Viagra jokes are SOOOO 2001.

I would have to say no to that one. A computer could be used to modify other instruments' sounds, but it does not have its' own unique sound, and you cant really compose music for a computer to play.

Er... yes you can.

Orly?

Well i haven't been to a computer concert in a while, forgive me for my incompetence

You may want to be a little more specific with your terminology then...
Compose = create, arrange, etc. in the sense Janszoon was talking about.
Sort of like "composing a letter". And while I haven't been to a letter concert in a while....

I'm not really sure what going to a concert has to do with whether or not one can compose music for a computer to play.

I've been composing music on computers since i was about 14, and countless artists have composed music on computers over the years as far back as 1951 believe it or not, so yes it is very much possible. A computer doesn't strictly have it's own unique sound but an infinite number of sounds can be created with a computer by using different types of software.

This article might interest you:

A brief history of computer music | MusicRadar.com

Good post man, midi seems to account for 90% of computer made music. At least it used to.

In response to the title, yes a computer is an instrument.

I /know/ this, I am the musical-instrument /authority/ around here, don't mess with me :>

So... what other instruments do you use? Why didn't you post more about those before making proclamations of being the new authority around here?

Yeah computer is definitely instrument. Yes, it basically models existing instruments but it has got that own unique "digital" sound on it. No, you don't need strings to get sound out of it, you can play it with keyboard. In my opinion the whole thought is bit over dated.

goose-stepper

Son, you steppin, and the way in which you are steppin' is most definitely not correct.

You betta recognise who the big dawgs are aroun' here, you feel me?

This.

wel z m8.

I don't see why a computer can't be an instrument, it can be used to make melody, can't it?

A computer is an instrument in the very same way it is (or rather HAS BECOME) the television, your newspaper, video game, cinema, jokebook and personal diary. The answer does not lie in the realm of music, it lies in the intellect of the musician.

Can't see how, I don't have a computer thrown on my front lawn everyday.

While I'd not ever say that a diary, televison, newspaper, or computer is an instrument per say, I'd have to agree with you on a few points.

Firstly, I'd highly doubt that something considered predominately archaic, e.g. a newspaper, would actually be considered an instrument. I've majored in print journalism (along with theatre) but it's not especially instrumentally sound.

When one is writing, that's one thing.

When one is producing media, that's another.

As a person who has produced video, audio, musical, visual, and theatrical footage over the course of my life, I'd have to say that this is kind of weird.

The vast majority of people I've known can produce perhaps one, two types of enjoyment. These types of entertainment are disctinct.

Ultimately, I'd have to say that all are different...although I'd definitely venture that computer production falls under music.

i do not belong in the PC gaming master race, i'd still take a games console over it any day

Not a chance, the best element of music is the human interaction. The skill, the feel, the talent needed to produce a sound of a musical instrument. That is lost with a computer. Anyone can press buttons, but not everyone can strum a string to make a guitar solo, and not everyone can keep beat one a drum set, and that's the beauty of music. Probably why I'm not the biggest rap fan, it's computers.

"Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate, and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination." - Albert Einstein.

Also, I have to say, this post is just flat stupid. I'm a guitar player. I know all about the human element of feeling in music. I'm also not a luddite, so I've actually tried to make music with a computer, something you clearly haven't.

It is every bit as difficult and complex as creating music with your hands, and its entirely possible to wring as much feeling from a computer as from a human being if you spend the time to do it properly.


Reducing computer based music to "anyone can press buttons" is stupid. Yes, anyone can press buttons, but anyone can hold down a key on the piano too. Anyone can hit a drum. Anyone can strike a guitar string. Those are not complex tasks for which a measure of innate talent is needed. You don't even need a working pair of HANDS to do those things, you could hit them with your face if you wanted to and the tasks I've just listed would be achieved.

You're comparing "keeping beat on a drum set", which is a significant and deep advancement from the basic element of "hitting **** with sticks", to "pressing a button", which is not a sigificant and deep advancement of anything.

A more worthwhile comparison would say "Here is this thing that on drums takes practice. Does making music on a computer, as a process, necessitate elements that would take a commensurate amount of practice?"

