Do you consider electronic music creators musicians?

Freebase Dali · 03-11-2012, 10:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RezZ

I do think it is in many cases very dumbed down instrument. Their is no standard for the instrument which makes it a hard thing to categorize. A flute, drumset, harp, etc all are nearly universal from instrument to instrument so when you hear something being played you know that person did all the heavy lifting. When software is being used you dont know anything about what kind of help the dj had.

I mean you and I could make the same piece of music. I could have used software that did all the things necessary to create it automatically and taken samples and such from everywhere and just edited them. You on the other hand did everything yourself. Seems tough to judge who has talent and who doesnt.

Seems to me the issue would lie with the person that's just pilfering samples. That shouldn't imply that the tool being used to do it is inherently a tool used by talentless hacks, and thus, is not an instrument capable of being utilized by talented musicians.

And, in many cases, it's not so "dumbed down" as you think. Here's something you may identify with... SessionDrummer in Sonar. You might look at it and say, "well, this could be used by talentless hacks that don't know how to play drums, in order to make a drum beat they could never play". Well, as a drummer, I'll tell you now that it is A LOT harder to program a full drum beat with sounds and nuances so that it sounds real (and good), than it is to just play one on a kit. The only reason I even do it is because I can't set up my drum kit in my apartment. Otherwise, I'd just record a real drum beat because it'd be a lot easier.

But I do know that it takes a level of musical ability and insight to even arrive at something approaching decent when you're emulating the real thing on software, and even if you're just making music on a computer in general. Regardless of whether you believe the person did it themselves or not is one thing, but I guarantee you that whoever did it was a musician, and the software they did it on was their instrument, and if it's so "dumbed down", I challenge you to become a virtuoso at it if you want to prove your point.

I think, in general, most of the people that don't credit the hard work and talent involved in computer music creation are usually the people who understand the least of what actually goes into doing it well.