The Great Debate, when the Computer arrived....

[Skullhead]

Who are you to say I can't have an opinion?

Problem is, I end up having to listen to a lot of amateurish music... why? because the amateurs are not staying at home with their pleasures but instead are promoting themselves as if they were professionals all over the place, and someone trying to find quality music in the contemporary scene end up having to listen to 100's of sound files, youtube videos etc.. and it becomes quite draining, and often don't find what they are looking for... more like a needle in a haystack.

I suppose things were better when you had quality A and R people doing the sifting for you. A lot of record labels had good reputations even before computers arrived. Now we have the same issue with record labels, as there are now 1000's of them because of the internet with the ease of digital distribution.

I have to question the new way of doing things, if not only because of the overall watered down product being released almost hourly.

If one were to try to find music that sounded like a band all playing together in real time recorded nicely in a proper space who sounded like they were working together as a band with good musical skills and listening to one another...and not just making music from their bedroom grabbing samples off of pre packaged software pretending to be something they are not.. then how do you find that?

You end up listening to hundreds of hours of amateurish music, and it feels like it's wasting your time.

So while it is easy to say, you don't have to listen to it.. well, that isn't really a true statement.

[trurl]

Who are you to say I can't have an opinion?

Quote where I ever said that.

[Skullhead]

Steve Howe pretty much sums up the problem with technology in this 1 minute clip

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/5019086

[Rarebird]

It would be interesting to know... was Conlon the first person known person to compose specifically for a machine?? It's the first instance I can think of, although there may be compositions for music box predating that. Conlon was almost certainly the first to do it based on the notion of his music being humanly unplayable. Music box pieces would just be for the sound of the instrument. I don't know if music was ever written expressly for music box.

I think Mozart wrote for music box.

[Rarebird]

Who are you to say I can't have an opinion?

Problem is, I end up having to listen to a lot of amateurish music... why? because the amateurs are not staying at home with their pleasures but instead are promoting themselves as if they were professionals all over the place, and someone trying to find quality music in the contemporary scene end up having to listen to 100's of sound files, youtube videos etc.. and it becomes quite draining, and often don't find what they are looking for... more like a needle in a haystack.

I suppose things were better when you had quality A and R people doing the sifting for you. A lot of record labels had good reputations even before computers arrived. Now we have the same issue with record labels, as there are now 1000's of them because of the internet with the ease of digital distribution.

I have to question the new way of doing things, if not only because of the overall watered down product being released almost hourly.

If one were to try to find music that sounded like a band all playing together in real time recorded nicely in a proper space who sounded like they were working together as a band with good musical skills and listening to one another...and not just making music from their bedroom grabbing samples off of pre packaged software pretending to be something they are not.. then how do you find that?

You end up listening to hundreds of hours of amateurish music, and it feels like it's wasting your time.

So while it is easy to say, you don't have to listen to it.. well, that isn't really a true statement.

In a way you are correct, but I don't know if this has anything to do with computertechnology being used to create music, but it is more about internet making it possible to release music without the help of a recordlabel.

b.t.w. Once a friend of mine (who was a drummer) stated that a piece I created on the computer, sounded like there was a band playing.

[Plasmatopia]

Steve Howe pretty much sums up the problem with technology in this 1 minute clip

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/5019086

Does a guitar, by itself, "allow personality" to "dominate" it? No, of course not. One has to learn to play it. The same is true of any technology. It may be more difficult for personality to come through on a particular piece of technology, but I don't think the technology we're discussing here specifically disallows that expression.

[Skullhead]

Does a guitar, by itself, "allow personality" to "dominate" it? No, of course not. One has to learn to play it. The same is true of any technology. It may be more difficult for personality to come through on a particular piece of technology, but I don't think the technology we're discussing here specifically disallows that expression.

In all due respect, I don't think you are interpreting what Steve Howe was getting at.. but fair enough. It was very clear to me.

[Skullhead]

In a way you are correct, but I don't know if this has anything to do with computertechnology being used to create music, but it is more about internet making it possible to release music without the help of a recordlabel.

b.t.w. Once a friend of mine (who was a drummer) stated that a piece I created on the computer, sounded like there was a band playing.

