Condemnation towards computer generated music (Sample libraries and such)

[Denny Schneidemesser]

Now this is something that happens to me quite often. Have you ever been in the situation where someone asked “What are you using to create your music?”. Probably since most people aren't familiar with the technology nowadays, at least where I live. I cannot recall how many scornful looks I've received for stating that I take my Horns and Violins from an orchestra library. Most people don't even want to take a look at it because it seems totally ridicolous to them. I don't know if it's pure ignorance or the technology that most people aren't aware of. I guess it's a mix of both since people are trying to avoid it.

I highly respect the real orchestra and I would always prefer it if I had the choice, but samples became really important because they give people with lower budgets the chance to listen to their compositions. Yeah I know, that's nothing new to everyone who reads this. However, I wish more people would acknowledge that.

So how's it where you live? Well I can imagine that sample libraries are much better known and understood in states like LA, the situation in my country (Germany by the way) is stated above.

Any similar situations so far?

[Marius Amado-Alves]

There is also this point of two very different methods of "composing": write the score vs. play on a MIDI-keyboard-usually-coupled-to-other-sound-thingamagigs.

And of course there is this hypothesis of the "good enough (non)music": noncomposers sit at these machines and produce these fantastic sounds (without any interesting melodies, harmonies or rhythms); a similarly growing host of seemingly deaf music directors hire them on the spot. Your (real composer) market share has just shortened by 9999%

[Biochips]

I don't think that's a tolerant post. I guess every kind of musical education is good and broadens your mind. But you shouldn't condemn people like me because we make music with samples. Do you think "these machines" make the music themselves? Not at all. The musician has to write the music himself/herself of course. It's not the traditional way of writing music, but it's the same amount of work.

Look, I am 22-years-old. How should I afford getting a whole orchestra or a band for my type of music? Only software studios give me the opportunity to write music.

"noncomposers sit at these machines and produce these fantastic sounds (without any interesting melodies, harmonies or rhythms)"
An interesting sentence. Go on the site of the starter of this thread called Denny Schneidemesser and listen to his music. He works with "these machines".

[Doug Lauber]

Yeah. I hear ya. There are good composers and there are bad composers, regardless of the tools used, or the type of education. By necessity, composers who want more exposure are venturing into the realm of recording, so besides using 'sample gadgets', there's also droves of composers investing time and energy into learning about recording techniques, -one more 'untraditional' area.

[Chris Alpiar]

I may be incorrect, but I think that the sentiment against technology is more about the fact that those of us who have spent a lifetime of learning and growth within the musical language are being uprooted and replaced with people who have barely spent 4 or 5 years involved in music, people who havent paid the dues we have. I don't think that there is any argument with weight that anyone can be creative and intuitive with their art in any medium, even though the world of samples and loops opens the door wide to all kinds of expression from people who are not creative.

But rather the feeling that I spent 25 years completely focused on the art of music in one form or another - and I mean dedicated - 10 hour practice regiments with 6 hours of gigs after for many years, the same equivalent toward composing in another era. And then along comes some technology that allows anyone who can click a mouse to create something that is sonically brilliant. This sonic brilliance may or may not have musical qualities but it sounds amazing, and that is enough to fool most directors and producers in a world where the money has all but vaporized from illegal downloading run rampant for 14 years - the directors and producers no longer care about anything other than lowering their bottom line enough to make the same profit they did in the 90s. So as long as there is technology that sounds convincing they are and will continue to be fine with it.

Meanwhile the artists among us, who have dedicated our lives to the craft, who hold in highest illumination the masters of the craft (whether its John Williams or Stravinsky or Duke Ellington or Bach), we suffer like holocaust victims being forced in the proverbial gas chambers of the modern music business.

In order to stay alive in this new world we must pull off the stars sewn on our chests and renounce our ways and become experts in mixing and sequencing and mastering, not to mention marketing and business. And this is such a sellout point to those of us interested in the 'music' and not the 'production' - a very viable thought for even as little as 15 years ago.

So when someone comes along and feels they deserve the respect of this community, that is where the blade is felt most deeply. I am not saying that your music is without merit, or that it holds any lesser value necessarily, but you need to see the big picture and what it is that we are losing today as a result of these lovely software programs

[Marius Amado-Alves]

There's just too many issues here, it's easy to be misunderstood.

You may note I have visited and commented on Denny's music in the past. I took a quick listen at your music too. One issue here is genre. Your make pure electronica. Denny and myself make more hybrid music. Denny incorporates more electronica than I ;-)

And note that I called the "hypothesis of the good enough music" an... hypothesis.

