Break Music rant
From Azuwiki
Pardon the following article - it's the result of a bit of pent up frustration. If you think yourself sufficiently strong of will, then by all means, continue.
Contents |
[edit] Why You Should Care
In all honesty, you shouldn't. This is merely my observation, whch you may find rather boring.
[edit] So what's the problem?
Assumptions. Allow me to define what I think of music -
Music is something that transcends normal classification. It is the the art of putting together melodic sounds into one complete work, no matter where these individual sounds have come from, be it from a guitar, a keyboard, a computer, or a pilfered goat. By virtue of the medium used to create music, whatever "necessary" classification used to separate music into its respective genres come from the way it sounds - the musical structure, the overall feeling.
Some insist on classifying music based on the instruments used, as if Pachelbel's Canon played on an electric guitar causes it to still be rock. Often, the definition based on instruments and the definition based upon sound tend to overlap, but with the invention of such musical tools as the synthesizer, this line becomes blurred, and in my opinion, without point.
I care not whether my favorite songs were computer-generated or played live, so why should that even affect the genre to begin with? Can I not say "this song is rock" without first asking "what's used to play this song?" I need not know the exact equipment used down to every last wiring to know what genre a song is. We simply toss a song into the already-loosely defined genre, and be done with it, no further knowledge necessary. If anything, genre is defined by musical structure and sound.
However, this is not the focus of my rant. The meat of my anger is directed at...
[edit] ...the Concept of "Soul"
I've heard this term thrown about mostly by proponents of rock music....and quite frankly, I find such a concept ridiculous. What "soul" is left in an initially lifeless instrument? I've heard claims that "rock" has soul, yet it's only able to move me as much as any other form of music. Clearly it's not in the instrument. It's in the person playing it, as that same soul tends to animate through an artist or group's better works. So....why does one insist that a genre have something like "soul"?
My answer....it doesn't.
It's a half-assed excuse to justify rock or another genre with "soul" as a better form of music that tends against live performance, such as most forms of electronica. It's a reason to go against my tools of choice, and my sounds of choice. An electric instrument that is strummed by a musician has soul, and yet a key struck on a synthesizer by that same musician lacks any spirit...
If anything, the soul of music is within the performer, and not within the instruments or genre of music. Soul carries itself through all genres, and not just the ones one likes. Music is fundamentally the same in the end - melodic sound - so how does it make sense that one genre has "soul" while another does not?
I have frequently told that I have no passion for my work, and that it takes skill to be a guitarist/violinist/drummer/live performer, as if sequencing, mastering, and constructing music from its bare bones with the aid of a computer is something that any fool can do. I could never quite find out why the insistence on "genre elitism" exists. If someone can tell me - perhaps something outside of the realm of rock as an established genre - then please, let me know.
It's all sound in the end.
[edit] A Final Word
I won't talk any longer. I'll just leave you, the reader, with these words. Food for though, if you will...I hope it will do well to dispel the ignorance regarding instruments, genres, and making music in general. It's not completely within the soul of the musician, but we must never forget...
"I, Squarepusher, hold the view that the influence of the structural aspect of music making is in general underestimated. By structural aspect, I refer to the machinery of music making eg: acoustic and electric instruments, computers, electronic processing devices etc. Use of a musical machine is obviously accompanied by some level of insight into its construction, operation and capabilities. It is common for a musician to have an awareness of harmonic and stylistic rules which may be observed or otherwise. It seems less common to be critically aware of the structural limitations. This structural limitation is inevitable; an analogy might be to try to talk without the use of a mouth.
This point has a particular pertinence in our present era where so many pre- fabricated electronic devices populate the landscape of contemporary music making. These devices generate ouput according to input combined with mathematically defined rules of transformation, implemented electronically. These rules thus have a direct effect on any musical activity mediated by a given machine. Of course, this is why the machine is employed - to modify sound, generate sound etc. Yet this triviality seems somewhat more significant if one considers that the manufacturers of electronic instruments are thus having a considerable influence on modern music. Indirectly, software programmers and hardware designers are taking part.
A naive notion of creativity seems compromised if we consider that a given musical piece was at least partially dictated by the tools of its realisation. Although I emphasise that never can a musician escape the use of some sort of musical tool, there is nevertheless a choice which is always made, unwittingly or otherwise. We can choose whether to understand what rules the tool imposes on our work, or we can disregard them and leave the manufacturers as "sleeping partners".
I suggest we can enhance creative potential by a critical awareness of the modes of operation of these tools. Thus, I urge an unmasking of these black boxes of the contemporary musical landscape. Circuit bending can be one way - analysing and modifying electronic circuitry. Another is to understand the ways in which musical data is encoded and modified by currently ubiquitous digital means. In addition, various software platforms now exist which, with varying levels of flexibilty, allow users to generate their own instruments.
The modern musician is subject to a barrage of persuasion from manufacturers of music technology. The general implication is that buying new tools leads to being able to make new and exciting music. While it is true that certain degrees of freedom are added by new equipment, it is not the case that this entails wholesale musical innovation. What seems more likely is that new clichés are generated by users unanalytically being forced into certain actions by the achitecture of the machine. For me it is parallel, if not synonymous with a dogmatic consumer mentality that seems to hold that our lives are always improved by possessions.
Imagine the conception of structural rules to do with electric guitars before and after Jimi Hendrix. An instrument is always open to re-definition. Thus I encourage anybody remotely interested in making music to boldly investigate exactly what the rules are to which you, as a modern musician, are subject. Only thus can you have a hope in bending and ultimately rewriting them." - Tom Jenkinson, alias Squrepusher (credit:Wikipedia)
