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Hrm.
Okay.
So I'm getting stuff together to jam on for two hours for this art opening.
I have a question for the music folks out there. Or any of you geeks, really...
I've long claimed the operating assumption that using presets and canned beats to excess is, in essence, cheating. Notable exceptions hold, of course, like reiterating existing loops and samples to make something completely new (Zurround did this all the time, so does a lot of perfectly respectable hip hop and other electronic music, etc.), or altering something enough that you've made it your own (I love collage-based stuff like Negativland or Evolution Control Committee), or using something with such an existing camp value that it comes full circle (Trio using the default beat on the Casio Sk-1) But... what about came-with-the-software, plug-n-play, royalty-free jobs, and you're not using it as a scratch pad? I've always thought of that stuff like hostess snack cakes- they're quick, they're convenient, they're cheap, everyone knows what they taste like and they're readily available, but they sure as hell aren't something you'd serve at a restaurant and try to get away with having people think they're a fine dessert, you know? Not that they don't have uses and all, BUT.
Here's the thing.
If I have a musical/programming weakness, it's the beats. Not that I can't find a beat, or play on the beat, or know what I like in percussion, but I have a big ol' block when it comes to confidently creating beats I like from scratch. (The one weird exception to this seems to be nanoloop. I really enjoy programming short rhythmic stuff with nanoloop on the gameboy, but that gets limited in a couple of ways.) Otherwise, it's very picky and time consuming and very rarely are my rhythmic tracks anything I'm *proud* of, necessarily- I find them mostly functional at best. The flipside of this is that I can make melodic/harmonic bits that I like that fuse together right off the top of my head that I find reasonably interesting pretty reliably All The Time.
I got to thinking that maybe this is a weird, self imposed, snotty sort of mindfuck. Is it? If I use the occassional canned loop or preset in "my" music, would you still respect me the next day? Should I rightfully feel cheap and dirty, or is this my classical music snob upbringing rearing its head in a different format and I should just fuck it and quit being so damned uptight?
My best guess is that it's neither here nor there, and the real answer is kinda fuzzy. This feels similar to admitting to liking a "less cool" genre of music somehow, like just having to shout "yes, fuck you, sometimes I LIKE certain progressive trance tracks and dancing around my living room like a total moron, OKAY?" from a proverbial rooftop and just getting it overwith, or like that thing that Jj had with Dolly Parton, but maybe it's not.
Thoughts?
So I'm getting stuff together to jam on for two hours for this art opening.
I have a question for the music folks out there. Or any of you geeks, really...
I've long claimed the operating assumption that using presets and canned beats to excess is, in essence, cheating. Notable exceptions hold, of course, like reiterating existing loops and samples to make something completely new (Zurround did this all the time, so does a lot of perfectly respectable hip hop and other electronic music, etc.), or altering something enough that you've made it your own (I love collage-based stuff like Negativland or Evolution Control Committee), or using something with such an existing camp value that it comes full circle (Trio using the default beat on the Casio Sk-1) But... what about came-with-the-software, plug-n-play, royalty-free jobs, and you're not using it as a scratch pad? I've always thought of that stuff like hostess snack cakes- they're quick, they're convenient, they're cheap, everyone knows what they taste like and they're readily available, but they sure as hell aren't something you'd serve at a restaurant and try to get away with having people think they're a fine dessert, you know? Not that they don't have uses and all, BUT.
Here's the thing.
If I have a musical/programming weakness, it's the beats. Not that I can't find a beat, or play on the beat, or know what I like in percussion, but I have a big ol' block when it comes to confidently creating beats I like from scratch. (The one weird exception to this seems to be nanoloop. I really enjoy programming short rhythmic stuff with nanoloop on the gameboy, but that gets limited in a couple of ways.) Otherwise, it's very picky and time consuming and very rarely are my rhythmic tracks anything I'm *proud* of, necessarily- I find them mostly functional at best. The flipside of this is that I can make melodic/harmonic bits that I like that fuse together right off the top of my head that I find reasonably interesting pretty reliably All The Time.
I got to thinking that maybe this is a weird, self imposed, snotty sort of mindfuck. Is it? If I use the occassional canned loop or preset in "my" music, would you still respect me the next day? Should I rightfully feel cheap and dirty, or is this my classical music snob upbringing rearing its head in a different format and I should just fuck it and quit being so damned uptight?
My best guess is that it's neither here nor there, and the real answer is kinda fuzzy. This feels similar to admitting to liking a "less cool" genre of music somehow, like just having to shout "yes, fuck you, sometimes I LIKE certain progressive trance tracks and dancing around my living room like a total moron, OKAY?" from a proverbial rooftop and just getting it overwith, or like that thing that Jj had with Dolly Parton, but maybe it's not.
Thoughts?
no subject
MY problem is finding the right sounds and templates to work with...But that will change soon...
So, in the meantime, what I've been doing is combining two or more preset beats into one...The combination is usually interesting and will alter the sound just enough to make it seem not like just another preset...or sample...or whatever...
Yeah, I guess what I'm trying to is, "yeah, get over it..."
....
Jj had a thing with Dolly Parton?!! I never heard about that from him...Bitch never tells me anything...
no subject
Actually, what C is referring are the following entries:
http://sarendipatree.livejournal.com/136732.html
http://sarendipatree.livejournal.com/131390.html