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[coyote]

Since these artists have a ready market for their product, it's probably a good thing for them http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

And I guess you could consider it this way: A painter starts with a blank canvas, but a collage artist starts with "prerecorded material" (photos, headline snippets, etc). So a guitarist starts with blank audio space while a tech-dance producer starts with existing rhythms, samples, etc. I don't see the means as anything bad. I just usually see the result as boring (unless I'm on the dance floor w/ a bunch of sexy women - then I love the stuff! LOL).

 

Originally posted by popmusic:

A lot of technoish songs seem to be composed not so that it reflects a vision in the artist's head, but so that it documents the artist's reaction to the equipment they're using. In other words, a lot of techno artists don't seem to have an idea of what they want in their head before they create the music, but instead let the gear dictate to them what the music should sound like, and the artist works within those parameters.

 

What do you think? Do you control technology, or does it control you? And either way, is this a good or bad thing?

[coyote]

OK, fair question. Let's compare to painting (and photography) for this instance.... unless a painter is doing an abstract, he is using existing subjects (fruit, landscape, human model) - arranging them (or merely changing his viewpoint) until he has something that looks like 'art', and capturing that image. IMO it matters little whether the artist set out to create something in his head or arranged existing elements into something resembling art. The only things that matter are the artist's satisfaction with the result, and the reactions of the audience to the result.

 

This is a very interesting topic though! PEACE

 

Originally posted by popmusic:

No, it's not necessarily the tools themselves (that's a whole other thing that we've debated endlessly on Craig's forum), but more of an issue of, does that painter/collage artist know what he (or she) wants to create before he creates it? Is the artist trying to represent a vision from his head with his tools, or is he playing around with stuff until something looks like "art"?

[Tusker]

Originally posted by popmusic:

A lot of technoish songs seem to be composed not so that it reflects a vision in the artist's head, but so that it documents the artist's reaction to the equipment they're using. ....................

 

 

What do you think? Do you control technology, or does it control you? And either way, is this a good or bad thing?

 

 

I think that the tool limits an artist's range of expression, while simultaneously creating new possibilities. The richer the artists connection with the tool, the more possibilities are created. Whether the product is satisfying or not, is really a function of the artit's ability to react... not just to the tool, but to life and it's experiences. Shallow techno may not be just a technology problem.. it may also mean that the songwriter didn't adequately connect his/her human capabilities with the capabilities of the tool.

 

Isao Tomita and Vangelis faced huge technological restrictions but HAD a human centered vision as well. They used the new capabilities of the technology to produce some remarkably expressive music. I find their work inspiring, especially when I consider their limitations.

 

My personal experience is that things don't work well when I try too hard to "drive the vision" through the technology. The solution for me lies in a balance of human and tool, and lively interactions between them. Arranging the whole song before coming to the synths is too humanistic, and playing sounds along with an arpegiattor is too mechanistic.... for me.

 

Cheers,

 

Jerry

 

------------------

www.tuskerfort.com

[Magpel]

Pop, from a listener's perspective, do you think there is an appreciable difference between music that was planned in advance versus music that was discovered in the act of creation? I don't see how there could be. Music that is discovered through the process is not inherently less structured or detailed than that envisioned beforehand.

 

I'll go a step further and say that, for me, avoiding making decisions beforehand is the best way to produce a surprising and satisfying result. To use a writer's analogy, if you begin writing already knowing your thesis, you've effectively eliminated the possibility of discovering anything new to you, of changing your mind through the process of creation. You're stuck with what you already know and believe to be true, not what what you might grow to believe through the act of working with language, working with your materials. The so-called "new paradigm" writing theorists argue that writing is not merely the process of finding the best words to convey your meaning; it is the process of *discovering* your meaning through writing, of saying things you would have never thought to say if you hadn't started writing in the first place. I tend to believe this about music. I don't want to be limited to what is consciously in my head write now. I want to put new things in my head, and the only way I know how to do that is to throw myself blindly into the act of writing music, trusting only that I will come out somewhere with something.

 

BTW, I wouldn't touch loops or Karma-fiers with the proverbial ten foot pole.

 

BTW2, I've read pretty widely in (written) composition and creative theory, and the purest, best expression of the new paradigm idea I've discovered is the book _Writing Without Teachers_ by a man named Peter Elbow. It's simple but deep.

 

John

 

Originally posted by popmusic:

 

No, it's not necessarily the tools themselves (that's a whole other thing that we've debated endlessly on Craig's forum), but more of an issue of, does that painter/collage artist know what he (or she) wants to create before he creates it? Is the artist trying to represent a vision from his head with his tools, or is he playing around with stuff until something looks like "art"?

