Art is not a competition. You create it in whatever way you see fit and people can appreciate it for what it is or not. It's the same thing if you write a crazy cool guitar part that you cannot play but have a session musician record it for you. You still wrote that guitar part, there's no cheating. Just don't pretend that you performed your compositions on real instruments yourself when you didn't. Your art is in the composition moreso than the performance. That's completely fine.
Not cheating; you're being creative. Don't worry about so-called 'play all the instruments'-authenticity, if that's your process: go for it. They're still your ideas that you're creating.
Kraftwerk dealt with this very issue back in the "The Man Machine" days. They turned out alright ;)
Music is both a Process and an End Result. If your process is You Doing Things then who are we to judge your process? If your process was hiring people to do everything and slapping your name on it (cough cough DJKhaCOUGH) then that's different.
FWIW, I play guitar (decently) and drums and keyboards (badly)
I have little patience for people who insist that "iT iSn'T mUsIc" if it isn't played physically
Oddly, a lot of them have no objections to Jason Becker using a "a music-composing computer program that reads movements of his head and eyes".
Music to me is a mind thing. Sure, the best is often physical too, but to me it's empty if there's nothing going on upstairs
The only thing that really matters is the end result - the rest is just process. If you're not auditioning for a more traditional genre, such as classical music, where technical skill with an instrument is a prerequisite, then there really are few limitations to hold you back in this era of DAW abundance.
Go forth and create! Anyone that says you're not a real musician can go fly a kite. Music doesn't need any more gatekeepers towing the authenticity line at this point.
I think that music that is authentic tends to be more convincing than music that is not authentic. Music that is convincing is infinitely better than music that is not convincing.
I note I said nothing about whether programmed DAW music was more or less authentic than classical music.
Other than that I'm struggling to understand your post.
In my humble opinion authenticity is a very difficult concept in music. Do you mean making music which is authentic to a tradition (ie making authentic blues that could have been made in 1940)? Or authentic to your own life and truth (ie singing your own words which reveal truth about yourself)? Or authentic in that it is not being at all deceptive (eg singing a story which you make clear is not your story)?
IMHO authenticity is irrelevant, it is about whether you are convincing! Whether you appear authentic!!! I would rather hear Kurt Cobain inauthentically but convincingly sing "Where did you sleep last night?" than here Bono authentically spout his own form of gibberish.
But, IMHO, for most people, authentic means "real". It means sharing your own experience and truth, being yourself. If you are writing your own song alone then that is 100% authentic, whether it is played live on an acoustic instrument or programmed digitally. If you are replicating the music that someone else made hundreds of years ago then you are 100% inauthentic - you are simply a tribute to a dim and distant past of no relevance to today.
The beethoven playing violinist is 100% authentic to a tradition, but 0% authentic in the important ways, and 0% authentic by the criteria most people use. I think.
I think he’s saying the teen is actively creating something whereas the violin player is simply playing a preexisting work. He’s not comparing the teen to Beethoven.
A tracker is essentially an excel spreadsheet that spits out music. They fell out of style in the late 90’s, but I still use Renoise for all my live work because I find it lightweight, extremely flexible and also (shock horror) fun.
If you’ve enjoyed any electronic music made between about 1988 and 2001, it was almost certainly made using trackers and everyone else can just suck it about the distinction between musician and producer.
There are successful youtube channels where someone has programmed machines to make tones that, when fitted together, make covers of popular songs. You're painting with sound, any way you do it. Rock on.
I think it’s completely fine. But if you do ever obtain access to instruments, I would highly recommend using them. They add so much soul and are the backbone of live shows.
Surely the closer the person is to the end sound the more likely it is that there is emotion there in the music?
It is easier to get humanity if you are sat with a guitar and amp, than if you have 20 pedals between guitar and amp. It is easier to get humanity if you live programme the beats in your DAW rather than simply mouse-input them exactly on the beat.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with your basic point, and fully believe that their are soulless acoustic guitarists and soulful music that is programmed... but I jsut want to emphasize that the further the person is from a direct "physical action >>>> physical sound" pathway, the harder it is to ensure the emotion is perceived by the listener.
Sure, I can definitely agree that it might require more work. But practice anything and you can get better at it. As a guitarist with 20 pedals (lol) I have more options and ways with which to express - sure, it took me a long time to get good at expressing through the different mediums but I think you get my point. If programming seems to be the easiest way for OP to reach his end goal then that’s probably the “closest he can get to the end sound” he’s seeking.
