Xurtio

There's a whole array of people's producing music, some know theory, some don't. Electronic music is a specialization in music departments nowadays. But that's not really important, what's important is that they have an intuition for rhythmic and melodic phrasing and drive to learn how to to produce it.

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innerspaceboy

While I respectfully disagree with several of your examples of superiority vs inferiority and measurement of talent, you touch upon a few critically important points - namely the trade-off of high art for profitable consumer art, and that technology continually democratizes accessibility to both music-making tools and to the musical works, themselves.

We live in an incredible age where more music than we could ever consume in a lifetime is only a screen-tap (or a voice command) away. And practically anyone can produce music with software tools which parallel multi-million dollar studio equipment accessible to only a wealthy few forty years ago.

There are pros and cons to this, as with anything. It means that we end up with an incalculable about of amateur, crap music, but I consider that a fantastically fair trade for the value it adds to a society in which everyone can participate in the creative process.

There is a similar and obvious downside to the commercialization of music, beginning at the dawn of recorded sound, through the monstrous deeds of copyright trolls grappling to keep control of the arts where it is most profitable at the expense of the public good.

And on the airwaves of mass media (which grow less and less relevant by the minute) there has been a significant decline in musical diversity and a downfall of "high art" in favor of homogenized commercial music better-suited to selling athletic shoes than to stirring the soul and inspiring the mind.

But it is important to remember that there are varying forms of skill, artistic merit, and technical proficiency respective to the purpose of each music form. Zeppelin excelled at crafting memorable riffs and melodies and had an incredible vocal presence. They were experts and copying, combining, and transforming elements from blues music and from their contemporaries (like Spirit) to create universally-acclaimed rock hits.

Classical musicians, by comparison, seek to engage and enliven our inner experience. Their music adheres to a traditional structure of distinctive temporal characteristics which add a quality of timelessness to their art.

The skillset varies based upon the conditions of the genre. The Avalanches' Since I Left You LP does not demonstrate any particular proficiency of traditional instrumentation. There are few infectiously memorable hooks, so it does not excel as a pop record either. But unto itself, it is an outstanding example of technical skill with regard to the art of sampling, or what John Oswald dubbed "plunderphonics". The album contains an estimated 3,500 samples from various genres of music, seamlessly and expertly interwoven into an album-long work.

And the aforementioned "Wannabe" was a pop sensation for its own reasons. While in no way demonstrative of any characteristic of "high art", it makes no claim to be, and instead excels at being memorable, danceable, and a social meme synonymous with teen "girl power".

The mistake is made when we attempt to compare apples to oranges and hold disparate musics to identical (and entirely fictional) standards.

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William_the_Bloody

Well that goes back to the whole feel versus technical proficiency argument.

The Sex Pistols being the classic example of artists who had limited musical knowledge, but produced a great album on their musical intuition.

I would argue though that in a long run, if an artist wants to get better, and produce songs of a higher quality they eventually need to learn some music theory.

I agree with this, I think the biggest casualty of free downloading as been indie and rock artists who the record companies can no longer take a chance on, so were left with the souless pop stars who often rely on other people to make their musical compositions, because their talent lies more in dancing than it does music.

My only complaint about democratization of music in relation to technology ( a theory of course), is that when people start relying on sampling to make pop hits, their limiting their creative potential, in terms of the amount of musical notes and overlapping that happen in a song.

Scientists actually did a study of pop music over the last few decades and found that the amount of musical notes employed in a song is getting less and less. I myself think this is the result of relying on sampling and matching it to a back beat. I was therefore really happy when Goyte's "someone I use to know" became a big hit, because the song utilizes a lot of musical notes in its chorus.

OccultHawk

You wouldn't happen to be a music major?

Xurtio

^ I believe Zeppelin got the crap sued out of them by Robert Johnson's family.

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OccultHawk

The artist Page stole from most directly with very little interpretation is Bert Jansch. That **** is like note for note.

innerspaceboy

I was being polite. Zeppelin were outright f*cking thieves.

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innerspaceboy

Is that question fielded to Bloody or myself?

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OccultHawk

Bloody

I'm pretty sure you're just a dude who knows a lot about music.

William_the_Bloody

No my major is in history, I do have somewhat of an extensive music background though and use to play in bands. I've also conducted a junior level and sung in a choir.

Honestly though these days I've forgotten most my scales, and playing something off sheet music would be extremely difficult for me at this point, I pretty much rely on tabs.