I suppose the point being more that a person can "create" something that sounds like music, and then actually start to think that they are a musician without having had to properly learn an instrument. Anyone can learn to program a drum machine in about an hour or less. To learn to play even a basic 4/4 beat in good meter on an actual kit could take months. The technology often trivializes the efforts of others...

If you use any samples of instruments, you are pretending essentially. Pretending or being pretentious.

I might guess this is why a lot of the younger musicians are just sticking to jazz these days because it offers a form of music that is much more grounded in traditional musical expression that has a strong history to back it up.

[MJ-Plagued]

Yeah, why not? You don't have to listen to it. Who are you to say they should be able to make music. And they always have. Nothing has changed apart from the fact that they now have tools that might actually help them improve their craft and put it out there for people to hear. No one is holding a gun to anyone's head to make anyone actually consume the stuff. And it's quite possibly the "amateurs" that are going to make the most interesting and unusual music anyway. What's the definition of amateur? Are Thinking Plague making a living from touring? Do they have day jobs? Are they doing music primarily for the fun of it? Is it good thing there is DAW software around so they can develop and record music?

I agree that the computer and DAW software, etc., has provided us musicians with incredible capabilities. But I disagree that "amateurs" are more likely to make the best music. You need only listen to a high quality recording of something like, say, Le Sacre du Printemps to know that those "professional" composers and players have done things that the best of us "amateurs" will never get near. And BTW, most professional symphony players have to teach and do other things to make ends meet. Personally, I think it a damned pity and a sign of a culturally shallow society. Why should only the most crass or vapid pop musicians be making biggest money? Why do *they* get to spend all their time and energy pursuing their crass and vapid so-called art? Why shouldn't there be "real" economic viability for expert musicians who write and play serious music?

[trurl]

I didn't say best, I said interesting and unusual. Basically, by not needing to support yourself with your art you are free to take risks. You can bemoan the commercial viability of Art in todays society all you want but it is what it is.

[rynnce]

So many more amateurs can create amateurish music.

If you avoid amateur stuff the you're missing a lot of great music, but hey, listen to what you want.

[rynnce]

Steve Howe pretty much sums up the problem with technology in this 1 minute clip

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/5019086

I like Steve Howe, much more with Yes than without. I would say that whatever 'alpha-rhythmes' he was pushing on some of his solo stuff didn't make it out of my speakers. I agree with him that technology can be a crutch, but I also know that many amateurs use it not by choice but out of necessity. Having ill-will towards those trying to create art of any kind because it inconveniences you could be interpreted as being selfish.

[Skullhead]

I agree that the computer and DAW software, etc., has provided us musicians with incredible capabilities. But I disagree that "amateurs" are more likely to make the best music. You need only listen to a high quality recording of something like, say, Le Sacre du Printemps to know that those "professional" composers and players have done things that the best of us "amateurs" will never get near. And BTW, most professional symphony players have to teach and do other things to make ends meet. Personally, I think it a damned pity and a sign of a culturally shallow society. Why should only the most crass or vapid pop musicians be making biggest money? Why do *they* get to spend all their time and energy pursuing their crass and vapid so-called art? Why shouldn't there be "real" economic viability for expert musicians who write and play serious music?

Amen, I could not agree more.

[Skullhead]

I like Steve Howe, much more with Yes than without. I would say that whatever 'alpha-rhythmes' he was pushing on some of his solo stuff didn't make it out of my speakers. I agree with him that technology can be a crutch, but I also know that many amateurs use it not by choice but out of necessity. Having ill-will towards those trying to create art of any kind because it inconveniences you could be interpreted as being selfish.

In the 70's you had very good A and R people. Professional A and R people. The ones that would seek out Progressive Rock bands did a very good job in my opinion. Many of the labels had a place for prog rock on their roster, and some of those bands were there biggest sellers.