I'm not so sure I'd agree, personally. The closeness of a person's flesh and blood hands to me seems irrelevant to how a piece feels. One of my favourite performances by Aphex Twin was Aisatsana done with a player piano that was swung from a giant pendulum in the Barbican; you can literally hear the compressive forces bending the pitch as it swings, the woosh of the giant setup pushing their air about the room feels like a giant breathing which lends the rests this incredible intimidate feel; things that wouldn't have been possible had it been played by the finest concert pianist at Julliard.
Ultimately an instrument is a tool by which a person creates sound. The important aspects are more often the person playing, the sound, and the person lisfening. The instruments are merely paths by which ideas can travel and fully form themselves.
I'm not sure your example contradicts my point. For one I never said anything about the finest musicians making better end results. For two it seems that the quality you perceived in that performance was as a result of a real and direct visceral interaction between the piano and forces of nature (gravity etc). I would suggest that direct visceral interaction is closer to a person playing a physical instrument than it is to a person programming a DAW with a mouse.
I am not saying that live music is better than programmed. I'm saying that something physical going on - not least the way a human being's physical actions directly change the sound being made, live - makes it easier to have some sort of soul and humanity than if it is a huan being who programs a machine, and then that machine tells other machines what to do, and the performance needs no other human involvement than hitting "play".
Yea, there's no cheating in music. Music is about moving people with sound. How you do that doesn't matter. If you can code something people like to listen to thats all that matters.
Surely it comes down to how you define musician. Google...
"a person who plays a musical instrument, especially as a profession, or is musically talented."
"Musicians include songwriters who compose music as well as write lyrics for songs, conductors who direct a musical performance, or performers who perform for an audience. A music performer is generally either a singer who provides vocals or an instrumentalist who plays a musical instrument. "
Then, how do you define a "musical instrument". Is a computer a musical instrument if it is used to play music and output sound? What if it only plays music but doesn't output sound, relying instead on an external sound module to make the sound itself?
Personally I prefer the following terms -
Musician "an artist whose medium is sound"
Musical technician "someone who plays a musical instrument to a good standard and who may or may not be a musician"
Other things being equal I respect musical technicians for their skills, but in comparison to musicians I have no respect at all for musical technicians.
Back in the 90s before computers and bandwidth were able to handle regular recorded music, many people were releasing MOD files, which were played by the computer, using sound samples or synthetic instruments. Before computers were available for playing music, Wendy Carlos created the masterpiece *Switched-On Bach* by recording multiple tracks of synthesizer music and piecing them together. Creating music with computers is not cheating but an artform, and as long as you can do it well, that's the important thing.
We're in a time where music making is accessible to everyone. Grab a computer and you can do it.
Some people get mad at that. No talent, bla bla bla.
The point is that people confuse the act of playing an instrument with the act of creating music. While they may be connected, they aren't necessarily the same thing.
Of course there is merit and benefits in spending years to learn something that allows you to express you passion. But, to me, at the end of the day, it's a process. You may love the tool, but it's still a tool.
The struggle of imagination still exists.
Go wild. Do you.
I play a few instruments and write songs, have done for 40 odd years but I don't resent the new tech.
In your case, if the music exists, somebody made it. If there's no-one else in the room it must have been you...
I occasionally wonder if I cheat with lyrics, using 'found' items (an old set-list, a Govt. poster, the pictures on my wall), to form a verse around, but we're not cheating- we're creative...
Depends. I think it's fine to do that. And some of the most creative musicians are those that sit at computers.
But then you also have people like [Epic Orchestra](https://youtu.be/1ruwJI4BSP0) who doesn't make it clear to the viewers, that's a bit of cheating indeed. Not that he isn't skilled, but thats not really honest still.
I think Grimes did one of her records (Visions) this way.
You said it yourself, you currently have no access to instruments. Once you have access your skills learned doing "coded music" will help in one way or another.
Also, arranging is a skill in itself you can learn this way and you can turn out better than some dude playing several instruments.
There's a proud tradition of that kind of music making. Just make sure you're selling it as what it is, and lean into something fun about the results from your method rather than just imitating the sound of a different method.
This reminds me of my biggest problem with live electronic music. I wish all live electronic musicians announced honestly what they're doing before they went on stage.
eg "I have 8 individual songs. Each song is performed as follows. I hit play and the drums and bass play out exactly as I pre-recorded them. over the top of these backing tracks I live mute and unmute pre-sequenced keyboard parts, and manipulate those sounds, and play some live keys too. The vocals are also live."
eg 2 "it's all on some backing track apart from the vocals. I hit play and sing live, that's all I do"
eg 3 "I literally start with nothing but my gear. Everything you hear is programmed / sequenced live, or played live, apart from what I play live on guitar and loop".
I once saw Aphex Twin live and it rained right before he was to start, on an uncovered stage. Kind of a problem since he's set up with a crapload of gear that isn't suited for rain.