 

<

 

 

 

This message has been edited by Magpel on 09-21-2001 at 11:50 AM

[Doctor Frankensteinway]

Do you control technology or does technology control *you*?

 

Well, usually Igor and I acquire new technology and bring it back to the castle. We make sure to lock all the doors and turn on the answering machine. Then we descend the damp, stone steps into our laboratory.

 

Igor turns on the lights. Those darn lights! They always (und I mean alvays) spark up and make those nasty 'zzzerk!' sounds. Ah, vell.

 

Zo. Igor and I will then lift the new technology up on the table and open the sky lights so the lightning and thunder can be heard. Sets the mood, ya know?

 

Igor shuffles over to the side table and gets the tools ready and sees if the coffee is brewed yet. One simply can't do mad-scientist stuff without a good cup of coffee, ya know? Thank the heavens for Starbucks. We just got one in our little Wine County. Splendid.

 

Vhere was I? Oh, yeah ~ so I begin by taking off the control panel for the new technology. Igor has little jars for all the screws. Next we make detailed notes in our books. We tried using a Palm Pilot but no dice.

 

Careful testing of the new technology goes on into the night. We have a whole CD of "Screams" and "God Awful Noises" that we play to keep the neighbors guessing. Can't have them thinking we're geeks. Tom Waits even wrote a song about us on his last album.

 

So I guess the answer is that *I* control the new technology. Unless of course it's got Intel Inside.

 

This message has been edited by Doctor Frankensteinway on 09-21-2001 at 12:27 PM

[Felix_dup1]

Technology definitely controls me to an extent - and I don't think it's a bad thing, in fact, I rather like it.

 

But I think this is common. Does a Steinway bring out something different in a pianist than a Baldwin? Or does a Gibson Les Paul Custom bring out something different in a guitarist than a Kramer? Probably so.

 

I find that different pieces of gear help me tap into my creativity, or even spark creativity when needed. And I think somehow it's a much more musical process to follow that path than planning everything in advance.

 

Of course, I've just confused myself, since what I've just said seems to contradict my belief that music doesn't have to be based on live performance in order to be credible.

 

This question also seems very similar to "Do you control the opposite sex, or does the opposite sex control you?" Helluva paradox...

[Jonathan Hughes]

I am the operator of my pocket calculator.

[coyote]

It's *always* up to your mind! Heck if the loop won't stop playing at your command, you can always unplug the machine & remove the batteries http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

Originally posted by popmusic:

Yeah -- different instruments with different feels and sounds make you play differently... But do different instruments keep you repeating a musical loop when, if were up to your *mind* to make the decision, you would do something musically different? Are the sounds you use driven by what you want to hear or by what the presets on your synth sound like?

 

(BTW, I don't think there's any conclusive answer to this, but it's fun to go round and round... http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif )

[mwisniewski]

I agree with Magpel's take on it. Art isn't just expressing an idea in your head, it's also a process of discovery. This quote sums it up I think:

 

"Write the first draft with from the heart, write the second draft with your head"

Sean Connery in Finding Forrester

 

Or another way to look at it, sometimes you need to use the tool to discover and refine that idea that is in your head.

 

Also I don't think it's a matter of control ... after all that's only an illusion http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif I look at it more as a relationship with your tool http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif where sometimes you rely on it's strengths - like a machine repeating a pattern over and over again, or you're strengths like the ability to continuously change the pattern depending on your mood. In the end I don't think it's us vs. it, I feel like it's more like a symbiosis, where you and the instrument become one entity, it's an extension of you, and you become an extension of it.

 

Interestingly, though and I think the original point of this thread is that in that symbiosis with your tool http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif you may also enhance the weaknesses of the person and the tool.

[Bobro]

As a defective android unit sent to Earth to infiltrate as a Capatilist Pig only to discover that sloppy soldering had rendered me a de facto Hippy Artist Dude, this question is causing some serious problems in my ontology-circuits.

 

-CB

[Kendrix]

I find that the most amazing stuff comes out when I dont think at all and just play. The Key is to be totally uninhibited. Sometimes i just roll some tape (a hard disc actually) & play without even thnking about playing any keepers- just doodle mindlessly. I can only do this organically -like on guitar- . It doesnt work if Im sequencing. The real time creativity just isnt part of the process.

 

When sequencing i suppose the technology is in control in this respect cause I cant break through the process and tap into the subconscious goodies.

 

ON the other hand, there are many happy accidents that happen when using technololgy. IF you are alert to catch these and ride them - unexpectedly great things can happen. For instance, mistakenly looping a sequence in mid-bar has led me to some great riffs & rythms. Scrolling into an effect pre-set on my way to somewhere else has sometmes led me to some great results.