I would tend to blame each and every individual that gave their money to crap bands, Disco, Punk and other garbage bands. But I also wonder if the great classic Prog bands held their ground and just kept making great organic prog... and didn't make "Love Beach" and "A" and "Giant for a Day" "Invisible Touch" etc. Of course they knew better, but caved for whatever reason.

The Prog artists are the ones that should stand up and say no to autotune, ProTools editing and other digital band aids. Show some integrity and dispel the nonsense .... Why? because prog artist should be real players who can get it done without that stuff.

But instead, the prog artists are embracing it, and conceding their advantage, just giving up really, and trying to impress beyond what they should be doing naturally.

I think the young jazz musicians today are the last of a dying breed. They can't just walk into the scene without working really hard, earning their stripes, and paying their dues... just like anything in life. Too many rock bands, prog bands etc just make a computer album and think they can throw it out into the world an impress everyone with their Protools editing skills. Well, maybe you, but not me.

Obviously computers are not going away any time soon. Bands will keep using them and so will prog artists. But they will never win over the general public because it just won't make the same impact of a wonderful organic live performance. Never will. So this leaves everyone posting their stuff on youtube, Sound Cloud and so on.. and cluttering up the world with mediocrity that will keep the really good stuff from getting it's chance to flourish as the genre once did.

This is just my opinion. It's not a popular one, only meant to be something to ponder for a few.

Other than that, I am just an old guy that thinks music was better before all this nonsense.

[MJ-Plagued]

I didn't say best, I said interesting and unusual. Basically, by not needing to support yourself with your art you are free to take risks. You can bemoan the commercial viability of Art in todays society all you want but it is what it is.

Blah blah blah....

[trurl]

Blah blah blah....

Well ok then.

[rynnce]

[QUOTE=Skullhead;375345
The Prog artists are the ones that should stand up and say no to autotune, ProTools editing and other digital band aids. Show some integrity and dispel the nonsense .... Why? because prog artist should be real players who can get it done without that stuff.

But instead, the prog artists are embracing it, and conceding their advantage, just giving up really, and trying to impress beyond what they should be doing naturally.

I think the young jazz musicians today are the last of a dying breed. They can't just walk into the scene without working really hard, earning their stripes, and paying their dues... just like anything in life. Too many rock bands, prog bands etc just make a computer album and think they can throw it out into the world an impress everyone with their Protools editing skills. Well, maybe you, but not me.
[/QUOTE]

Are you a recording musician? Do you know what a total pain in the ass it is to record/edit on tape? The "analog" recordings you use as a reference were the result of some whiz sound engineer spending hours piecing together sections of audio tape. All while a studio charged $$$/hour. Do you actually think Yes went in an layed down Close to the Edge live in one take?

[Skullhead]

Are you a recording musician? Do you know what a total pain in the ass it is to record/edit on tape? The "analog" recordings you use as a reference were the result of some whiz sound engineer spending hours piecing together sections of audio tape. All while a studio charged $$$/hour. Do you actually think Yes went in an layed down Close to the Edge live in one take?

If you are a good musician (s) then tape is much easier. Listen to "A Kind of Blue". One or two takes, pick the best one, mix it down in less than and hour. Send the tape to the pressing plant. Next project.

I always thought any band worth a crap sounds better live anyway. If I listen to Led Zeppelin I put on their live album.
It sounds like a band playing live.. go figure. The endless studio stuff is just pretending really. Fun and creative as it is, any band worth it's weight was a great live band. I just listened to Coltrane "Live at Birdland" and it just kills. All this taking 6 months to make a recording is just silly. It's certainly not necessary and probably one of the reasons prog died a torturous death. While I don't care for the low level of musicianship of most Punk bands, I respect their ability to keep it real in most cases.

YES, ELP, Gentle Giant, Tull, Crimson, all made great live albums. Deep Purple "Made in Japan" was them at their best, and Rainbow "On Stage" was Blackmore's career peak.

People noodling around in their bedrooms with computer software is about as far from a proper great band as you can get.

Prog today needs great live acts just killing it every night. Great players moving it around, working an audience into a spell and creating real fans not Fakebook fans. This whole "age of convenience" is not flooding the world with great music in the way it used to for those who haven't lowered their standards.

