is anything in music truly new and fresh anymore?

[Enemy Within]

just a quick question, is anything new or original in music anymore or just a pale imitation of what has come before? i'd love to hear everybody's views on this.

[Dwoogie]

In what sense is a modern PC with a DAW application and a fistful of VSTis not a real instrument?

Stir a bit more. ;o)

[Dwoogie]

Well... yes and no. Putting the recording studio - not a fully pro one, but serviceable nonetheless - within reach of Joe and Josephine Average (among whom I include myself) gives everyone the opportunity to be as creative as they want to be. Sure, what they (we) come up with might not excite a lot of people, but that's not really what it's for, is it?

I certainly couldn't do what I do without the technology because the technology is my instrument. I've invested a lot of time and effort in learning how to make it do what I want it to.

Having said that, a lot of people making music on computers may not be musicians as such, but they are composers. You're a composer as soon as you stick 2 loops together and let them run for 15 minutes because you enjoy it.

In any case, the greater part of what we hear on the radio has presumably been shunted through high-class professional studios with whole busloads of session musicians - also all professionals - and it still sounds like w**k.

I'm not entirely sure what my point is now. Perhaps someone can explain me to me.

[Dwoogie]

It was clear all along Astral, no worries. :o) There's nothing wrong with a bit of spirited discussion.

It was the suggestion that "computer's not a real instrument" that got me going, because I firmly believe that it is. You're absolutely right that you can't buy creativity. Again, though, that's not limited to computer musicians - how much creativity is there in the average symphony orchestra?

When all's said and done, the symphony orchestra is, in fact, a large, cumbersome organic music reproduction device. It even has its own version of DRM, because the vast majority of them only play dead white person music. Nothing else gets through.

And yet .. and yet. If you tot it up there must hundreds of years of experience playing 'real' instruments in an orchestra. So, as I said, you're 100% spot on that you can't buy creativity, but on the other hand creativity's in short supply everywhere, and spending your life learning to play an instrument and then sawing away at Mozart and Haydn symphonies in the Second Violins is, I would suggest, something rather less than creative, too.

Where I think the computer can help, aside from the fact that it can produce whole categories of sound that nothing else on Earth can, is that it can, very inexpensively - all you need is eJay or Garageband - help people to express whatever musical creativity they do possess. I've seen the looks on people's faces when, as total non musicians, they start playing around with a few samples in Live and something comes out that's recognisably music. They could learn a 'real' instrument for years and not get that. :o)

[EOSPete]

Kids in schools in the UK have to be taught music as a part of the curriculum. Several of these involve composition units of work http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/schemes2/music/. Unfortunately much of this composition tends to be largely done with percussion rather than tuned instruments which although it teaches the children, pulse and rhythmn does not encourage a wider exploration.

Peripatetic teachers who will teach piano, guitar, brass, violin, woodwind and instruments are provided by the local education authority music service. In our primary school we have a orchestra of some 30 members. We are in the very fortunate position to have supporting parents who encourage their children.

I have been given the remit to introduce a MIDI keyboard and Cubase setup to the school to encourage the older children to develop a wider musical perspective. Lets hope the upcoming generations follow up at secondary school and beyond and become the creative musicians of the future.

Cheers
P

The future's bright, but it isn't here yet!

[Dwoogie]

Sounds promising, for sure. :o)

[EOSPete]

The main problem is that generally class teachers at primary level are not musically trained in both traditional music and also more modern IT based music. In fact there is very little Music IT training available for teachers at all certainly in this authority. The core subjects of Maths, English and Science tend to dominate funding and training, certainly at primary level in my own Education Authority.

It is interesting that two of the most radical 'new genres' in music that I can recall, punk and hip hop, both came from folk who had limited, if any, musical background or training. It would be interesting to know what sort of percentage of pioneering musicians actually had formal training. Certainly from reading Kate Bush's autobiography, she had little initial musical training, although she took singing lessons fairly on in her career. Her songwriting developed from the poetry she was writing early on at secondary school expressing her isolated feelings and altogether lack of creative challenge.

Maybe the issue is a lack of creativity generally, rather than a lack of musical skill.

Good discussion folks

P

[Robert Correll]

Funny thing is, you know what I do now to get better and inspire myself?

Practice my scales!

There's a tension between learning the fundamentals to get better versus the "payoff" of being able to translate inspired creativity into music. That takes maturity, or a teacher capable of getting that point across.