The answer is blatantly yes. People don't spend decades of their lives learning how to mix and master properly because its easy. People aren't born with some kind of innate knowledge of what MIDI is and how it works and how to create tones from an FM synthesiser as opposed to additive or subtractive synthesisers. Nobody bursts out of the womb knowing in their blood the proper way to sidechain instruments to a kickdrum and compressor.

All of those above things take time, effort, and skill to perfect. Amateurs are not capable of doing them. And thats barely even scratching the surface of how many things a really good electronic music producer needs to know how to do and be able to do.

None of them, none whatsoever, are just "pressing a button", and you reducing them to that in your description is absolutely ridiculous.

So in review for everyone reading rushingavengedtheaters just got pwned.

:clap:

Great post, especially because it comes from someone who's more on the "guitar guy" side of the fence. :)

:clap:
everything is just a tool, except music itself.

The computer is god in the modern age. Are you suggesting that god`s software is insufficient? do you know anyone that can play faster, and more accurately than a computer? ;)

Seriously though. Technically speaking, you can even play drums with a twig. The same idea applies to making music using your computer. Its not the software - its the composer. Oh sure we can both bore each other in a pointless debate whether or not MIDI composition can be considered as "art", because anyone with minimal musical sense and intelligence can do that. But I say the hell with all, and damn the technicalities!

I wont speak for anyone else, but when I listen to music I don't really care how its done, unless I wanna do it myself. Like in marketing - its all about the final product. And if that final product was done using a computer, if its good, than so be it :)

Computers are instruments like anything else.

Except when in the rare instance of actually recording to tape, even the rawest rock and roll band nowadays is going to use computers in the the mixing, recording, and mastering stages.

So computers are instruments. They take skill and learning to operate. I don't think that really gets to what most people in the debate are really meaning to say.

There is a huge difference between mixing/recording/mastering music with a computer and generating the music itself with a computer. A computer can't swing, or for that matter rock. Those algorithms have not been written, nor will they be.

Many people have no problem with that. That's OK. People will like what they like, it has ever been thus. The more a computer is involved in the actual generation of the music and rhythm itself, however, the less I tend to like it. This is not confined to the specific technology of computers, the same negative effect can be produced by analog post-production methods that wring every last bit of imperfection and humanity out of a performance.

But that's just me.

Not true. A very recent example would be the Foo Fighters new album. While I didnt really like it all that much its beside the point. Grohl recorded the entire thing on tape and spliced/cut all of it in a 100% analog studio. The black keys have done that for a long time as well as quite a few other rock and blues bands. It can be dont just not as cheaply as digitally. For a new band to release something in that format is probably asking to much.

I'll amend my statement to begin "Unless you're on the level of the Foo Fighters or something..."

At any rate the point was that computers require skill to use properly, and can be used by bands with no electronic instruments generating tones; I wasn't contending that one couldn't record without them.

not entirely true, i have programmed sequencers to "swing" and to "rock"

there's always the "humanization" feature, to make human-type errors

No. It's not reacting real-time with other players, which is what yields swing and rock.

It's fake.

It does not swing. It does not rock. That's not in a program. Intentionally placing "error" into a mechanica/digital generation of tones and rhythm is not what is happening with a live band.

These are subjective matters of aesthetics. No sense further arguing.

macbook pro's are instruments!

If computer is instrument, then sewing machine should be :afro:

Absolutely a computer is an instrument.
It doesn't matter how the sound wave is produced; it's what you do with it.

A computer makes sounds... an instrument makes music.

Computers can also make music. Perhaps you should look up every electronica artist for the past 20/30 years?

once a computer can create all the nuances of a guitar all by itself, i doubt it qualifies as an "instrument"

GREAT IDEA.
Gonna borrow my mom's sewing machine in my next experimental project.

Would you be ok with computer software synthesizers being called "virtual instruments"? Because that's what they're called. Perhaps we should use that qualifier to end this entire debate.

but you're not closing this thread?

i have no problems of them being called "virtual instruments", just not an actual "musical instrument"

agreed.