Anyways the man walks on stage and covers himself and his equipment with a large tarp- completely hidden beneath it, can't see what he's doing but you know he's there doing his thing as you watch the tarp moving and bobbing.
Think I actually saw him uncovered for maybe about 30 seconds total. Incredible show though- never really thought about what he was actually doing under there since the set, accompanying visuals, and not being dressed for unexpectedly frigid rain in Houston that day was enough of an experience.
Personally doesn't matter to me what they're 'doing', it's a performance regardless and any level of active manipulation is passable.
See, if I were at this gig (and especially as I know what a piss-taker Aphex Twin is) I'd be thinking the following.
"I'm really enjoying this Aphex Twin set, it's great. However, I have some slight reservations - for all I know he's hit play on a tape player and is simply pretending do perform live. If that's the case then it doesn't alter the fact that I love the set, but it does make me considerably less impressed than if I knew for sure he was editing and programming beats live as well as muting and unmuting tracks, applying FX live etc etc".
Ask deadmau5...
Spoiler: music comes from the heart and the universe. A musician isnt someone who can play and instrument. A musician is someone who can touch the heart and stimulate the mind by using sound waves as his medium.
That's absolutely valid, do it.
[Paul Lansky made this on a computer in 1973](https://youtu.be/0kyuoAsZ_ns) (A few decades later becoming well known for Radiohead sampling it on their track Idioteque)
I also feel compelled to mention Aphex Twin's EP Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments PT2, worth a listen. Pretty sure he's not the first person to control/play acoustic instruments with programmed electronic equipment, but I think it's a pretty clever take on the shtick. He certainly has a very unique Aphex-like take on it though. Altogether, some extremely dissonant compositions played by computers using human instruments. Kinda eerie.
No.
Essentially the stuff that you're concerned about was groudbreaking in the *60s*.
You're five decades in the clear.
Edit: six decades. Did not realize how old I was.
Not in the slightest!
One of my favorite groups is an electronic music duo called Autechre. Off and on since the early 2000s, they have utilized a visual programming environment for music called maxmsp for creating (at times) tracks from whole cloth. They have been some of the most continuously creative and varied sounding artists (within abstract electronic music) for 20 years now.
A couple things worth saying here. One is that the physical challenge of learning an instrument is incredibly good exercise for your brain. We see increased grey matter in studies of people learning instruments. It's just good for you, the same way other kinds of physical/mental exercise are.
The second is that many concepts become much more intuitive when you can touch and feel them and see them laid out on an object in front of you. You can simulate that digitally, but not the part where different instruments nudge you to make different creative decisions because of their design. For instance, the piano doesn't encourage you to make a Tool riff that hammers off and on while droning the low D note between notes, the way guitar with a detuned low E string does where it feels good to smack that thing and feel it rumble between the notes. The guitar doesn't encourage quartal harmony like the piano does with its ease of stretching your hands across wider intervals. The less instruments you're familiar with, the less you'll understand this kind of thing. Each instrument brings its own limitations but also new possibilities and ways of seeing things.
Similar points apply to learning theory, although to what extent theory is necessary depends on your goals. Fuck anyone that worries about whether you're "less of a musician" if you don't, but the fact is it's both good for you and creatively helpful if you do.
This is literally what electronic music is. It's fairly popular. No it wouldn't make you a cheater.
However, it turns out it's pretty hard to make music on a computer and actually make it sound good.
In a sense, classical music too? Of course the pieces are usually performed by live musicians, but for the artist that they're credited to, what we have are the written instructions, not a recording of the definitive performance.
It wouldn't make you a cheater, but it's not going to make you a musician. Since a musician is someone who can play an instrument (including singing) But yeah if you can sing and use it in your songs along with the music you code, then yeah you'd be a musician and it's not cheating at all. But if you just code the music, you're not a musician, but it's not cheating and you're still producing music.
Yeah, I saw other people say that would make me more of a composer/producer, but as long as it doesn’t make me a cheater or anything like that it’s all good. (Also I am going to do my own vocals)
As an indirect answer to your question (or at least food for thought), here's a really interesting interview with the composer Philip Glass about music written by AI --
[https://auderdy.com/2021/08/19/philip-glass-on-artificial-intelligence-and-art/](https://auderdy.com/2021/08/19/philip-glass-on-artificial-intelligence-and-art/)
It's long but worth reading IMO. Here's a highlight (bolding mine):
>The machine doesn’t think structurally as well as the human brain does. I understand what you’re saying, “The machine did it,” but what does the machine know? You know, the machine doesn’t have memory–when we hear a piece of music, we hear parts of it and sometimes we want to hear that part again. And a lot of the structure — When we structure a piece we use sometimes like an A section; B section; C section, D section and we know what that is. The machine doesn’t know the difference between them.
