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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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dkarma
I'm so sick of "professional producers" I could puke.
seanh hit it spot on... when making music anything goes...
if the "rules" were followed Daft Punk wouldn't exist.
07/24/08
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eyesnine
you know the biggest problem i have with this ass clown herbert is he refers to production as musical composition. there are no mixers or presets or vsts any of that junk in musical composition, its all abstract stuff. what a pinhead.
rage! discontent! why does he have a good job and i work behind a cash register? blah!
07/25/08
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astroboy
TEH RULEZ:
1. apheks beatz
3. lops
4. smaples
5. papergoose!!!
6. --> butterzone
FYI!
07/25/08
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astroid
yeah daft punk is a total clusterfuck free-for-all, ANYTHING GOES NO HOLDS BARRED shotgun approach, iconoclastic paragon of HUMAN CREATIVITY BOUNDLESS ABSOLUTE CHAOTIC CORNUCOPIA OF EVERY SINGLE THING you could possibly imagine OCCURRING AT ONCE. they never repeat method, technique, tools, aesthetic. that's a perfect example of musical anarchy. you, dkarma, have proven me wrong. nothing less than an absolute musical KROPOTKIN PROMETHEUS of sonic/social ANARCHY could have made such a contribution. GOOD EXAMPLE OF NOT USING RULES TO MAKE MUSIC!
07/25/08
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monkvolcano
look at all them big werds.
07/25/08
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11t1
i actually like the idea of having a set of rules and trying to see how creative you can be within them. but it got to be something that inspires creativity.
can i adapt the rules so i can still use sampled pianos, cuz i'm really digging the sound of some of the sample sets i've acquired lately? i guess it's all about making my own rules.
here's my tentative rule set if i were to do something:
hardware limit - my voice, my guitars, my mic, and my handheld recorder so i can smack things at random in hopes of finding nice, unique drum sounds and make lo-fi field recordings.
software limit - reason, live, guitar rig, sound forge, re-cycle - no additional vst - no presets
sample limits - make all samples from above gear, but let me use the core samples for my piano kits
concept limit - stop writing songs on traditional instruments and then creating sounds to bring them to life electronically. start creating sounds and letting the sounds suggest the music
if i were to stick to something like that, i think i could make some radically different music (for me) and i could have a lot of fun in the process
07/25/08
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KidQuaalude
astroid said: "yeah daft punk is a total clusterfuck free-for-all, ANYTHING GOES NO HOLDS BARRED shotgun approach, iconoclastic paragon of HUMAN CREATIVITY BOUNDLESS ABSOLUTE CHAOTIC CORNUCOPIA OF EVERY SINGLE THING you could possibly imagine OCCURRING AT ONCE. they never repeat method, technique, tools, aesthetic. that's a perfect example of musical anarchy. you, dkarma, have proven me wrong. nothing less than an absolute musical KROPOTKIN PROMETHEUS of sonic/social ANARCHY could have made such a contribution. GOOD EXAMPLE OF NOT USING RULES TO MAKE MUSIC!"
roffle
07/25/08
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sAMsKi
holy hahahah. that made me spit my coffee out. ahahaaaaaaa daft punk ahhhahhhaaaaaa
07/25/08
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LDog
Dkarma was referring to herbert's rules, not rules in general.
Recent blogs: Sunshine EP
07/25/08
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p
I rolled this one around in my brain awhile. I came up with these.
my rules:
Treat music like film. music recording like film is a largely time based medium. one can use editing to condense unimportant moments while holding other moments for eternity by slowing them or presenting different angles of the same thing.
Sources are equal. sounds are like colors in the sense that they have no hierarchy. Do not stress natural over synthetic or vise versa.
07/25/08
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Zanf
I thought that Daft Punk followed BT's series of collectable cards called "Obtuse Tautologies"
07/25/08
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ignatius
dkarma said: "
if the "rules" were followed Daft Punk wouldn't exist."
and the world would just stop spinning. ;)
they're as "professional" as anyone. i'm sure there are a handful of 60 year old funk/R&B musicians/bands/producer from back in the day who are glad that daft punk exists because they got a nice usage fee for all the samples of their songs daft punk used.
lol @ zanf
07/25/08
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astroid
nothing against daft punk, but they seem like one step in a long slow evolution of pretty rigidly defined music, to me.
1. 70's funk songs
2. filtertank
3. moogs
4. vocoder
07/25/08
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goguru
"Huh, that's about as likely as me playing by someone else's rules besides my own. Which I would never do. I play by my own rules, nobody else's, not even my own."
07/25/08
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astroid
Captain Beefheart's Ten Commandments For Guitarists
1. LISTEN TO THE BIRDS That's where all the music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and where that sound should come from. And watch hummingbirds. They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren't going anywhere.
2. YOUR GUITAR IS NOT REALLY A GUITAR Your guitar is a divining rod. Use it to find spirits in the other world and bring them over. A guitar is also a fishing rod. If you're good, you'll land a big one.
3. PRACTICE IN FRONT OF A BUSH Wait until the moon is out, then go outside, eat a multi-grained bread and play your guitar to a bush. If the bush doesn't shake, eat another piece of bread.
4. WALK WITH THE DEVIL Old delta blues players referred to amplifiers as the "devil box." And they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you're bringing over from the other side. Electricity attracts demons and devils. Other instruments attract other spirits. An acoustic guitar attracts Casper. A mandolin attracts Wendy. But an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub.
5. IF YOU'RE GUILTY OF THINKING, YOU'RE OUT If your brain is part of the process, you're missing it. You should play like a drowning man, struggling to reach shore. If you can trap that feeling, then you have something that is fur bearing.
6. NEVER POINT YOUR GUITAR AT ANYONE Your instrument has more power than lightning. Just hit a big chord, then run outside to hear it. But make sure you are not standing in an open field.
7. ALWAYS CARRY YOUR CHURCH KEY You must carry your key and use it when called upon. That's your part of the bargain. Like One String Sam. He was a Detroit street musician in the fifties who played a homemade instrument. His song "I Need A Hundred Dollars" is warm pie. Another church key holder is Hubert Sumlin, Howlin' Wolf's guitar player. He just stands there like the Statue of Liberty making you want to look up her dress to see how he's doing it.
8. DON'T WIPE THE SWEAT OFF YOUR INSTRUMENT You need that stink on there. Then you have to get that stink onto your music.
9. KEEP YOUR GUITAR IN A DARK PLACE When you're not playing your guitar, cover it and keep it in a dark place. If you don't play your guitar for more than a day, be sure to put a saucer of water in with it.
10. YOU GOTTA HAVE A HOOD FOR YOUR ENGINE Wear a hat when you play and keep that hat on. A hat is a pressure cooker. If you have a roof on your house the hot air can't escape. Even a lima bean has to have a wet paper towel around it to make it grow.
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