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Author: vaz on November 28 2006 Viewed 2070 times. 6 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
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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.
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12/01/06
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monkvolcano
well i'm really tired, and a somewhat erfed up, but I would like to respond a bit.
Cbit, you made me realize i want to expand/clarify something. In the comparison of music to language, I was not suggesting that it conveys complex ideas at all, but I am suggesting that it conveys complex emotional 'ideas'. Although the basic emotions conveyed by differnt musical devices, can be somewhat simple (such as happy, sad, etc. as you said).. through juxtapositioning them agaisnt one another, an artist can create a a very dense emotional 'message' .. it's not actually a message, but that's really the clostest word I can think of for it.
again i think that Bach is a good example. in a lot of Bach pieces (that I've heard anyway, which is relatively few).. each 2 to 4 bar chunk seems to convey a different feel, and by rapid firing these off, it gives us an exciting emotional rush. other great musicians are like this. coltrane is like this, he rapid fires off small phrases, each with different feels in a patchwork of sorts.
12/01/06
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cbit
monkvolcano said: "Although the basic emotions conveyed by differnt musical devices, can be somewhat simple (such as happy, sad, etc. as you said).. through juxtapositioning them agaisnt one another, an artist can create a a very dense emotional 'message' .. it's not actually a message, but that's really the clostest word I can think of for it."
yes, i follow. if i understand you correctly you're suggesting the following: You can compare the musical creation of a rich 'emotional message/story' out of simple primaries (happy sad angry etc) to creating a message-bearing image or painting by combining red blue and green (or red blue and yellow) in subtle ways.
I see it differently. I don't believe there is something inherent in being human that makes us associate a minor chord with melancholy, i believe that these kind of associations are learned. ie. a minor chord is a symbol for melancholy*.. so i don't believe that these emotions are primary, or somehow intrinsic to music. I think they are 'just' associations like any other you might have. A dirty brass stab puts me in mind of lalo schiffrin and 70 tv series': and, in turn, of all that i associate with those things. A minor chord makes me think of sad things because that's the context i usually experience that kind of interval combination in (a sad scene in a movie, ).
So to qualify a bit: i do think you can communicate through music, but only to the the degree that you share a set of associations (like the ones flies mentioned) with the cultural groups that your listener belongs to. Music isn't the 'universal language' it's sometimes presented as.
* I havn't checked the research on this point very thoroughly, has anyone else?
12/01/06
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monkvolcano
cibt, actually i agree with you 100%. I left out the bit about associations. Really though I think that the 'primaries' as you put it, have a different feel to each individual. But really this is not so different than the way a painter blends different colors. For one person, red may connotate one feeling, but something completely different for a nother individual..
That's one hing that makes music so amazingly complex. Each factor that goes into the creation of a piece can be interpreted a million different ways. That yeilds a staggering amount of possible interpretations of one piece. really, it yeilds an infinite amount of possible explanations.
of course, i think that the same principle is applicable to all types of 'art'.
by the way, again, i am under the influence, so i apologize if my rambling is retarded. I'm sitting at an art gallery opening (naked pictures of my girlfriend to be exact) and posting on em411.. I am a nerd.
12:35am
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tonearm
have you ever said to somebody " I make minimal electronica with laptops" and they say "oh like Kraftwerk? Do you know Kraftwerk?"
edited: Dec 02 2006
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cbit
mv: yeah i think we agree too That's one hing that makes music so amazingly complex. Each factor that goes into the creation of a piece can be interpreted a million different ways. That yeilds a staggering amount of possible interpretations of one piece. really, it yeilds an infinite amount of possible explanations.
yeah, if i think of music as a language i imagine a sliding scale of precision: At the one end of the scale you have things like binary, and programming languages. The stuff you can 'say' in those languages, and the rules of those languages, are pretty unambiguous. Then you have natural spoken or written human language somewhere in the middle. Then at the completely floaty, vague, almost-completely-context-dependant end of the spectrum you have stuff like music and painting etc. haha grossly oversimplified of course 
11:13am
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nagrom
for me, limits are good.
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