good new music?

fronobulax

Bassist, GAD and the Hot Mess Mods
Joined
May 3, 2007
Messages
24,708
Reaction score
8,836
Location
Central Virginia, USA
Guild Total
5
167043444_294416618708616_5388136996310226652_n.jpg


I'd check out some of the listed ones that I know nothing about :)
 

cupric

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 20, 2018
Messages
1,930
Reaction score
1,362
Guild Total
3
Melvin and the Chipmunks......they don't make music like that anymore!
 

mellowgerman

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 21, 2008
Messages
4,100
Reaction score
1,507
Location
Orlando, FL
What a cool, diverse thread this has turned into! Thanks all for contributing! I've still got quite a bit of catching up to do.

Canard, real quick, just wanted to mention that I was lucky enough to catch Harry Manx before I'd ever heard of him, opening up for Richie Havens sometime around 2009, if I recall correctly. Great show, start to finish!

Here are two tunes from a contemporary German band I've been enjoying these last few years. Funny music videos too.
On a side-note (for our non-German speakers) clicking the little gear in the corner of the video player lets you select auto-translate English captions which aren't always 100% accurate but get the ideas across!



 

JohnW63

Enlightened Member
Joined
Dec 11, 2012
Messages
6,295
Reaction score
2,217
Location
Southern California
Guild Total
4
Bach lifted and WROTE music based on what he heard. Led Zeppelin took songs and played them, possible rearranged them. I don't mind someone stealing a riff or two, or doing a cover. But at least they are PLAYING the instrument. Without previous content, what can a "DJ" play with their instrument? Which is what? A mixer and a bunch or empty music files they downloaded?
 

Canard

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2020
Messages
1,979
Reaction score
2,672
Guild Total
4
Bach lifted and WROTE music based on what he heard. Led Zeppelin took songs and played them, possible rearranged them. I don't mind someone stealing a riff or two, or doing a cover. But at least they are PLAYING the instrument. Without previous content, what can a "DJ" play with their instrument? Which is what? A mixer and a bunch or empty music files they downloaded?

Thanks. I am enjoying this discussion.

Vivaldi was a prolific writer who ran a subscription business for his published music. Bach likely had access to Vivaldi's sheet music to work from. Bach was working in a tradition of expanding upon the works of others.

Paul Simon - El Condor Pasa, Scarborough Fair, etc.

Certain unscrupulous Jazz record labels who would round up a bunch of junkies desperate for a fix, have them jam over the changes for existing tunes over which someone has improvised or composed new heads, choose the most famous and marketable from among the junkies, and release an album under their name.

Miles Davis - John McLaughlin, Michael Henderson, and Billy Cobham are goofing around in the studio waiting for others to show up. Miles is in the control booth and turns the tape on. Meanwhile Herbie Hancock shows up with his bags of groceries, stopping by to say hi. Miles demands that Herbie go into the studio with McLaughlin, Henderson, and DeJohnette. The only keyboard that can be found is an old Farfisa orgain that is in questionable working order. Many overdubs later, including Miles' trumpet parts, and lots and lots of Teo Marceo tape splicing and editing (rearranging and repeating [and deleting] segments of tape in chronological time to shape a composition), we have the Jack Johnson album, well at least its lead off.




Is this a Miles' composition? It is claimed as such. And yet it is as much McLauglin's and Cobham's or the "DJ" tape wizard, Marceo's.

Is all of the above (in the abstract and philosophical) any different than sampling and remixing. The technology is different, yes. Are a mouse, a qwerty keyboard, and computer with mixing/editing/sampling software a musical instrument?

I know someone who leads a techno dance band. All synth and electronics. Part of their shtick is that at various time the entire band leaves the stage during performance and joins the audience in dancing. The music continues uninterrupted without their presence on stage. Are they playing their instruments or not?

Interesting questions to be asked.
 
Last edited:

JohnW63

Enlightened Member
Joined
Dec 11, 2012
Messages
6,295
Reaction score
2,217
Location
Southern California
Guild Total
4
I wouldn't like a some created from clips and pasted together composition. Once I found out the producer did most the work and the musicians mailed in some " Samples " for them to play with. If the musicians walked off the stage and the music never changed, that would really turn me off. It spawns too many questions. Do they every really play what I'm hearing or do they often instrument synch?

I know of one soft of like that, that is fine. At the end of Peter Gabriel's Secret World Tour show, all the performers get transported down a conveyor belt, get off at one spot and hop into what looks like a suit case on the side of the stage. Peter is the last to go and he stops, closes the lid, and walks off. While they are all lined up and taking their trip, the back beat of the last song, plays on and ends when the last is gone.



Go to the 8 minute mark

No one said, " Hey who's playing the instruments !? " because it was obvious it was for effect and a looped beat.
 

fronobulax

Bassist, GAD and the Hot Mess Mods
Joined
May 3, 2007
Messages
24,708
Reaction score
8,836
Location
Central Virginia, USA
Guild Total
5
The discussion of "what is music?" predates modern recording techniques. There are strong, unreconcilable opinions. John Cage's 4'33" is a classic example. It is ambient noise presented as "music".
 

