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Old 07-21-2019, 03:58 PM   #29
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I'm a professional violinist and jazz pianist. Was driving home from a gig a few days ago with a good friend who is THE first-call lead trumpeter in the area...a phenomenal player and person. He studied w/ the late great Ray Crisara, and was one of his favorite students. Ray was THE studio player in NY, but got so disgusted by the increasing reliance on technology rather than musicianship in the studios that he split and left to teach in Texas. My friend and I were discussing the state of music today, and he quoted Ray as having said, "Anything you hear on a recording today never happened."


Making music, to me, meant decades of hours of daily practice and a lifetime of commitment and dedication. My choice, and I'm not suggesting the level of commitment need be that high in order to enjoy making music as a hobby. The fact that it's my profession doesn't mean that I'm not an amateur....one who does something for the love of it. I can't call it a hobby because it's more important than that to me, but I'd certainly continue doing it if it wasn't also my profession.
"Making music," to me, means learning how to play a specific instrument to a certain degree of proficiency, at least well enough to for you and others to enjoy and be moved by the sounds you produce. Sitting at a computer combining loops and samples, cutting, pasting, shifting, autocorrecting timing and pitch.....that's programming, not making or playing music. It doesn't make you a musician any more than microwaving a TV dinner makes you a chef...of any caliber.


There's a reason guitar, bass, and drums are pretty much the only things mentioned by the general populace anymore, other than singing, samples, and DAWS (Oh, My!)...they're the easiest instruments to learn to quickly get to the point where you CAN make sounds similar to the folks or bands you're trying to cover, or play for yourself or friends without making them cringe. That and, except for the proliferation of synthetic sounds these days,, those instruments are about the only thing anyone ever hears anymore in 99% of popular music. Ask a kid if they'd like to pkay cello or trombone...they won't even know what those are anymore.
There are WONDERFUL, amazing, extremely skilled and musical guitarists, bassists, and drummers out there... I'm not putting those instruments down or belittling the dedication it takes to truly master them. Only saying that the beginning stages aren't as long and painful as most instruments.



Yeah, it's a soapbox of mine. Yes, I'm a musical snob. Yes, I DO think that there is an art to creating involving soundscapes through computer programming, and an art to making poor musicians and terrible players and singers sound good in a studio, and that those programmers and engineers are artists too... they're just not musicians, nor are they making music. They are manipulating sound. To me, and to many others, that is an important distinction. Even among great professional instrumental musicians, however, there are folks who don't share my view and who embrace and rely on technology a great deal. I recognize that my thoughts are opinion and not shared by everyone. However you approach your music, or whatever music means to you, it's still way better than watching TV. Do your best work, and listen to your Muse,

I can understand the position you take. It is frustrating when you see people who have put in little effort being applauded over those who have spent years perfecting a craft. I'll hear some beautiful electronic work and often wonder if it's someone just snapping together a piece like using Legos or were they really involved with every texture.



I won't argue that what I do is music, but I will contend that it is an art, and I have put a significant amount of time (~40 years), effort, and finances into developing my craft. I develop my sounds and textures without the use of sample libraries, just like I avoid using stock photos on my cover designs. Nothing wrong with doing so, I just feel a better sense of ownership when I brought something into the world from scratch.


For me, there is little interest in sticking to the conventions of composition and using the same textures and sources that have been well-visited over the last few hundred years. In my opinion, music/sound/recording should be a living art; growing, changing, and improving what the masters before us discovered and themselves refined. Both views can exist simultaneously without one needing to be ranked or validated versus the other. The violin was likely considered a bridge too far in some long-ago era, as were pianos. Certainly jazz had it's early detractors, many who questioned it's validity as a form of music.



But every musician relies on technology, from someone like me who is fully embracing the new frontiers in digital, to those who prefer traditional analog work and use things designed a hundred years ago. It shouldn't matter if the tech is a year old or 100. Use and learn your tools well.
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Old 07-21-2019, 04:16 PM   #30
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very thoughtful kind reply snipped for brevity...
That was a very well-written, logical, and kind response to what I wrote. Thanks for taking the time, and for not taking offense. As I said, I do consider those digital audio creators who put the time and care into their craft artists, as you so obviosuly do and are. It's just not the art I "signed up for" five decades ago..

My preference is to sit at a good grand piano with an acoustic bassist and a sensitive drummer, with quiet interested people listening... no analog/digital nothing, just musicians and those who appreciate live music sharing music together played on instruments painstakingly crafted by folks who love those instruments. In other words... all the things that make music a HUMAN experience, and as devoid of unnatural technology as possible. Obviously, those times are extremely rare, but every once in a while a gig will come along in a club, or small concert in a library, or some other intimate setting when we can play free of amplification, sound systems, sound reinforcement personnel, click tracks, midi tracks, video feeds, pickups, mics, backing tracks, and other stuff that just sucks the soul from my playing (and most of my colleagues), or at absolute best just creates another layer between the player and the audience. It's a different thing. The stuff I like to play isn't a visual show... it has almost nothing in common with what most folks view as a "concert" these days. A "concert" has become something at least as much about the visual/entertainment value and an over-the-top multi-sensory experience, rather than something where a musician shares music with a group of listeners.

In any case, I don't disagree with anything you wrote, and I DO very much respect your skills and dedication to something you love. Cheers.
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