Just my opinion... not meaning to harm anyone's ego or anything. Take it or leave it.

[Rarebird]

And how good are all those synthplayers who use lots of sequencers, like Klaus Schulze, without all technical wizzardy?

[tormato]

If you are a good musician (s) then tape is much easier. Listen to "A Kind of Blue". One or two takes, pick the best one, mix it down in less than and hour. Send the tape to the pressing plant. Next project.

I always thought any band worth a crap sounds better live anyway. If I listen to Led Zeppelin I put on their live album.
It sounds like a band playing live.. go figure. The endless studio stuff is just pretending really. Fun and creative as it is, any band worth it's weight was a great live band. I just listened to Coltrane "Live at Birdland" and it just kills. All this taking 6 months to make a recording is just silly. It's certainly not necessary and probably one of the reasons prog died a torturous death. While I don't care for the low level of musicianship of most Punk bands, I respect their ability to keep it real in most cases.

YES, ELP, Gentle Giant, Tull, Crimson, all made great live albums. Deep Purple "Made in Japan" was them at their best, and Rainbow "On Stage" was Blackmore's career peak.

People noodling around in their bedrooms with computer software is about as far from a proper great band as you can get.

Prog today needs great live acts just killing it every night. Great players moving it around, working an audience into a spell and creating real fans not Fakebook fans. This whole "age of convenience" is not flooding the world with great music in the way it used to for those who haven't lowered their standards.

Just my opinion... not meaning to harm anyone's ego or anything. Take it or leave it.

I can go back to nearly every age of music over the last 100 or so years or so (I'm even before that) and you'll see the battle cries of the "old methods that were far superior" or "the musicianship just isn't there". Early Jazz musicians were painted as inferior to their classical counterparts, every era of rock music seems to get tagged with this, Bob Moog was told the synthesizer was the end of music, and the list goes on. If computer technology gives a person or a band the ability to record and publish music that 40 years ago would have never seen the light of day (good or bad people can decide). That's an awesome development that we should be celebrating, not regressing into the mindset of the curmudgeon and the "it was so much better back in my day" thinking.

There's a lot of great music out there these days, if your mind is actually open to listening...

[rynnce]

If you are a good musician (s) then tape is much easier. Listen to "A Kind of Blue". One or two takes, pick the best one, mix it down in less than and hour. Send the tape to the pressing plant. Next project.

I always thought any band worth a crap sounds better live anyway. If I listen to Led Zeppelin I put on their live album.
It sounds like a band playing live.. go figure. The endless studio stuff is just pretending really. Fun and creative as it is, any band worth it's weight was a great live band. I just listened to Coltrane "Live at Birdland" and it just kills. All this taking 6 months to make a recording is just silly. It's certainly not necessary and probably one of the reasons prog died a torturous death. While I don't care for the low level of musicianship of most Punk bands, I respect their ability to keep it real in most cases.

YES, ELP, Gentle Giant, Tull, Crimson, all made great live albums. Deep Purple "Made in Japan" was them at their best, and Rainbow "On Stage" was Blackmore's career peak.

People noodling around in their bedrooms with computer software is about as far from a proper great band as you can get.

Prog today needs great live acts just killing it every night. Great players moving it around, working an audience into a spell and creating real fans not Fakebook fans. This whole "age of convenience" is not flooding the world with great music in the way it used to for those who haven't lowered their standards.

Just my opinion... not meaning to harm anyone's ego or anything. Take it or leave it.

Well, actually no, tape is never easier. Ever. Even the best recording engineers don't mix down in an hour. It's likely that songs aren't even mixed (and mastered) at the same studio where the band recorded.

And Live recordings...many bands go into the studio and fix up lots of mistakes on live recordings. Raise the crowd noise, fix solos, ect. If I recall correctly Deep Purple's MIJ was the best performances from a few days worth of shows.

As far as 'killing it every night', all of the bands you listed did not do this. I've seen plenty of clips of those bands definitely NOT killing it Live.

