Brian Walton
BenMMusTech
...but never call yourself a musician unless you play an instrument or indeed read and write music. If you're an errant button pusher...
. Of course I accept some may still enjoy the children's music of today. But to me...music is still a high order language - capable of communicating the full range of human emotion and to be able to express these emotions even if you can't speak the native tounge of the listener.
Peace and Love
If you look up the definition of a "Musician" it does not necessitate playing a physical instrument, it can refer to someone with muscial abilty. There are "button pushers" with musical ability.
Many people don't need an academic approach to convey the emotion. Reading and writing music is not required at all for many great musicians.
In addition to that, people can compose music in a DAW without the ability to play a physical instrument. How is soemone writing notes on a sheet of paper that much different than pencling in blocks in a PRV? Neither necesitate having an "instrument" in hand if you have the right skill set. Both of these are completly foreign composition concepts to me, but I've seen it done by others.
The method "button pusher" vs "string hitter" quite frankly is irrelevant as long as the intended emotion is conveyed. I haven't met many button pushers that move me emotionally, most string hitters don't either for that matter, but I'm not going to deny that there are those that can.
Many extremely accomplished musicians can't read or write music in the traditional sense.
Let me clarify for you, some of the issues you've raised in the above post. I had to look up the word musician, to check what you said in reference to this point...my ego is not so large that I can't admit I don't know everything :). You are right, in regards to the definition of the word musician, but I would hazard a guess this is the contemporary definition and not the historical one...semantics though I know. But in all fairness, you are right - a musician only needs musical talent to be classified as such. And indeed, it's taken 32 years to reach the level of musicianship I now have. I was 10 years old, when I taught myself the basic rudiments of sight reading and the recorder...true story, perhaps indicating I was a prodigy. I come from pondscum - so the only way to foster my musical ability was through my own force of will :). And a composer and a musician are by definition two completely different things. A composer doesn't necessarily have to be a good musician and a great musician isn't necessarily a great composer.
I think you're confusing academic and musical literacy and or theory though. Again, through my own sheer force of will and extreme autodidacticism...I've learnt the academic side of both musicianship and composition. It's somewhat the problem, in the stand- off between myself and the conservatoriums of Oz. They insist on the 123 way of learning and I can skip learn :), and indeed it is impossible for me to learn the rote 123 way. But I digress, yes great composers and songwriters - because composition and songwriting are different sides to the same coin, but both disciplines contain great non trained exponents of the art and craft of composition. What I was trying to emphasize though is the lack of music literacy as the problem within contemporary music...and this is the problem. Music literacy isn't just music theory though, its historical and cultural context, it's also mastery of the technological eco-system, which in itself is a type of musical instrument. Without a little from colum a and a little from b and c - the quality of music as a first order language or a language that transcends language is diluted. And worse, which was more my point...it means that the cog that was driving music innovation, composition challanges contemporary music technology, meaning better music technology, which then challenges composers and musicians alike to become better musicians and indeed write better compositions. Think about Mozart and Beethoven, Beethoven in particular re-writes the classical music 'rulebook'. He gets the pianoforte introduced, because of moonlight sonata, he doubles the size of the orchestra for the 5th and adds voice in the 9th...the first time a symphonic work featured vocals. This leads to bigger concert halls, and the late romantic period composers to push their ideas about what composition should be and indeed music instrument technology. In the contemporary historical era, The Beatles do the same thing. They introduce feedback to analog recording art, which inspires them to explore the avant-gardes sonic artists, they introduce these artistic sonic techniques into the popular musical lexicon - leading to the next wave of great musicians and composers...leading to better sonics. First they had 4 track, then 8 and then 24. First they have a Redd tube console with a rudimentary EQ, then the TG12345 solid state with EQ and compressor and finally the SSL solid state which is perhaps the ultimate large format recording console. Without The Beatles...Hendrix could not have spent months in the studio composing, Pink Floyd too and then of course Queen who are perhaps the closest to The Beatles in regards to their use of the studio. So hopefully you see my point, without composers and musicians challenging the limits of music technology through composition - music innovation can become stagnant. And we're seeing some of this now - music is mostly dross turned out by errant button pushers, more interested in style than substance. So whilst I agree with you, that yes you don't need all my tricks to be a great composer or musician, and I'm not saying that I'm great or anything like that :), but without them and without someone promoting these tricks where is music innovation going to come from? It's the healthy composition amongst masters, that's missing from this current cycle.
Finally, the difference between using midi and a notion instrument such as Notion by Presonus is the ability to easily dial in the feel of a musician, but that's not all...you need to be able to understand the feel of a musician to 'fake' it. Rather than guessing, and I suspect most button pushers don't even change the velocity of each midi note or phrase from the standard 100, but rather than guessing the velocity or humanize feel with a midi effect or by hand...I can use proper musical literacy and theory to do so. This also helps expand the compositional language avaliable to the composer and indeed increases the range of emotion a composer can convey. So a gentle motif at the beginning can be set using the dynamic marker of piano, which leads to a sudden and dramatic point in the composition...let's say forte or double forte. To create the build up, you use a crescendo marker. I then could use the swing 8th humanize slider to gently pull the piano timing back just off the groove. The drums could be dead set, and the bass just in front. I can also add ghost and grace notes to further add to the realness of musical phrase. And then gently bring all back down to a piano dynamic and bang everything back on the beat. This is what an aware composer should be able to do, and again its something we should be encouraging any aspiring musician or composer to do...not push a button that has no correlation with the emotion a composer or musician is trying to convey. Yes, you can do similar things with midi...but it's harder to control, harder to learn the fine nuanced control of the composer in regards to expressing the emotion of the composer and indeed it makes it easier to leave the velocity at 100 and timing flat. Worse, though - it creates a false sense of belief that if you push a button you're a musician. Even if you have only opened Garageband for the very first time. I'd prefer these types to call themselves entertainers perhaps, I'm a snob though, 32 years of researching and composing music does that to you.
We all need to challenge cultural producers is my point - because the technology avaliable to almost anyone provides limitless permutations of cultural product. For example, I'm writing a modern take on the symphonic form, I would even use the phrase strum und drang...german again ;), to describe sonata no.4a, and it is written with modern instruments...808 kicks, synths guitars etc and with strings and brass and I'm combining this with 3d animation to create a gesamtkunstwerk;) art form. This is me pushing the limits of modern computing power, along with my knowledge as a way to push the boundaries. If we survey mass music culture, and in many ways that's all there is...its the same old paradigm of the 80s. A button pusher or one of the few guitar bands left, write a song, record it in a studio...someone from the art department and moving image department then create a video clip - either using the classical idea of the gods or perfection or surrealism...think the world of dreams. I'm saying...we can return to the romantic idea of the genius alone doing it in service of the art. An idea that gave birth to modernism and the age of enlightenment. Romanticism isn't perfect, but it's better than the beta boys of postmodernism who prefer the communism form of cultural production...art in service of lecturing people or the neo-techo-classiscm of perfection and the gods...Beyonce anyone.
Hopefully I've answered your question...yes I know I'm teriably verbose lol.