Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
|
Author: vaz on November 28 2006 Viewed 2000 times. 6 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
-->
The comment left by monkvolcano got me thinking about just what he was talking about. Are genres limiting?
I see where the thought comes from. Some aspiring composers will get themselves stuck trying to recreate a sound they've heard somewhere else, to the point where it can be limiting. So this piece of advice does certainly apply to some people getting into music production.
At the same time, someone can make infinitely many kinds of songs that they love. Sometimes giving yourself certain limitations, just for fun, can increase your creativity in other areas.
I'm sort of thinking of blues music as I write this. There are endless permutations of the 12-bar blues song structure, to the point where many people who don't care much for blues think it all sounds the same. To someone who listens to a lot of blues, the similarities only serve to make the differences stand out even more. The same applies to a lot of styles.
Here's an analogy. Take any sports game, for instance, soccer. Ok, we could all go on a field and kick a ball around wherever we feel. That could be fun. But if we decide to actually go play soccer, we're limiting ourselves to following a set of rules. We want to get the ball in the net we're supposed to, and I guess we could just pick it up and throw it there, but forcing ourselves to kick it instead adds a certain level of interest. Setting certain expectations adds some intrigue and strategy (not exactly a word you'd see often in music production, but I think it applies). The creativity used in achieving a goal in an original way while still following some (ultimately arbitrary) rules is exciting to those who like those rules to begin with. Meaning, if they don't like soccer they're still not going to care how good someone is at it, and if they don't like the blues, they're still not going to care much how great that blues song is.
So: limitations are fun. As long as you're very aware that they're completely arbitrary. Your audience will be those who happen to like the same rules you do, while appreciating the creativity used in approaching that style of music.
Avoiding specific genres, and mixing and matching from genres is great, and one of the ways in which music innovates. But my point: composing with a genre in mind can be great too, and music innovates that way, too. So whether you want to "make a blues song", or "make a genre-defying song", or "play soccer" or what have you, it's all good.
As long as you're not going around asking "how do I make trance?" ;)
edit: Just noticed the huge forum post about genres. I could very well be kicking around a corpse here. Oh well.
| |
Comments
11/28/06
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
flies
absence of stripes deems this thread totally uncool. the presence of polka dots, however, counteracts this effect.
working within a set of constraints is all we can ever do. Some poeple like it that way. Other people enjoy working actively against those constraints. As to whose music is more determined by the limitations involved will of course depend on the person.
11/28/06
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
tooth
Music is infinite but words are not. If you want to talk about music you instantly impose a resolution.
11/28/06
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
flies
seems to me that music finite just like anything else, but we could argue the metaphysics elsewhere (pm me, i love metaphysical debates  ).
However, i'm sure we would agree that human perception is definitely finite, so we have no choice but to limit music in some way. We could try and work against these limitations, that would be one way of going about it. The idea here is to use the limits as a creative tool, though this sounds a bit oxymoronic i think that's what vaz is talking about.
edited: Nov 28 2006
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
tooth
Any time, any place, let's get it on.....
Surely music is infinite quantitatively because you can always make a song longer and qualitatively because eg. you can keep reclassifying the genre by length of song.
edited: Nov 28 2006
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
tooth
Back in the real world....
Limits can be great because they help you make decisions and a context provides compositional anchor points and a sensible frame of reference.
11/28/06
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
vaz
Limits are fun to push against, too. To set out to push the limits of X genre, seeing how far you can push it and still, for example, find its way onto a compilation with other songs of X genre... even if it more closely resembles Y genre. I dunno, playing with genres is fun, as long as you know it's for fun.
11/28/06
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
ricemutt
Right, I think that genre is an important way of putting music in context. It is a little bit wierd how some people thing genre, or however you call it, is completely irrelevant, because so much of the world's music falls squarely into very well defined genres. Classical, Blues, Flamenco, Persian classical music, tuvan throat chant, disco, bluegrass, beijing opera, fado, jazz. I would say most of my favorite music falls very easily and squarely into a category. It doesn't bristle my whiskers if someone wants to call my music "ambient electronic." Sure, that would probably put me in the same category as "buddha jazz lounge," but what does that really mean to me? Why should I care? Does it even matter until someone hears your music?
I geuss what the question sounds like to me is "what should be the nature of my relationship to genre be?" I think just kill em all and let God sort it out. Do your thing. If that means traditional delta blues, sure, if that moves you. Or if it means jazz-acid-breaktronica-ambient-minimal-chinstroke-CrapCore... whatever.
11/29/06
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
lunatinker
ricemutt said: "I geuss what the question sounds like to me is "what should be the nature of my relationship to genre be?""
i totally want to fuck them all in the ear.
sorry. i like to blend teh genre in subtle ways and still practise at them.