I think you would really enjoy reading some of the stuff on Tapeop.com. Lots of interviews with bands and recording engineers discussing this very topic.

[Plasmatopia]

So the only valid path to artistic integrity is "prog bands killing it every night"?

Say goodbye to one of your favorite forms of music! That's just not viable in reality.

Apparently live albums are now obsolete anyway:

http://www.salon.com/2015/02/18/jam_..._but_obsolete/

[squ1ggle]

Prog today needs great live acts just killing it every night. Great players moving it around, working an audience into a spell and creating real fans not Fakebook fans. This whole "age of convenience" is not flooding the world with great music in the way it used to for those who haven't lowered their standards.

Just my opinion... not meaning to harm anyone's ego or anything. Take it or leave it.

... I'll do a deal with you

I'll assemble a live gigging 5 piece prog band from the 100's of amateur (but pretty darn talented I assure you) musicians on this site. We'll turn up and play at least 100 gis in a year long period for you. At the end of which, we'll even pop into an analogue recording studio and cut a disc for you .... old school. I guarantee you'll like the result ... your very own kick ass live prog band.

For your part, you have to agree to pay the musicians the equivalent of their day-job wages for the year, arrange all the gigs, the recording studio, the travel, the food, and the accomodation. We'll let you pocket all the ticket receipts and all the sales from the album. I guarantee you'll hate the result ... your very own loss-making record label.

I do empathise with your frustration, I really do. The thing is, time has moved on. That strange aberration which was the 70's popularisation of explorative rock music has long since gone. All that money which fuelled the *scene* has gone. The audience just isn't there. For those of us that are left, and still feel the need to 'do music', we just have to adapt to the realities of the now. To some extent, the technology allows us to do this and, as I commented earlier, even expands on the possibilities open to us. If this leaves you feeling hollow, unfulfilled, and dissatisfied with the music of today, then I do feel for you and share this to some extent.... but honestly, it's nothing compared to the frustration felt by those 100's of amateur musicians I refer to who spend the requisite >10,000 hours of practice to be in a position to write and play this challenging stuff, only for someone to say "yeah, but you're cheating aren't you".

I'm not meaning to have a go, I'm really not. It's just that there's two sides to this story, and it's not the technology that's to blame here, it's just the business realities.

Phil.

[Sputnik]

... I'll do a deal with you

I'll assemble a live gigging 5 piece prog band from the 100's of amateur (but pretty darn talented I assure you) musicians on this site. We'll turn up and play at least 100 gis in a year long period for you. At the end of which, we'll even pop into an analogue recording studio and cut a disc for you .... old school. I guarantee you'll like the result ... your very own kick ass live prog band.

For your part, you have to agree to pay the musicians the equivalent of their day-job wages for the year, arrange all the gigs, the recording studio, the travel, the food, and the accomodation. We'll let you pocket all the ticket receipts and all the sales from the album. I guarantee you'll hate the result ... your very own loss-making record label.

I do empathise with your frustration, I really do. The thing is, time has moved on. That strange aberration which was the 70's popularisation of explorative rock music has long since gone. All that money which fuelled the *scene* has gone. The audience just isn't there. For those of us that are left, and still feel the need to 'do music', we just have to adapt to the realities of the now. To some extent, the technology allows us to do this and, as I commented earlier, even expands on the possibilities open to us. If this leaves you feeling hollow, unfulfilled, and dissatisfied with the music of today, then I do feel for you and share this to some extent.... but honestly, it's nothing compared to the frustration felt by those 100's of amateur musicians I refer to who spend the requisite >10,000 hours of practice to be in a position to write and play this challenging stuff, only for someone to say "yeah, but you're cheating aren't you".

I'm not meaning to have a go, I'm really not. It's just that there's two sides to this story, and it's not the technology that's to blame here, it's just the business realities.

Phil.

Totally agreed. And I'm in if this actually happens and you need a bass player.

Bill

[100423]

Totally agreed. And I'm in if this actually happens and you need a bass player.

Bill

That was my first thought too, Bill!