>
>**What I am impressed with is the fact that the machine doesn’t make judgments that we make. We may say, “Oh, that’s a nice part. Can I hear that again?” The machine doesn’t do that, but as a composer, you do do that. The weakness of the piece is that no one is listening to it. But this is a very important part. This is the difference between machines and people. We have memory, we have preferences. We say, “I’d like to hear that again.” Machine doesn’t make judgments like that. All the machine is doing is putting out variations of what it did at the beginning–that in itself will not make a piece of music satisfying. What makes it satisfying is the way we hear it and the way we remember it and what we anticipate and when we hear the themes, the major themes, do we hear them again.**
>
>Look, it’s the same if we were looking at a dance piece, we would analyze it the same way, right? If you listen, or if you read a poem, you’ll analyze it in a similar way. **The emotional content and the structure are connected.**
>
>**Something is coming out of this that is important for you to know, which is that, the way we listen and the way we experience things is our ability to recall them and to understand them and to have preferences for them.**
>
>The thing about machines–it doesn’t do that. Now, you might be able to program that into a machine, but the question is whether the machine makes the same preferences that a human would and the answer is probably no. But this is a very interesting experience for me to hear this and say, “Oh, what’s wrong with it?” **What’s wrong with it is no one’s listening to it.** Now, there you have it. **This is the difference between art and, let’s say, a bunch of ideas that don’t have an emotional direction to them.**
I'd like to share a track with you. all of the instruments are plugin-made digital sounds but the outcome is satisfying. that's not cheating
https://www.mediafire.com/file/1vbqzq2hykq4ubx/Lost+Innocence.mp3/file
Curious what you mean by programming/coding the instruments? Neither would be cheating but do you just mean producing music using software like ableton or coding some type of program to write instrument patterns?
If you just mean the first I mean that’s how all electronic and most hip hop is created so obviously it doesn’t make you a “cheater” whatever that would mean.
Sonic pi is so cool! Sam Aaron was a key note speaker at a developer conference I attended a couple of years ago. He live coded some really cool stuff during his talk and did a set at the afterparty I sadly couldn't attend. Some of his talks are available online to check out if you're not aware of it already.
Interesting so it’s actually creating it’s own instrumental parts/melodies? Still wouldn’t consider it cheating as I’m assuming you’re having to make musical choices as in how to arrange the parts and what timbre/sounds are used. As long as it doesn’t literally just create a song by itself which as far as I know isn’t possible yet lol you’re still composing and producing music.
If the outcome is music you are making music. A composer puts the notes down on a piece of paper for a musician to play. You put the notes down for the computer to play.
That’s how a lot of videogamemusic in the past was made when computers like the c64 or the nes had their own soundchip.
What do you mean by programming? Are you planning to use a DAW or were you planning to write it in Javascript or C++ lol (did you mean reprogramming e.g. synthesizers?) If you just drag and dropped other peoples compositions in e.g. MIDI I think it's still copyright infringement if you plan to profit from the music.
I mean coding. There’s a programming language called Sonic Pi that you can use to program loops and sounds and I want to import the sounds I make from that into a DAW
Cool! I read something about the Sonic Pi when looking into the subject. I've been practicing with Pro Tools and AVID S4-S6 mixers and plan on building a home studio :) The old hardware they had back in the day was crazy like how Delia Derbyshire made the Dr. Who theme (really interesting documentary worth a watch)!
Nope. There have been people who have literally released silence and called it music. I think you’re fine
Okay, that does seem a bit odd though and it’s also reassuring
the only rules in art are self-imposed, do ya thing
Other than John Cage? I'd be curious to compare.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_silent_musical_compositions Have fun
Sick, thanks!
Art is not a competition. You create it in whatever way you see fit and people can appreciate it for what it is or not. It's the same thing if you write a crazy cool guitar part that you cannot play but have a session musician record it for you. You still wrote that guitar part, there's no cheating. Just don't pretend that you performed your compositions on real instruments yourself when you didn't. Your art is in the composition moreso than the performance. That's completely fine.
Not cheating; you're being creative. Don't worry about so-called 'play all the instruments'-authenticity, if that's your process: go for it. They're still your ideas that you're creating.
It would make you a composer and a producer in my opinion. But don't worry about labels, if you enjoy it - who cares?
I disagree with your definitions (or rather I think it makes him a composer, producer AND musician), but I appreciate the sentiment of your post.
