Aphex already did it

To come back to thread hehe

Music is something you do out of love and obsession really.There 0 garantee of any money,fame, success, recognition AT ALL.And it was always like that.Grunt work and hours put it WILL translate in artistic progress eventually but think in terms of decades and hundred and thousands and thousands of hours but even then there is no garantee of anything else.That artistic progress and experience has to be enough in itself or else you will get discouraged.The nice thing is that you learn small things, in small steps everytime your work, everytime you are moving forward, i think when you focus on that it helps keeping your moral.

But yeah, Art is hard and there is no shortcut.

The great artists are simply people that constantly obsess about their artform and have tremendous passion for it imo.

Holy shit lol I can't keep up with this thread. It's funny how so much of this discussion blossomed out of the bebop vs free jazz thing which as @brian trageskin mentioned we were kinda just riffing off each other on that. 

Just to clarify my own points/stance in this discussion, what I said back in my long post was specifically about studying music, for the purpose of furthering your own activity as a creator of music. Getting an education can be a source of new creativity, and if that's the route a person chooses, there are logical ways of doing it, just as with learning anything else. I think a lot of what else is being discussed ITT has to do more with being a listener, and how what you "know" about music can inform how much you "enjoy" or "understand" it. That's a discussion I'd personally rather stay out of. A person listening to music can do whatever they want, in whatever order, with whatever understanding. That to me is a given. Music is out there. Once you want to learn and study, then it might make more sense to organize the way you're doing things or at least read up on stuff for context.

I did study music at the academic level. I did it because I personally love learning about music and nerding out on stuff, and that fuels me in my own creative activities. I 100% agree that's not the "only way" to do things, or necessarily even the "right" way, but I also think it's bullshit that anyone who is using an instrument or system that relates to a 12-note keyboard thinks that they are working independently of the western system of music. Yes there's a huge amount of development between traditional theory and what say Autechre are doing but it still relates; they've never broken free entirely from that system. Their development and evolution has been in other directions - sound design, systems and methods etc - but some of their melodies still sound like a child's piano lesson. This is not a value judgment (in case it wasn't obvious already I'm a huge Ae fanboy) but simply a statement of fact that at the end of the day we're all working within more or less the same system, and the good news is there are very clearcut ways of furthering one's education in that system. To repeat, my own official stance is: no, a traditional education is not "necessary" to make music. But if you're stuck in your music making, expanding your knowledge can help un-block you. 

  On 3/9/2021 at 9:42 PM, ignatius said:

did you mean offense? 

No, offence

Neutron 9000 did it better 

Erik Satie did it better 

Brian Eno did it better 

Drexciya did it better 

Aphex tried to reach these heights but ultimately failed and look where he ended up 

Yeah yeah  yeah great.... but who did ICBYD era afx better? 

  On 3/9/2021 at 11:42 PM, perunamuusi said:

Yeah yeah  yeah great.... but who did ICBYD era afx better? 

i wouldn't say "better" but some of the beats on Ready to DIe give me the same feel as tracks off ICBYD, but with the added bonus Biggie Smalls vox

I had an interesting moment a few years back while high on E listening to music (this is before people started dropping like flies thanks to fentanyl pissing all over that parade).  The moment consisted of me hearing a song as one whole thing, as opposed to a combination of many different details put together in an aesthetically pleasing way.  It sounded like magic.  I wondered if that is closer to what music sounds like for people who haven't been studying it obsessively for decades.  Or rather, I was convinced that is how it sounds like to other people because I was high as fuck.

  On 3/8/2021 at 5:28 PM, mcbpete said:

Talking of which, definitely give this a go.  Proper African IDM

 

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where the hell did you get that from?! It's amazing!

  On 3/10/2021 at 12:01 AM, Zephyr_Nova said:

It sounded like magic.  I wondered if that is closer to what music sounds like for people who haven't been studying it obsessively for decades.

“music has the right to children” 

"music has the right to remain silent"

- Boards of RCMP

  On 3/10/2021 at 12:12 AM, Zephyr_Nova said:

"music has the right to remain silent"

- Boards of RCMP

“My client - music - pleads the fifth”

  On 3/9/2021 at 10:35 PM, toaoaoad said:

Holy shit lol I can't keep up with this thread. It's funny how so much of this discussion blossomed out of the bebop vs free jazz thing which as @brian trageskin mentioned we were kinda just riffing off each other on that. 

Just to clarify my own points/stance in this discussion, what I said back in my long post was specifically about studying music, for the purpose of furthering your own activity as a creator of music. Getting an education can be a source of new creativity, and if that's the route a person chooses, there are logical ways of doing it, just as with learning anything else. I think a lot of what else is being discussed ITT has to do more with being a listener, and how what you "know" about music can inform how much you "enjoy" or "understand" it. That's a discussion I'd personally rather stay out of. A person listening to music can do whatever they want, in whatever order, with whatever understanding. That to me is a given. Music is out there. Once you want to learn and study, then it might make more sense to organize the way you're doing things or at least read up on stuff for context.

I did study music at the academic level. I did it because I personally love learning about music and nerding out on stuff, and that fuels me in my own creative activities. I 100% agree that's not the "only way" to do things, or necessarily even the "right" way, but I also think it's bullshit that anyone who is using an instrument or system that relates to a 12-note keyboard thinks that they are working independently of the western system of music. Yes there's a huge amount of development between traditional theory and what say Autechre are doing but it still relates; they've never broken free entirely from that system. Their development and evolution has been in other directions - sound design, systems and methods etc - but some of their melodies still sound like a child's piano lesson. This is not a value judgment (in case it wasn't obvious already I'm a huge Ae fanboy) but simply a statement of fact that at the end of the day we're all working within more or less the same system, and the good news is there are very clearcut ways of furthering one's education in that system. To repeat, my own official stance is: no, a traditional education is not "necessary" to make music. But if you're stuck in your music making, expanding your knowledge can help un-block you. 