In this case neither I nor the technology are in control. Its some strange combination of the two where 1+1=3 that seems to happen.

 

Really zen isnt it? (and i havent even smoked any dope in quite a while)

[aeon]

I see my relationship with my gear as a kind of dialectic with a part of myself that is reflected in the gear. The more low-level and deep the gear, the more this comes into play, where the greatest degree is found in my computer itself.

 

I find the creative process is most fecund when I stop trying to control it and I simply act as a channel for it...I am not the source, but the conduit for the flow. To me, control implies ego, and the state of conscious awareness that gives rise to ego doesnt often give rise to the music I identify as my true voice, or music that has integral resonance with who I am as a human being. I find the state of being in control has value elsewhere in the total process, but not at the point of genesis.

 

---------

 

As a side note, popmusic, I think a couple things have to be taken into context as it relates to electronic music of a given style. Some forms in the genre, such as techno, evolved from electro which was about the celebration of the machine and the man-machine interface. Techno was also born in a town that had both a massive industrial/manufacturing base and a large poor population that could not afford more traditional instruments. The influence of the regional culture cannot be underestimated as we consider early pioneering styles of modern electronic music. If we also consider the date when these burgeoning styles came to be, MIDI was in its infancy and pattern-based programmable tools were common, so hearing the influence of the tool in the music is to be expected. Now, nearly 20 years later, this feature is as much an accepted form in the style as the Les Paul and Marshall Plexi are to rock and roll.

 

That said, there is plenty of modern electronic music that has its roots in those movements but has moved beyond those conventions. Many modern artists create music that sounds to me as if it were carefully written and orchestrated, and had clear intent in terms of musical ideas and motifs before the gear entered the picture, e.g. Funckarma, Andre Estermann, Autechre, Sun Electric, Plaid/Black Dog, Brothomstates, Fizzarum, etc. This is not to say the characteristics of their tools are not explored and exploited, because their reverence of the technology is an essential feature of their artistic expression. This is, after all, a genre that elevates the importance of rhythm and timbre to that of melody.

 

On the other hand, I think part of enjoying electronic music is also allowing yourself to dispense of preconceived conventions that might not have any contextual relationship with the music being presented or serve to further your enjoyment of it. For example, if you expect a song, Monolakes 10-minute atmospheric minimalist explorations of texture hanging icily over a steady quarter-note pulse are not going to satisfy. To me, those recordings are means by which I can explore the relativity of time, my perceptual awareness of change, and the direct link between sound and state of bodymind.

 

Ultimately, we have to listen with our own ears and our own context, so I do not mean to say you were in any way listening incorrectly - I am quite sure you are the master of your own domain. It is simply that I see from the listed interests in your profile that you already have the ken to seek out that which does not grow directly to the side of the path, so please do the same for the electronic form and find the 2% of cream that rises to the top of the sea of crud. I have the greatest distaste for loop-based tech-wankery, but there is enough great electronic music today that I never have to worry about listening to it.

[aeon]

Originally posted by popmusic:

Possibly the reason for a lot of the music not sounding that surprising to me might have something to do with that, if you have the equipment or software (Acid?), it's much easier to put together something that sounds like a decent electronica song... But it'd be much harder to fake other styles of music, like, say the blues, bossa nova, or heavy metal... You'd need to have a greater rapport with an instrument and a greater knowledge of music in general (i.e. you'd have to know how to play other folks' songs) to be able to put together something in one of those genres and pull it off competently.

 

I dont agree with that at all.

 

Musical styles like the blues, bossa nova, or heavy metal all have an established cultural context such that the norms of form are easily identified and qualified as to their degree of authenticity. For example, I could easily decide if a given song was a heavy metal tune and then also decide how true to form it was because of my age and where I was born and raised and what I was exposed to in my culture. Another person may not be able to do so with the same degree of skill or be able to at all depending on their cultural context.

 

The same principle applies to modern electronic music. To someone who is intimate with the form and has experience over time listening to it (and its associated sub-genres), it would be no easier to create a decent electronic fake than it would be for someone to create a decent fake of a style with which you have knowledge and context.

 

You say: You'd need to have a greater rapport with an instrument and a greater knowledge of music in general (i.e. you'd have to know how to play other folks' songs) to be able to put together something in one of those genres and pull it off competently. I completely agree with this assertion, but it applies to the field of modern electronic music as much as any other form of music. That is why having the tool (Acid or otherwise) is not enough. Yes, possession of said tool(s) might allow someone to create a recording, but just as ownership of a Macintosh and a LaserWriter in 1985 did not make someone a graphic artist, typesetter or publisher, so is it also true that posession of a TB-303, Acid and a gig of audiowarez does not make someone an electronic musician.