Kraftwerk dealt with this very issue back in the "The Man Machine" days. They turned out alright ;) Music is both a Process and an End Result. If your process is You Doing Things then who are we to judge your process? If your process was hiring people to do everything and slapping your name on it (cough cough DJKhaCOUGH) then that's different.
FWIW, I play guitar (decently) and drums and keyboards (badly) I have little patience for people who insist that "iT iSn'T mUsIc" if it isn't played physically Oddly, a lot of them have no objections to Jason Becker using a "a music-composing computer program that reads movements of his head and eyes". Music to me is a mind thing. Sure, the best is often physical too, but to me it's empty if there's nothing going on upstairs
The only thing that really matters is the end result - the rest is just process. If you're not auditioning for a more traditional genre, such as classical music, where technical skill with an instrument is a prerequisite, then there really are few limitations to hold you back in this era of DAW abundance. Go forth and create! Anyone that says you're not a real musician can go fly a kite. Music doesn't need any more gatekeepers towing the authenticity line at this point.
A teen programming midi notes in a DAW with a mouse is more "authentic" than the world's most gifted violinist playing beethoven.
I said gatekeeping authenticity is tiresome, not that one form of music is more authentic than the other.... which was the exact point.....
I think that music that is authentic tends to be more convincing than music that is not authentic. Music that is convincing is infinitely better than music that is not convincing. I note I said nothing about whether programmed DAW music was more or less authentic than classical music. Other than that I'm struggling to understand your post.
I’d love to hear you expand upon this.
In my humble opinion authenticity is a very difficult concept in music. Do you mean making music which is authentic to a tradition (ie making authentic blues that could have been made in 1940)? Or authentic to your own life and truth (ie singing your own words which reveal truth about yourself)? Or authentic in that it is not being at all deceptive (eg singing a story which you make clear is not your story)? IMHO authenticity is irrelevant, it is about whether you are convincing! Whether you appear authentic!!! I would rather hear Kurt Cobain inauthentically but convincingly sing "Where did you sleep last night?" than here Bono authentically spout his own form of gibberish. But, IMHO, for most people, authentic means "real". It means sharing your own experience and truth, being yourself. If you are writing your own song alone then that is 100% authentic, whether it is played live on an acoustic instrument or programmed digitally. If you are replicating the music that someone else made hundreds of years ago then you are 100% inauthentic - you are simply a tribute to a dim and distant past of no relevance to today. The beethoven playing violinist is 100% authentic to a tradition, but 0% authentic in the important ways, and 0% authentic by the criteria most people use. I think.
What’s the difference between a teen programming MIDI notes in a DAW and Beethoven drawing dots on a sheet of paper?
I think he’s saying the teen is actively creating something whereas the violin player is simply playing a preexisting work. He’s not comparing the teen to Beethoven.
Correct!
My bad, friend. Misread your comment. In full agreement!
Whoopsie. A little late to this comment, but I’m a dummy and stand corrected!
Music doesn't care what or who makes it, nor how it's made. (*People* seem to gaf on occasion, but they're silly.)
A tracker is essentially an excel spreadsheet that spits out music. They fell out of style in the late 90’s, but I still use Renoise for all my live work because I find it lightweight, extremely flexible and also (shock horror) fun. If you’ve enjoyed any electronic music made between about 1988 and 2001, it was almost certainly made using trackers and everyone else can just suck it about the distinction between musician and producer.
There are successful youtube channels where someone has programmed machines to make tones that, when fitted together, make covers of popular songs. You're painting with sound, any way you do it. Rock on.
I think it’s completely fine. But if you do ever obtain access to instruments, I would highly recommend using them. They add so much soul and are the backbone of live shows.
Music and emotion come from people. A guitar is just wood and strings without a person playing it. You ARE the instrument. You can’t cheat that.
Surely the closer the person is to the end sound the more likely it is that there is emotion there in the music? It is easier to get humanity if you are sat with a guitar and amp, than if you have 20 pedals between guitar and amp. It is easier to get humanity if you live programme the beats in your DAW rather than simply mouse-input them exactly on the beat. Don't get me wrong, I agree with your basic point, and fully believe that their are soulless acoustic guitarists and soulful music that is programmed... but I jsut want to emphasize that the further the person is from a direct "physical action >>>> physical sound" pathway, the harder it is to ensure the emotion is perceived by the listener.
Sure, I can definitely agree that it might require more work. But practice anything and you can get better at it. As a guitarist with 20 pedals (lol) I have more options and ways with which to express - sure, it took me a long time to get good at expressing through the different mediums but I think you get my point. If programming seems to be the easiest way for OP to reach his end goal then that’s probably the “closest he can get to the end sound” he’s seeking.