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that's exactly what i was trying to say and failed miserably. keep in mind that english isn't my 1st language too so it can be a bit hard to convey exactly what i have in mind sometimes, which i try to hide by checking linguee and wordreference constantly

the 1st thing i should have mentioned was that my advice to OP was to listen to jazz with the single purpose of getting back to making music, not to get inspiration by some mystical process, but by studying the language of music so he can ultimately add new tools in his arsenal, which won't hurt his creativity, on the fucking contrary

and boy, are those tools useful. here's a list of things they can help you with: 

instantly write or play a melody/chord progression/beat that pops up in your mind - compose the next bars - take any material and twist it in any direction you want - instantly reproduce music by other artists (any beat/chord/melody) - twist their tunes or fragments of them in any direction: reharmonize, change the melody, the time signature, compose new bars, your choice - use what you learned from reproducing or changing other people's material in your own tunes (and by that i don't mean reproduce the exact chord progression of synthacon 9 then put a drum pattern on top and call it un jour hein, i mean extract the musical devices of the tune and use them - by musical device i mean for example, modulating in 3rds, using the dorian scale, changing meter, you get the idea) 

and that's barely scratching the tip of the iceberg. that's the use of learning the language of music. it's not theoritical bullshit that has no application outside of academia, it's a practical tool that can help you tremendously in the creation process. and you don't have to use it if you're happy with what you created by using the old way. but at least, if you get stuck in the process by doing things the old way, you have many other options to explore and choose from

recently looked up jacob collier bc i kept seeing vid recommendations about how he's like a genius or whatever.

amazingly talented kid with absolutely nothing to say. imagine having ability like that and just making the most NPR shit of all time lol

yeah collier makes really crappy stuff which is baffling considering his superhuman abilities. he's beyond amazing at reharmonizing other people's tunes though and at improvising super sophisticated chord progressions. also, all the superhuman stuff

  On 3/10/2021 at 12:58 AM, Alcofribas said:

recently looked up jacob collier bc i kept seeing vid recommendations about how he's like a genius or whatever.

amazingly talented kid with absolutely nothing to say. imagine having ability like that and just making the most NPR shit of all time lol

had never heard of him. just youtube'd. how novel. i have no opinion. 

  On 3/10/2021 at 1:20 AM, brian trageskin said:

yeah collier makes really crappy stuff which is baffling considering his superhuman abilities. he's beyond amazing at reharmonizing other people's tunes though and at improvising super sophisticated chord progressions. also, all the superhuman stuff

 

can he do that Kenny G circular breathing thing where he inhales and exhales simultaneously so he play forever long cock cheese notes on his horn?

  On 3/10/2021 at 1:20 AM, brian trageskin said:

yeah collier makes really crappy stuff which is baffling considering his superhuman abilities. he's beyond amazing at reharmonizing other people's tunes though and at improvising super sophisticated chord progressions. also, all the superhuman stuff

 

probably the outcome of revolving your entire personality/life around music and nothing else, no grounding in reality, no struggle, no culture. He's perfect at music and that's his problem, it's your idiosyncrasies as a musician that gives you your uniqueness but he is total musical perfection and what comes out is just that, bland. You don't wanna hear perfect music, it sucks. 

  On 3/10/2021 at 1:21 AM, ignatius said:

had never heard of him. just youtube'd. how novel. i have no opinion. 

this is when he became a meme 

  On 3/10/2021 at 1:28 AM, ceiling said:

probably the outcome of revolving your entire personality/life around music and nothing else, no grounding in reality, no struggle, no culture. He's perfect at music and that's his problem, it's your idiosyncrasies as a musician that gives you your uniqueness but he is total musical perfection and what comes out is just that, bland. You don't wanna hear perfect music, it sucks. 

i wouldn't say his music is perfect. the way i would describe it would be a mix of lion king ost + stuff the hip/youngster crowd listens to these days + christmas carols + love actually ost 

  On 3/10/2021 at 1:28 AM, ceiling said:

probably the outcome of revolving your entire personality/life around music and nothing else, no grounding in reality, no struggle, no culture. He's perfect at music and that's his problem, it's your idiosyncrasies as a musician that gives you your uniqueness but he is total musical perfection and what comes out is just that, bland. You don't wanna hear perfect music, it sucks. 

maybe he's saving his struggles for his 30s?

  On 3/10/2021 at 1:37 AM, ignatius said:

maybe he's saving his struggles for his 30s?

yeah, when he has bills to pay...

Yeah academia can really fuck people up, and what I think of as "academic jazz" is pretty terrible a lot of the time lol...Collier falls under this umbrella. It's all so fuckin precious.  I was gonna go off about this earlier but I'm feeling verbally constipated today, I actually have tons to say about this but bleguhgh 

  On 3/10/2021 at 1:42 AM, toaoaoad said:

Yeah academia can really fuck people up, and what I think of as "academic jazz" is pretty terrible a lot of the time lol...Collier falls under this umbrella. It's all so fuckin precious.  I was gonna go off about this earlier but I'm feeling verbally constipated today, I actually have tons to say about this but bleguhgh 

Go off king 

  On 3/10/2021 at 1:58 AM, Alcofribas said:

Go off king 

  On 3/10/2021 at 12:06 AM, justanotheruser said:

where the hell did you get that from?! It's amazing!

It's on Bandcamp (which I would link you to if it hadn't just crashed), on the Nyege Nyege label.