I don't really fit, but appreciating music is important to me, so I play along with the genres that are at play in the seas of cheese
11/29/06
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
monkvolcano
i pretty much agreed with everything you said vaz.
Genres are only limiting in the same way living in an imaginary cage might be. In other words, you are imagining limitations that aren't really there.
that being said, you also wrote of what i like to refer to as "forced minimalism"- picking certain limitations for your work to foster creativity.. I think it should be pointed out this isn't inherently genre related, but often it is. You could just as easily make up your own limitations that came from your own imagination. IMO this activity can result in much growth, and expression.
i also think that it's important to point out that genres exsist so that we can label and therefore converse about music. still, if you want to choose some characteristics of different genres and work with those in mind, that's totally fine.
I also believe that you can create 'art' completely oblivious of, and without responding to, any genre, or even any art at all..
it's really just how you want to go about it. In my book, there's no such thing as bad art.. only art that i don't like. Really, in my book, there's no such thing as art at all.. there's just people (which are a part of nature) and what they create..
it's all just a part of nature.. our music is just a mental spider web we weave, and that's all it is. it may have value to us and to others.. but really, that's all it is.
11/29/06
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
tooth
As contemporary musicians we have the luxury to incorporate elements which refer to genre within our music. It seems to me just as through the coherent harmonious progression of 4 chords, so we can make music move seamlessly from a moment reminiscent of 90s idm through a period of 80s synth pop into 70s analogue sci-fi.
edited: Nov 30 2006
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
vaz
monk: totally agree. minimalist music absolutely falls into this kind of thing (although it doesn't have to have anything to do with minimalism). And of course, you can create music without anything to do with a genre in mind - I tend to think that the term IDM is almost meaningless because a lot of the time it just means "something electronic that's really different and hard to classify". The term itself does nothing to describe anything in it and is basically seen as a joke by a great number of people who supposedly create it.
Being aware of genres does have a lot to do with creating something that will be "popular". Now no one start getting into a tirade about why trying to make something popular is silly and you should just make what you feel and you like and all that - I know, I'm not advocating this, I'm just rambling because I can. I'm not talking about making the next big pop or dance hit - the people who compose for pop musicians are extremely talented in that regard but it's an entirely different experience from making music for yourself. But I have many diverse interests in music. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if I can create a track that appeals to very few, and also can create a track that appeals to a larger audience through being aware of trends in music, and IF (big, huge IF) the latter does NOT sacrifice anything as far as my enjoyment, fulfillment or appreciation through making that music - then it would be neat to have that kind of awareness, so that I can share my music with more people who are able to accept and appreciate it, *not at the expense of making the fullest art with no sacrifices in quality*. I guess it comes down to the difference between saying "I made this song like this BECAUSE I want people to like it" and "I made this song like this because I wanted to AND people like it".
And there's absolutely no reason not to make that other track that just appeals to you because you feel like it.
I dunno if that made any sense. I'm not trying to say anyone should try to be popular. Just that an awareness of how your tastes interact with trends in music can allow you to reach the audience you want it to (if you don't care if you have an audience, that's cool too).
Most of this rambling stems from my belief that there's no one big, best style or track or whatever that I can make. I can make infinite (yes, that infinite word again) tracks that I like all for different reasons, because music, like language, is infinite, you can always add another note, another bar, change the tempo or the key, whatever. You can just make whatever comes to you, or you can have an audience in mind, but it doesn't mean it has to take away from your creativity - no one knocks authors for writing with an audience in mind, I don't see why you'd do it to musicians.
No one can claim they aren't influenced by a lot of things in music anyway - unless you've grown up this far and have never heard music before - in which case I want to hear what kind of music you're creating, because that would be fantastic (seriously, that would be rad).
If after reading this you have something to say to me involving the words "selling out" or "puppet of consumerism" or anything like that, you haven't read it correctly. ;)
11/30/06
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
vaz
Oh man, that's like an essay. You know, I'm probably just writing this much because I'm actually avoiding doing a *real* essay right now. :P
11/30/06
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
monkvolcano
good points there sir. seems that you have a healthy outlook on the whole thing.
i like where you were going with the whole music is a language thing. I often think of music in the same way. to extend this metaphor, if you were never to try to communicate with others through your music, it would be something like telling jokes taht only you understand the punchlines to. This would get lonely after a while, so you might try to think of some jokes to share with other people. theere's definitely nothing wrong with that.