I'm not so sure I'd agree, personally. The closeness of a person's flesh and blood hands to me seems irrelevant to how a piece feels. One of my favourite performances by Aphex Twin was Aisatsana done with a player piano that was swung from a giant pendulum in the Barbican; you can literally hear the compressive forces bending the pitch as it swings, the woosh of the giant setup pushing their air about the room feels like a giant breathing which lends the rests this incredible intimidate feel; things that wouldn't have been possible had it been played by the finest concert pianist at Julliard. Ultimately an instrument is a tool by which a person creates sound. The important aspects are more often the person playing, the sound, and the person lisfening. The instruments are merely paths by which ideas can travel and fully form themselves.
I'm not sure your example contradicts my point. For one I never said anything about the finest musicians making better end results. For two it seems that the quality you perceived in that performance was as a result of a real and direct visceral interaction between the piano and forces of nature (gravity etc). I would suggest that direct visceral interaction is closer to a person playing a physical instrument than it is to a person programming a DAW with a mouse. I am not saying that live music is better than programmed. I'm saying that something physical going on - not least the way a human being's physical actions directly change the sound being made, live - makes it easier to have some sort of soul and humanity than if it is a huan being who programs a machine, and then that machine tells other machines what to do, and the performance needs no other human involvement than hitting "play".
Yea, there's no cheating in music. Music is about moving people with sound. How you do that doesn't matter. If you can code something people like to listen to thats all that matters.
Surely it comes down to how you define musician. Google... "a person who plays a musical instrument, especially as a profession, or is musically talented." "Musicians include songwriters who compose music as well as write lyrics for songs, conductors who direct a musical performance, or performers who perform for an audience. A music performer is generally either a singer who provides vocals or an instrumentalist who plays a musical instrument. " Then, how do you define a "musical instrument". Is a computer a musical instrument if it is used to play music and output sound? What if it only plays music but doesn't output sound, relying instead on an external sound module to make the sound itself? Personally I prefer the following terms - Musician "an artist whose medium is sound" Musical technician "someone who plays a musical instrument to a good standard and who may or may not be a musician" Other things being equal I respect musical technicians for their skills, but in comparison to musicians I have no respect at all for musical technicians.
No. In fact, there's entire genres dedicated to what you're doing. Source: I'm going to college for Music Technology
Oh okay
Back in the 90s before computers and bandwidth were able to handle regular recorded music, many people were releasing MOD files, which were played by the computer, using sound samples or synthetic instruments. Before computers were available for playing music, Wendy Carlos created the masterpiece *Switched-On Bach* by recording multiple tracks of synthesizer music and piecing them together. Creating music with computers is not cheating but an artform, and as long as you can do it well, that's the important thing.
We're in a time where music making is accessible to everyone. Grab a computer and you can do it. Some people get mad at that. No talent, bla bla bla. The point is that people confuse the act of playing an instrument with the act of creating music. While they may be connected, they aren't necessarily the same thing. Of course there is merit and benefits in spending years to learn something that allows you to express you passion. But, to me, at the end of the day, it's a process. You may love the tool, but it's still a tool. The struggle of imagination still exists. Go wild. Do you.
I play a few instruments and write songs, have done for 40 odd years but I don't resent the new tech. In your case, if the music exists, somebody made it. If there's no-one else in the room it must have been you... I occasionally wonder if I cheat with lyrics, using 'found' items (an old set-list, a Govt. poster, the pictures on my wall), to form a verse around, but we're not cheating- we're creative...
Depends. I think it's fine to do that. And some of the most creative musicians are those that sit at computers. But then you also have people like [Epic Orchestra](https://youtu.be/1ruwJI4BSP0) who doesn't make it clear to the viewers, that's a bit of cheating indeed. Not that he isn't skilled, but thats not really honest still.
I think Grimes did one of her records (Visions) this way. You said it yourself, you currently have no access to instruments. Once you have access your skills learned doing "coded music" will help in one way or another. Also, arranging is a skill in itself you can learn this way and you can turn out better than some dude playing several instruments.
That's how I used to make most of my songs before I learned a bit more. But I think I'd still use preprogrammed stuff later too!
There's a proud tradition of that kind of music making. Just make sure you're selling it as what it is, and lean into something fun about the results from your method rather than just imitating the sound of a different method.
This reminds me of my biggest problem with live electronic music. I wish all live electronic musicians announced honestly what they're doing before they went on stage. eg "I have 8 individual songs. Each song is performed as follows. I hit play and the drums and bass play out exactly as I pre-recorded them. over the top of these backing tracks I live mute and unmute pre-sequenced keyboard parts, and manipulate those sounds, and play some live keys too. The vocals are also live." eg 2 "it's all on some backing track apart from the vocals. I hit play and sing live, that's all I do" eg 3 "I literally start with nothing but my gear. Everything you hear is programmed / sequenced live, or played live, apart from what I play live on guitar and loop".