Misundertanding comes also from the crazy polisemic terminology. The word "sample" can mean anything. It can mean the sounds called "violin", "viola" on my score.

One issue is the right abstraction layer. I have a tune that requires the sound of a gun shot a couple times. I don't go to the thingmagigsound machine to look for the right sound and paste it in there somewhere. I simply write a note on the stave and mark it "gun shot". That's composing. Making sounds is performing, recording, producing, whatever.

That's the old issue of calling composing to creating sounds and "soundscapes". Creating sound in the past was mainly inventing instruments. I like to reserve the word "compose" for it's strict meaning, viz. invent sequences and sets of picthes and rhythms for--or on (jazz)--(pre)defined instruments. To me the two ways of "composing" are excruciatingly clearly distinct.

For the record, I am not a die hard fan of classical notation. I jot down my music first with numerical notation. Then I use classical notation for musicians and to generate (bad) MIDI demos. But both numerical and classical notation have the the right abstraction level for strict composing. A MIDI sequence is one level down in the direction of the final soundwave. Too concrete.

[Adrian Allan]

On the subject of Production skills vs musical merit, I get the impression that production is now the main factor. To draw on a literary analogy, it's like people rating a Mills and Boons script produced on a laser-printed wordprocessor above a Charles Dickens novel made on a typewriter.

I feel this even on these forums (and especially the East West), that people judge the mix above the intrinsic musical merit.

Maybe people are being realistic, though, in pointing out that in today's climate a good mix is as important as a good melody, so we shouldn't take offence when our production skills are brought into question.

Would Beethoven have been a failure in the 21st century if he couldn't assign his midi to viable VSTs ?

[Ray Kemp]

Adrian,
Please believe me when I tell you this,
The reason most comments made here and in most forums I'm a member are of mix issues or virtual instrument sample quality is straight forward and simple. What right have you or I to comment on someone's composition, tune, whatever. Answer NONE because each and everyone of us live in disbelief of some tune or theme or song that's made millions in money and millions happy and we think it's dreadful.
Subjective or objective, two words and two meanings we all struggle with.
Chris A is an admin and has to bite his tongue here. I'm not but I'll keep my thoughts to myself for the moment.
Oh damn it.... Marius your hybrid............ whooooo I'm off to look at the dictionary.

[Chris Alpiar]

haha, truly I love you Ray - hope you had a merry christmas man, look forward to our next talk!

[John McIntyre]

Lots of good points made on both sides, but the realist in me tends to go with the practicality of notation software. Looks around, nope..no world class orchestra in my garage awaiting my latest masterwork. Yet, composers of yore had that; Haydn for example. They had orchestras at their disposal. The reality is that orchestras are expensive. Notation software allows musical ideas to be realized in ways light years ahead of MIDI. I don't agree that software can make a composition, it's the inherent strength of the composition. However, a poor rendering can certainly ruin an otherwise masterly piece. And so the tiger attacks its own tail. The reality is that composers do indeed need to be producers, mixers, and businessmen these days. But composers of the 20th century, like Stravinsky, for example did much the same thing.

[Ray Kemp]

Chris
best wishes for Christmas and New Year to you also
I'll catch you soon but now... I'm off to bed to get rid of this terrible cold I have.
I've got a bit of singing to do on Wednesday/Thursday.... never mind double time rates :)

My best

Ray

[Chris Alpiar]

I think there are many things going on here, some is finale/sibelius scores being played v. played live, sequenced music using orchestral samples vs. live, and loop based composition (like drag and drop fruity loops, garage band, what the apple filmscore one?) vs. 'real' compositions in either of the 2 prior scenarios and also vs. live

I think use of loops to create your music is lame and it is using the talent of whoever actually 'wrote' that loop to create the music instead of your intuitive and knowledgable musicality. And the concept of loops uised in composition opens the door fully for any person that can use a computer to click, drag and drop someone elses works and compile it as their own music. And since the sonic quality is generally good it means that artistic masters of composition have to compete with that kind of stuff when most suits dont care about the difference of a twinkie v. a tiramissou (spelling?) as long as they are both sweet

its such a complex problem and the implications and effects are just as complex

[Adrian Allan]

Quite right, maybe I should have used a better analogy - like kids not wanting to watch Citizen Kane, not because it's boring, but because it's in black and white and not in 5.1 surround sound.

People have an expectation of perfection in recorded sound, and anything less comes across as being inadequate or inferior from the very first note - regardless of what musical merit may exist therein. We've both learnt that here, and embarked on a very steep learning curve.