One thing that makes instrumental music different than spoken language, is that it's more abstract in a sense. and by this i mean, in music with out singing, there's no direct symbolism (unless of course you're working with samples). I think that because you are not refering to specific events and such (that you would be if you were writing lyrics to a song) there's more of a universal quality. It's based more around innate mathmatical structures that are appealing to us.. rather than thinking about how your ex girlfriend dumped you for your best friend.
because of this, i think that you can write things only for yourself and have them be appealing to other people. somebody like Bach is a great example. He obviously had his own thing going on (of course not to say he wasn't influenced by other composers).. but the same things that were appealing to him in his music were appealing to people hundreds of yeaers later.. it's appealing to little kids who can't even talk yet! I think John Coltrane is another of this brand.
that's kind of what I'm going for, tapping into that human-ness that we all have..
edited: Nov 30 2006
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
cbit
monkvolcano said: "i like where you were going with the whole music is a language thing. I often think of music in the same way. to extend this metaphor, if you were never to try to communicate with others through your music, it would be something like telling jokes taht only you understand the punchlines to. This would get lonely after a while, so you might try to think of some jokes to share with other people. theere's definitely nothing wrong with that."
i'm in agreement with most of the stuff you say, and the part about 'tapping into humanness' in particular..
In the language paragraph is also the implication that you can communicate through music; and this its a slippery sticking point for me: i don't believe you can. The 'what is an expressive performance' thread in the previous version of em411 centered around these ideas. i googled for it but i think its gone forever  [collective sigh of relief from em411 members]
One thing that makes instrumental music different than spoken language, is that it's more abstract in a sense. and by this i mean, in music with out singing, there's no direct symbolism (unless of course you're working with samples). I think that because you are not refering to specific events and such (that you would be if you were writing lyrics to a song) there's more of a universal quality. It's based more around innate mathmatical structures that are appealing to us.. rather than thinking about how your ex girlfriend dumped you for your best friend.
i think this is well put. You can see the appealing aspects of music as a reflection/aknowledgement of something that we share as humans (or members of a particular human culture).
because its not a language/symbol system, it can't be used to convey ideas (beyond the very blunt 'happy' 'sad' 'sweet' 'angry' polarities that can be conveyed when music _is_ deliberately used symbolically, peterandthewolf-style). The closest music can come to communicating is to resonate with some patterns that already exist in us.. by their nature these resonances can't be verbalised.
11/30/06
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
flies
monkvolcano said: "One thing that makes instrumental music different than spoken language, is that it's more abstract in a sense. and by this i mean, in music with out singing, there's no direct symbolism (unless of course you're working with samples). I think that because you are not refering to specific events and such (that you would be if you were writing lyrics to a song) there's more of a universal quality. It's based more around innate mathmatical structures that are appealing to us.. rather than thinking about how your ex girlfriend dumped you for your best friend.
because of this, i think that you can write things only for yourself and have them be appealing to other people. somebody like Bach is a great example. He obviously had his own thing going on (of course not to say he wasn't influenced by other composers).. but the same things that were appealing to him in his music were appealing to people hundreds of yeaers later.. it's appealing to little kids who can't even talk yet! I think John Coltrane is another of this brand."
while I basically agree with you, i'd like to temper your statement a bit, since it seems to evince some essentialism/absolute logic. music is certainly *more* abstract than language, much much more, but it is not totally abstract in at least two ways: it refers to other music, and it conveys some sense of how it was made.
Bach's music is excellent and appeals to people at a very basic 'human level', i think we all agree about that, but his music is full of counterpoint. Most people aren't familiar with the rules of counterpoint, but those who are can recognize how Bach's music uses counterpoint, breaks it, etc. Counterpoint is kind of a point of reference for the music. Certainly the music is operating on levels in which counterpoint as such is irrelevant, but that operation is happening parallel to this other more mechanical layer of cultural valence.
That's a very specific reference in Bach's music, but more generally it is all essentially based on triadic 'tonal' harmony, with major and minor scales, etc. Many people know what these are, what a cadence is, what a fugue is etc, and the music relies upon these outside concepts, is built on them. So I say the music refers to ideas somewhat like language.
Basically the second point is a rather basic one, it's one fo the fundamental ideas of foucault, etc: music doesn't exist in a cultural vacuum and most everybody who encounters Bach knows that there is something called a symphony orchestra, violins, pianos etc, these are all known quantities and all are recalled by the music in the same way a photo of a truck recalls a camera. Some people might not know what string instrument is, but even then there are physical realities upon which the music is contingent, so anyone can just think "what makes this music possible?" and then the music is referring to those realities.
Again, the music is working on levels where how it's produced is unimportant, but no one can completely ignore what they know about the world, or anyway those people are mentally ill
Register / login
|
^
EM411 is Copyright 2001-2008 EM411.com
All rights reserved. | Contact | RSS
|
