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Personal Contract for the Composition of Music
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There's a great article over at pitchfork link that makes some pretty good points about the current state of electronic music, and asks various producers what their personal contract for the composition of music would say. This was inspired by Mathew Herbert's manifesto
link
1. The use of sounds that exist already is not allowed. Subject to article 2. In particular:
* No drum machines.
* All keyboard sounds must be edited in some way: no factory presets or pre-programmed patches are allowed.
2. Only sounds that are generated at the start of the compositional process or taken from the artist's own previously unused archive are available for sampling.
3. The sampling of other people's music is strictly forbidden.
4. No replication of traditional acoustic instruments is allowed where the financial and physical possibility of using the real ones exists.
5. The inclusion, development, propagation, existence, replication, acknowledgement, rights, patterns and beauty of what are commonly known as accidents, is encouraged. Furthermore, they have equal rights within the composition as deliberate, conscious, or premeditated compositional actions or decisions.
6. The mixing desk is not to be reset before the start of a new track in order to apply a random eq and fx setting across the new sounds. Once the ordering and recording of the music has begun, the desk may be used as normal.
7. All fx settings must be edited: no factory preset or pre-programmed patches are allowed.
8. Samples themselves are not to be truncated from the rear. Revealing parts of the recording are invariably stored there.
9. A notation of sounds used to be taken and made public.
10. A list of technical equipment used to be made public.
11. optional: Remixes should be completed using only the sounds provided by the original artist including any packaging the media was provided in.
Some of my favorite from the article:
Make a full EP or LP completely sober and with no one else in the studio with you-- no exceptions. Struggle and search on your own; it makes you grow
Live acts just using a laptop should be called "semi-live." That's already common in Holland.
Whenever, as a producer, you feel yourself flinching a bit from using an idea or a sound or an effect, hesitating on the grounds that it's maybe a wee bit cheesy, then I would say just to push right past that feeling and go for it. Do it twice over, even. There can never be enough monster riffs or cheap tricks in dance music; there can definitely be a surfeit of just-so subtleties.
Challenge yourself. If it seems too easy, it is questionable at best.
Treat every track as you would a loved one; support and encourage its individuality, and never misguide or manipulate it for popularity purposes.
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There are many that I don't agree with, but it's illuminating to read them anyway.
What would yours be? | |
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07/24/08
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j_chot
Mathew Herbert's manifesto reminds me of this episode of oprah where the subject is "how to free up time" and the suposed lady whose apparently an expert because she paid off/banged someone to publish her book says "well the first thing I did to free up time was make a list of time-consuming things I don't like to do, then I hired a maid to do them" and the audience starting clapping and then obviously looked confused then stopped clapping because they realized that they can't DO THAT BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT RICH, AND THAT SHE WAS FULL OF SHIT.
07/24/08
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Zanf
So herbert is rich, full of shit and hires maids to do his work for him?
edited: Jul 24 2008
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ocp
Zanf said: "So herbert is rich, full of shit and hires maids to do his work for him?"
don't know about that, but he surely gets paid well for his music, which is a great motivation to do as he pleases and full time (something that doesn't happen to most of us).
edited: Jul 24 2008
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eyesnine
my personal rules:
rule 1: you must learn something from everything you make. in order to accomplish this you must try something different and experiment with it. failure is always an option, figure out how to get around your failures.
rule 2: if it sounds good it IS good. always trust and develop your ear.
rule 3: the entire song must be played "live", in its entirety, from beginning to end, and recorded as a "take" at some point in the composition process. do whatever preparation you need to make this happen. do whatever editing afterwards to make it presentable. why? because thats how the listener will be hearing it. from beginning to end, without ever having heard it before.
most of herbert's rules seem to be the product of someone who stopped growing a long time ago. they seem anti-creative in a lot of ways, and extremely pretentious. entire genres of music are irrelevant from his perspective. some of the rules are just ridiculous, and are more about sound design and engineering rather than musical composition. no presets?!? what the hell are they there for?!?! i wonder if he thinks beethoven should have been forced to build his own piano? or if picasso should have been building his own canvases? what a waste of time!
07/24/08
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Roshi
I have mine, but I think it's better not to share them
They're more like suggestions and reminders of what I want to do than anything
07/24/08
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hecanjog
If I come up with working rules, it's typically project-to-project and not all-encompassing. In college, coming up with a set of rules and restrictions was a huge part of my process. For a couple years most of the music I wrote was "free serialism" -- so I'd devise strict compositional rules and then work through them. During that time I was having a hard time with a certain piece - I didn't like the way a certain passage sounded, but I couldn't figure out a way to improve it without breaking my rules - my composition teacher finally just said "look, don't be afraid to break your own rules." Such a simple bit of advice but it's been a motto I've carried with me ever since.
Rules and systems are fun and useful, but don't trap yourself in them, it's easy to do.
07/24/08
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bla
yeah- im completely trapped by rules i made up- its really hard for me to program something with a free and open mind
07/24/08
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monty
- banjo
- buns
- beats
- bass
- a quick ciggie
- some coffee
- banjo
- buns
- beats
- bass
- banjo
- coffee
- leave it for a while
- go out
- have a few drinks
- have a few laughs
- bacon roll
- listen again
- bacon roll
- fx
repeat until butterzone is achieved
07/24/08
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Roshi
MMM, bacon roll.
I was just in toronto and stupidly didn't get around to trying this: link
07/24/08
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SenorFrio
The first rule of electronic music is...
you don't talk about electronic music
07/24/08
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Operations
For me.
Not to try/edit more than 10 or 5 minutes a phrase loop or whatever.
Let's suppose u have a nice slap bass loop. As u are midi spsecific editing it u might to think ''wow this phrase is sounding vert well!!'' --but you have been working on it more than 15 minutes--. The next morning when you listen again the phrase u get realized that is sounding very bad. So, if the midi/phrase is ok at ''first glance'' it will stay, but if is not,the phrase is deleted.
07/24/08
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dylan
i like matthew herbert's music a lot, but i think his set of rules is a bit arbitrary (read: rule #8). i think as long as you work hard and care about what you do, any method is fair game.
07/24/08
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ignatius
SenorFrio said: "The first rule of electronic music is...
you don't talk about electronic music"
lollers. perfect!
07/24/08
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Zanf
more aptly, it would be:
"The first rule of electronic music is...
no-one wants you to talk about electronic music"
07/24/08
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astroid
i mean simply to say that, if anyone isn't doing things my way, there must be something horribly wrong with their soul, mind, and penis.
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