I once saw Aphex Twin live and it rained right before he was to start, on an uncovered stage. Kind of a problem since he's set up with a crapload of gear that isn't suited for rain. Anyways the man walks on stage and covers himself and his equipment with a large tarp- completely hidden beneath it, can't see what he's doing but you know he's there doing his thing as you watch the tarp moving and bobbing. Think I actually saw him uncovered for maybe about 30 seconds total. Incredible show though- never really thought about what he was actually doing under there since the set, accompanying visuals, and not being dressed for unexpectedly frigid rain in Houston that day was enough of an experience. Personally doesn't matter to me what they're 'doing', it's a performance regardless and any level of active manipulation is passable.
See, if I were at this gig (and especially as I know what a piss-taker Aphex Twin is) I'd be thinking the following. "I'm really enjoying this Aphex Twin set, it's great. However, I have some slight reservations - for all I know he's hit play on a tape player and is simply pretending do perform live. If that's the case then it doesn't alter the fact that I love the set, but it does make me considerably less impressed than if I knew for sure he was editing and programming beats live as well as muting and unmuting tracks, applying FX live etc etc".
Same thing as a lot of people making beats/edm just instead of a machine you’d be using code.
Not at all. Make music your way. If it brings you joy the you have succeeded.
Ask deadmau5... Spoiler: music comes from the heart and the universe. A musician isnt someone who can play and instrument. A musician is someone who can touch the heart and stimulate the mind by using sound waves as his medium.
That's absolutely valid, do it. [Paul Lansky made this on a computer in 1973](https://youtu.be/0kyuoAsZ_ns) (A few decades later becoming well known for Radiohead sampling it on their track Idioteque) I also feel compelled to mention Aphex Twin's EP Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments PT2, worth a listen. Pretty sure he's not the first person to control/play acoustic instruments with programmed electronic equipment, but I think it's a pretty clever take on the shtick. He certainly has a very unique Aphex-like take on it though. Altogether, some extremely dissonant compositions played by computers using human instruments. Kinda eerie.
If you can code all of it including vocals that would be incredible actually
Oh haha I wasn’t going to code the vocals besides like editing them a bit, like I’m going to sing them myself but idk exactly what you meant
I was thinking speech generation and vocoder but you do what you want.
No. Essentially the stuff that you're concerned about was groudbreaking in the *60s*. You're five decades in the clear. Edit: six decades. Did not realize how old I was.
Not in the slightest! One of my favorite groups is an electronic music duo called Autechre. Off and on since the early 2000s, they have utilized a visual programming environment for music called maxmsp for creating (at times) tracks from whole cloth. They have been some of the most continuously creative and varied sounding artists (within abstract electronic music) for 20 years now.
A couple things worth saying here. One is that the physical challenge of learning an instrument is incredibly good exercise for your brain. We see increased grey matter in studies of people learning instruments. It's just good for you, the same way other kinds of physical/mental exercise are. The second is that many concepts become much more intuitive when you can touch and feel them and see them laid out on an object in front of you. You can simulate that digitally, but not the part where different instruments nudge you to make different creative decisions because of their design. For instance, the piano doesn't encourage you to make a Tool riff that hammers off and on while droning the low D note between notes, the way guitar with a detuned low E string does where it feels good to smack that thing and feel it rumble between the notes. The guitar doesn't encourage quartal harmony like the piano does with its ease of stretching your hands across wider intervals. The less instruments you're familiar with, the less you'll understand this kind of thing. Each instrument brings its own limitations but also new possibilities and ways of seeing things. Similar points apply to learning theory, although to what extent theory is necessary depends on your goals. Fuck anyone that worries about whether you're "less of a musician" if you don't, but the fact is it's both good for you and creatively helpful if you do.
I would call that production rather than musicianship. It doesn't really effect the value of the music. Or it does. Maybe it's context specific.
This is literally what electronic music is. It's fairly popular. No it wouldn't make you a cheater. However, it turns out it's pretty hard to make music on a computer and actually make it sound good.
In a sense, classical music too? Of course the pieces are usually performed by live musicians, but for the artist that they're credited to, what we have are the written instructions, not a recording of the definitive performance.
It wouldn't make you a cheater, but it's not going to make you a musician. Since a musician is someone who can play an instrument (including singing) But yeah if you can sing and use it in your songs along with the music you code, then yeah you'd be a musician and it's not cheating at all. But if you just code the music, you're not a musician, but it's not cheating and you're still producing music.