 

This sounds like the same kind of ghettoization that is directed at any new art form that is distinct from and challenges the assumptions of the established forms...the standards are different, the craft is not as challenging, the art is not...art.

 

I dont agree. The standard for creative excellence is just as high, the craft is just as challenging and the art is just as meaningful, if, and only if, you first allow it to play on the same level, and second, you develop a relationship with it such that you have a meaningful context from which to judge and enjoy it.

 

Originally posted by popmusic:

It *does* take talent to do something like that well and make things interesting.

 

I agree...good art requires and demands real talent, but this is true regardless of the time period, style, or tools used. This axiom is as true for modern electronic music as it is for any other art form.

 

If anything, all Acid does is make this truth patently clear very, very quickly.

 

Now, more than ever before, is a great time for modern electronic music in that the sphere and scope of it is growing wider every day. I see great labels springing up where previously there were none, the frequency with which I am delighted by a recording is rapidly increasing and the degree to which artists are finding their own paths outside of the rigid demands of genre is exciting. Even the USA, which has traditionally lagged in participating with this global movement, has found its stride and own unique voice.

 

This message has been edited by aeon@mediaone.net on 09-23-2001 at 11:25 PM

[Magpel]

Aeon, good and eloquent defense of electronica.

[mwisniewski]

Love your writing aeon.

[Jose Cobelas]

Originally posted by popmusic:

But it'd be much harder to fake other styles of music, like, say the blues, bossa nova, or heavy metal... You'd need to have a greater rapport with an instrument and a greater knowledge of music in general (i.e. you'd have to know how to play other folks' songs) to be able to put together something in one of those genres and pull it off competently.

[/b]

 

Yep, but, in the end, when you compose within a style, you already start within a frame with definite conventions. How "hard" it is depends on your own talent, and it is a very subjective issue. A 12 bar blues is not that much harder to come up with than an electronic dance tune, only the required skills are different. To make them worthy pieces of music is a completely different matter.

 

Also, when an artist chooses a specific set of tools, that will condition the resulting piece of work, and that cannot be avoided either. You either choose the paint brush, or the hammer and chisel, or even both, but you need something to start with.

 

And when you say that many techno artists don´t seem to have a beforehand idea of the intended outcome you raise another interesting issue. Is that to be desired, or not? Should one have a definite goal (i.e., painting the Sixtine Chapel), or not? (see Pollock´s paintings).

 

Of course, the outcome is what matters, but what this outcome should be? When you say "pull it off competently" what should that mean? You might have just "bought a guitar to punish your ma" whether conciously or not, and have pulled it off very competently. You might make music to make some kind of statement to others, or just to yourself. How do we measure the artistic honesty of this?

 

About your question...I used to think that I controlled technology until yesterday. I found that something is wrong with the WDM drivers of my MIDI I/F under W2000. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/frown.gif

 

Best,

 

JoseC.

[Intheether]

Wow...what a great topic, sorry it took me so long to read all replies, but I'm glad I did. I think (as a huge fan of electronic music) that there are electronic musicians of both ilk. Some producers rely on highly groove quantized "four on the floor" tried and true methods to produce hits. To create these sounds there are technologies and techniques that have been used ad naseum. That's why myself, and lots of others, often find techno and house so boring. It IS created for the dance floor not for any sort of longevity. How many house hits from lets say 1997 can you even name? They are for the moment - not nostalgia. In this context - why not let the proven technologies prevail? "House is a feeling"...I see nothing wrong if producers recycle loops and breaks if it keeps the kids dancing. These same hit making methods apply to all pop tarts now a days. They sound so generic in a large part to cut and paste technology (oh, and their music is shit).

But on the other hand, there are musicaians who embrace technolgy not for what it has done, but what it CAN DO. This applies to any genre, but perhaps is most apparent in the electronic realm. Any 16 year old kid with a computer and "rebirth" can produce music. It is the vision of certain artists and engineers that puts them in a different category. It is the fact that some musicians simply manipulte samples while having little or no knowledge of actually playing an instrument while others learn their craft for years through practice and hard work. Some musicans are aware of theory and technique while others think "if it slams - good enough." It's those folks who will make mundane crap with a limited shelf life. But for all the shit, there will be the visionaries who endure.

It's a conscious decision we make evertime we boot up our computers and jam. Do we drop in a clipping? A sample? Recycle a riff, a drum? Or do we create. My choice is the latter. ~nel