Canard

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2020
Messages
1,979
Reaction score
2,672
Guild Total
4
There are strong, unreconcilable opinions.

Yes. And there is no reason for any reconciliation. It would be boring. The discussion of opinion/taste is fascinating, as long as it doesn't turn negative and ugly. Respectful disagreement is great.
 

Canard

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2020
Messages
1,979
Reaction score
2,672
Guild Total
4
I wouldn't like a some created from clips and pasted together composition.

And yet so much of recorded music is this. Studio wizardry. Elements from multiple takes synthesised into a single best. So much of the later Beatles depended upon George Martin's tape wizardry. The Joni Mitchell-Mingus collaboration arose because Mingus was riding in a car while ignoring one of her pieces off of Don Juan's Reckless Daughter which was on the radio. Suddenly he sat up and listened for a second because mid-piece the piano had changed - they were not the same pianos. He picked up on the subtle differences in tuning. And in that second, he was caught by her words. Miles Davis's Bitches Brew is edited down from hours and hours of studio jamming - DJ Teo Marceo and Miles at work.

If the musicians walked off the stage and the music never changed, that would really turn me off. It spawns too many questions. Do they every really play what I'm hearing or do they often instrument synch?

Completely with you on this one for the moment at least. But then I wonder about loopers.

I know of one soft of like that, that is fine. At the end of Peter Gabriel's Secret World Tour show, all the performers get transported down a conveyor belt, get off at one spot and hop into what looks like a suit case on the side of the stage. Peter is the last to go and he stops, closes the lid, and walks off. While they are all lined up and taking their trip, the back beat of the last song, plays on and ends when the last is gone.



Go to the 8 minute mark

No one said, " Hey who's playing the instruments !? " because it was obvious it was for effect and a looped beat.


Ah. You have hit me in a weak spot. Man, that was such a great tour! The best integration of words, music, theatre (props and acting), and tech I have ever seen.

Why would I skip to the 8 minute mark? It would be sacrilege. ;)
 
Last edited:

mellowgerman

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 21, 2008
Messages
4,100
Reaction score
1,507
Location
Orlando, FL
This thread just keeps getting better and better.

After thinking all of this over, I would say that what is or isn't music comes down to the definition of "art" (rather than exactly how it is performed), because I think of music as a form of art that we consume mainly by listening. In my mind, the "art" distinction is so important because I would expect all to agree that not all things that we listen to are music -- some things we listen to lack an origin of creative autonomy and intent (which, to me, is what makes something art).

Furthermore, here's something that I would disagree upon with past versions of myself: I don't think the element of enjoyment really applies in defining what is or isn't music, as there are things I enjoy hearing that are not necessarily music (like an old friend's voice) and there are things I hear, which certainly do come from an origin of creative autonomy and intent (there's that music-qualifying "art" determiner), that I do not enjoy, like the vast majority of electronic, rap, and pop country music. So even if I think something is music of poor quality, I am still fine with considering it to be music.

Perhaps some other questions that are being debated in this thread are: Can all music can be performed? Can the act of mixing samples while bopping around behind a desk of computers and turn-tables in front of an audience be considered a performance? What factors are required to consider something a performance? Is it purely the audience enjoyment or does there have to be some kind of degree of verifiability that what the audience is hearing is actually being created in front of them?
 
Last edited:

Canard

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2020
Messages
1,979
Reaction score
2,672
Guild Total
4
How about some Jacob Collier? A intimidatingly talented multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and studio-electronics wizard - and very young!!














 

Canard

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2020
Messages
1,979
Reaction score
2,672
Guild Total
4
Continued ...




And with Snarky for JohnW63





 

walrus

Reverential Member
Gold Supporting
Joined
Dec 23, 2006
Messages
23,957
Reaction score
8,020
Location
Massachusetts
This thread just keeps getting better and better.

After thinking all of this over, I would say that what is or isn't music comes down to the definition of "art" (rather than exactly how it is performed), because I think of music as a form of art that we consume mainly by listening. In my mind, the "art" distinction is so important because I would expect all to agree that not all things that we listen to are music -- some things we listen to lack an origin of creative autonomy and intent (which, to me, is what makes something art).

This is a good point.

Art is in the eye of the beholder, music is in the ear of the beholder. We always have this "discussion" whenever someone posts Mary Halvorson and her Guild playing whatever it is she is playing. Or if someone posts about Yoko Ono singing whatever it is she is singing.

The whole DJ thing is more about computer programming than music for me, but the students in my college classes love it. Of course, taking Ecstasy before the show helps.

To each his own.

walrus
 

JohnW63

Enlightened Member
Joined
Dec 11, 2012
Messages
6,295
Reaction score
2,217
Location
Southern California
Guild Total
4
I think the difference for me is , if one day there was no recorded music could the "DJ" make some or would they have to wait for a musician to make some? One can created out of nothing. The other mixes what has already been created. The DJ is the bartender of music, if you think about it.
 
Top