to sing and does so in tune, really pleased about that. I taught her piano very early, but she rebelled against playing regularly, so I don’t push because I feel it has to be a joy and a personal decision to get something out of it.  She’s picked up the guitar and ukulele on her own - thumbs up from me on that.  If I can scrounge up the money I’ll get her a teacher other than me.  They do seem to hate being directed by dad at this age. 
 

Bedroom production is a whole different animal from playing an instrument or performing live.  Exploring loops and patterns, finding what works well together. Laying a vocal over the top.  A very different path - but eventually maybe also leads to wanting to know more?  Hopefully. 

Yamaha CP88, Casio PX-560

Link to comment
Share on other sites

36 minutes ago, ElmerJFudd said:

I have noticed mine likes to sing and does so in tune, really pleased about that. I taught her piano very early, but she rebelled against playing regularly, so I don’t push because I feel it has to be a joy and a personal decision to get something out of it.  She’s picked up the guitar and ukulele on her own - thumbs up from me on that.  If I can scrounge up the money I’ll get her a teacher other than me.  They do seem to hate being directed by dad at this age. 
 

Bedroom production is a whole different animal from playing an instrument or performing live.  Exploring loops and patterns, finding what works well together. Laying a vocal over the top.  A very different path - but eventually maybe also leads to wanting to know more?  Hopefully. 

I think it does lead to more music making. I'm 66 and I had to go through a process of re-mixing around 20 pieces on Metapop as a way of learning how to use my chosen DAW (Waveform). I started out figuring out basic things but ended up seeing how crazy I could make stuff. 

Kids are doing it too. Kids are playing instruments, I know of quite a few of them. It's not uncommon to see high school kids on craiglist looking for musicians in their age group to join their band/project. When I was a kid my circle of potential bandmates was much more limited but we did the garage band thing all the time. We also dabbled in recording, such as it was for kids with no budget back then. 

 

Before we give up on future generation abandoning music, somebody please name one culture in human history that did not have some sort of music. I'll wait...

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh I don’t think music isn’t being made. I think it’s the opposite, there’s more music than ever being made and published.  I just think that much of it is created with sounds, loops, patterns that are bought or shared as opposed to micing and recording live performances of instruments being played.  YouTube proves there are still players - younger and younger it seems, documenting their lessons over 18+ years.  I just don’t know that they are any sort of majority of music makers/creators.  

  • Like 2

Yamaha CP88, Casio PX-560

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I did the same thing but in the context of 45+ years of gigging, doodling about with sounds, loops and patterns becomes part of a journey and something one can possibly use to decorate or as a foundation (drum loop) for something when I show my personality. 

 

I think kids are exploring on computers and the internet has made it pervasive. Anybody with an internet connection can post a buttload of "music" and they will. 

It's difficult to obtain perspective. Live venues have had a difficult time during the Covid times, it's natural that there is less live music now. The transition back to more music may go slowly or it may adopt a different form of "venue". That remains to be seen. 

 

Give a bit of surfing time to Metapop.com and check out what is going on there. Lots of sounds, loops and patterns and lots of things played or sung by actual humans. It's an evolutionary process, a way to get started and a way to play it "safe". 

 

The reality is that safe is ultimately boring and kids today want to be "different" just like we did when we were kids. I still do, not a part of the herd by any means. 

  • Like 1
It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Recorded music hasn't killed live music yet, it's only made it possible for more people to hear it and get interested. The definition of "live" now includes (as it should) the use of a DAW as an instrument, and us oldies sometimes don't like that definition, just as the previous generation didn't like our electronically produced sounds and amplified, gravely vocals where there were still perfectly good violins and opera houses being made.

It's funny, too, because lots of those lamenting the art of DJing as "less than" grew up in an era when the studio band was thriving, so live performance is not really the issue, nor is the use of technology to produce musical sounds beyond what, say, a guitar might do on its own. It's just (IMO) that it's the next generation's art instead of our own.

I've noticed that musicians can tend to be more fragile than most when it comes to our kids' relationship with our professions. Doctors and lawyers and accountants might be pleasantly surprised if their kids show an interest in even the most peripheral aspects of their careers; musicians tend to interpret lack of participation as practically the end of civilization as we know it.

But by bringing our kids up in an environment surrounded by music in one way or another, we are handing on something irreplaceable. We don't need to worry so much that kids don't take that input and turn it into the one kind of output we ourselves are familiar with. It is still making them better for it, and it comes out in other ways. 

  • Like 2

Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material.
www.joshweinstein.com

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Picking up on the subjects of "are loops and tech killing music" and "is live music still a thing", here's a slightly-OT video presented by the wildly popular (but completely unmusical) Tom Scott, featuring the artist still known as Beardyman, who shows a high level of skill, including live/performance, with DAW/technology. Not exactly my taste in music, but fascinating to watch the work progress...

 

 

Cheers, Mike.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...