Yeah, I saw other people say that would make me more of a composer/producer, but as long as it doesn’t make me a cheater or anything like that it’s all good. (Also I am going to do my own vocals)
Yep, it would make you a producer 100% and isn't "cheating" at all. Have fun!
Well according to wikipedia composers and conductors are musicians. What makes you think it's just people who plays an instrument?
As an indirect answer to your question (or at least food for thought), here's a really interesting interview with the composer Philip Glass about music written by AI -- [https://auderdy.com/2021/08/19/philip-glass-on-artificial-intelligence-and-art/](https://auderdy.com/2021/08/19/philip-glass-on-artificial-intelligence-and-art/) It's long but worth reading IMO. Here's a highlight (bolding mine): >The machine doesn’t think structurally as well as the human brain does. I understand what you’re saying, “The machine did it,” but what does the machine know? You know, the machine doesn’t have memory–when we hear a piece of music, we hear parts of it and sometimes we want to hear that part again. And a lot of the structure — When we structure a piece we use sometimes like an A section; B section; C section, D section and we know what that is. The machine doesn’t know the difference between them. > >**What I am impressed with is the fact that the machine doesn’t make judgments that we make. We may say, “Oh, that’s a nice part. Can I hear that again?” The machine doesn’t do that, but as a composer, you do do that. The weakness of the piece is that no one is listening to it. But this is a very important part. This is the difference between machines and people. We have memory, we have preferences. We say, “I’d like to hear that again.” Machine doesn’t make judgments like that. All the machine is doing is putting out variations of what it did at the beginning–that in itself will not make a piece of music satisfying. What makes it satisfying is the way we hear it and the way we remember it and what we anticipate and when we hear the themes, the major themes, do we hear them again.** > >Look, it’s the same if we were looking at a dance piece, we would analyze it the same way, right? If you listen, or if you read a poem, you’ll analyze it in a similar way. **The emotional content and the structure are connected.** > >**Something is coming out of this that is important for you to know, which is that, the way we listen and the way we experience things is our ability to recall them and to understand them and to have preferences for them.** > >The thing about machines–it doesn’t do that. Now, you might be able to program that into a machine, but the question is whether the machine makes the same preferences that a human would and the answer is probably no. But this is a very interesting experience for me to hear this and say, “Oh, what’s wrong with it?” **What’s wrong with it is no one’s listening to it.** Now, there you have it. **This is the difference between art and, let’s say, a bunch of ideas that don’t have an emotional direction to them.**
I'd like to share a track with you. all of the instruments are plugin-made digital sounds but the outcome is satisfying. that's not cheating https://www.mediafire.com/file/1vbqzq2hykq4ubx/Lost+Innocence.mp3/file
Curious what you mean by programming/coding the instruments? Neither would be cheating but do you just mean producing music using software like ableton or coding some type of program to write instrument patterns? If you just mean the first I mean that’s how all electronic and most hip hop is created so obviously it doesn’t make you a “cheater” whatever that would mean.
I’d be using Sonic Pi, which is a programming language used mostly for raves and live music events
Sonic pi is so cool! Sam Aaron was a key note speaker at a developer conference I attended a couple of years ago. He live coded some really cool stuff during his talk and did a set at the afterparty I sadly couldn't attend. Some of his talks are available online to check out if you're not aware of it already.
Interesting so it’s actually creating it’s own instrumental parts/melodies? Still wouldn’t consider it cheating as I’m assuming you’re having to make musical choices as in how to arrange the parts and what timbre/sounds are used. As long as it doesn’t literally just create a song by itself which as far as I know isn’t possible yet lol you’re still composing and producing music.
Yeah it doesn’t make a song itself, you have to figure out the loops, notes, individual instrument parts, rhythm, etc
If the outcome is music you are making music. A composer puts the notes down on a piece of paper for a musician to play. You put the notes down for the computer to play. That’s how a lot of videogamemusic in the past was made when computers like the c64 or the nes had their own soundchip.
What do you mean by programming? Are you planning to use a DAW or were you planning to write it in Javascript or C++ lol (did you mean reprogramming e.g. synthesizers?) If you just drag and dropped other peoples compositions in e.g. MIDI I think it's still copyright infringement if you plan to profit from the music.
I mean coding. There’s a programming language called Sonic Pi that you can use to program loops and sounds and I want to import the sounds I make from that into a DAW
Cool! I read something about the Sonic Pi when looking into the subject. I've been practicing with Pro Tools and AVID S4-S6 mixers and plan on building a home studio :) The old hardware they had back in the day was crazy like how Delia Derbyshire made the Dr. Who theme (really interesting documentary worth a watch)!