You run into the same theory in sports. What do professional athletes practice and drill until they can't get it wrong? Fundamentals.

[max derelict]

Kate Bush would benefit from some formal education in music and in creative writing. As I would. Sorry mate... purely subjective point of view, coming from Africa I HATE her voice and her style of music, otherwise I agree with you 100%: creativity is the really tough one, among skilled and unskilled would-be musos alike. That is why Fruity Loops, the most common sequencer used by youthful artists in SA who cannot play a traditional instrument, has its pros and cons... still, many singers here started out with an AC97 sound chip and a toy pc mic. Simphiwe Dana (not SA's finest vocalist BTW but an interesting artist nonetheless, the closest to KB perhaps) is an example

[TCwebtime]

About teaching music to kids and the "timing was all over the place - 3/4, 4/4, no places for a rest to catch their breath, the tempo was up and down in every bar (85....134....120....)."

There are pros and cons and maybe, as usual, the right answer is somewhere in the middle of what you said and what I'm about to say

When it comes down to art forms and creativity, too much structure imposed in the 'wrong' way by teachers that are not fully qualified to do so can do a lot of damage.
Take 'drawing', everyone is potentially able to draw and when you are a kid you may happen to use your initial drawing skills or not... you may be encouraged or not... and when kids are young, most times, they get taught to forget their innate sense of observation and draw things the way robots do.
- A face is supposed to look like this
- Eyes like this
- Etc….
It all becomes very mechanical and the Right side of the brain shuts off! Imitative and non creative way of drawing takes priority over your more creative side.

So by teaching kids thing in a rigid way… ‘music should sound like this, timing should be fixed like this, temp should not change’ (mind you… especially in classical music is not uncommon to see time signatures changes within the same piece…. And often chorus in pop songs has a slightly faster bmp than the other parts… ) we may be killing those kids' chances to come up with new sounds, new music forms, new moods, new combinations, new use of timing , etc… etc…

By the way, I’m not saying that what mistrust mentioned was wrong… I’m merely extending on it. All I’m saying is that it is down to what and how music should be presented to kids to not kill their creativity right from the word go…

Yes Picasso apparently learned how to draw things properly then messed it all up (in a good way…) but it is very hard for people to unlearn rigid structures then find a novel approach.

[max derelict]

Note: hurried non sub-editing mode!

Well I have friend who is an excellent classical pianist. Who protests she cannot play a 2 chord figure and improvise to it. She needs to sight-read to do anything. A common complaint. Whereas I wish I could play like Herbie Hancock or McCoyTyner, not posssible without the dots, staves and extensive harmonic theory.. She is the mother of my godson, who I think has Grade 3 and has his own computer but has not yet hooked up his father's Roland groovesynth as a MIDI keyboard and Reaper or Podium or Cubase LE or the like. Fine, I think his time is better spent learning trad piano right now.

I'm all for an instrument, preferably an acoustic piano (classical ac gtr is consolation prize) and formal theory. I've heard stunning sample manipulation by ppl who cannot play a simple triad on a MIDI keyboard but they are locked out of the world of true improvisation. Indeed my peers and I are in demand as a "proper" guitar and bass and keys players as much as producers among young people who compose and sing but play no instruments. AS soon as they hear a real bass or guitar on one of their tracks they become interested in learning the instrument.

But this takes time.... I could never do it now, and I doubt I would have gone that route myself. Personally though, I am very glad I have a digital audio recorder first, MIDI sequencer second.

[Dwoogie]

Well, I think we should all give Enemy Within a round of applause. 'Just a quick question' it may have been, but it sparked the most interesting discussion since we began on here. Great stuff!

[Enemy Within]

thanks to everybody who took the time to reply to my question, some of the points raised were very informative and thought provking. my own view is that it's almost impossible to come up with anything truly orginal which is easly listenable, that's not to say there's not any great music around but it tends to be tucked away on the net on sites like this one. my only real concern is that the mainstream charts are so full of pre packed rubbish that any new artist's with good music but the wrong image etc never get the chance to be heard. what's clear from this disussion is that on the up side everybody is capable for producing studio quality recordings in there own homes and promoting there music online, the downside is in order to be heard by a larger audience you have to become the musician who is willing to be turned into the kind stereotype the men in suits seem to love.