This seems like the wrong place to start. This seems like the place to start learning a DAW and snapping together samples—to, IMO, make depersonalized unoriginal loop music in a society awash with it because DAW's and looping have created an angel's path to production and proliferation. Learn to drag and drop and you can tell people you meet that you're a musician or a producer. I've met too many mediocre people like this. There should be a disclaimer when this page loads: learn to play an instrument first. Bringing forth music from a physical object utilizes the body as well as the mind, attunes to nuance, and emphasizes that music is primarily a physical phenomenon. It's also just fun and you can jam with or perform for friends. This cut and paste and drag and drop and sample and loop mentality popularized by the rise of hip-hop has lead to an oversaturation of homogeneous, uninspired, unoriginal sound in society. Maybe I'm old fashioned but I think people should spend long, frustrated hours cutting and blistering their fingers for the craft, at least at first. That builds character and will show in your music as you move on.
I think there is a bit of projecting going on here, while I agree with you in a lot of aspects. The market is going to dictate what's going to be produced, just because a product is hard to make doesn't mean it's wanted or objectively good. There are plenty of starving jazz musicians that know way more about music compared to what's currently selling and not just because the bourgeoisie deems it so, because that's what people want to listen at this point in history. John Coltrane is a legend and there are similar jazz musicians out there, but people want the chainsmokers and there isn't anything wrong with that. We could argue that making art using svgs, illustrator, other animation software is incredibly unoriginal and the world would be better if we taught people to use a paintbrush instead. Times change, but that doesn't discredit one or the other.
I want to partially agree with you because there is just something about physically playing an instrument that is so rewarding and fulfilling, to both the artist and the audience blessed enough to witness a true master guitarist/pianist/etc in action.
However, this is too narrow a definition for music. Having some experience with both actual instruments and DAWs I think they exercise different parts of the musical brain and as an aspiring musician one would be more "complete" having knowledge of both. But I don't think one place to start is more necessary that the other.
It's absolutely possible to be a fully developed musician and have the DAW be your only and only "instrument". It's a different skillset and the best producers in the world can create brilliant music just purely in the DAW. There is another subthread here that comments on the difficulty in generating unique sounds, for example. There are lots of specific skills that separate the weekend loopers from the pros that have found their own sound and character. It just takes a different appreciation. The latter set of folks definitely have paid their "frustrated hours cutting and blistering their fingers" just in a very different way.
I will say though that this form of music isn't very interesting to me in a live format vs traditional instrumental music, but the produced/composed/recorded outcome can be just as brilliant.
> This seems like the wrong place to start. This seems like the place to start learning a DAW and snapping together samples
I agree that it makes sense, in a lot of cases, to start with learning an instrument, I do not think that replaces the information on this website. This is more about composing than anything. Sure, the first page introduces the user to "snapping together samples", but the next page introduces the user to what a drum beat is. Going through these pages I can learn to compose music, not just triggering samples. Nobody says that a site like this is a replacement for an instrument, rather, it's something additional that anyone could gain some insights from.
While there's an option to use patterns from the site in Ableton Live, this information is completely DAW agnostic, and could also be completely useful for people that have no interest in creating music with a computer.
Seems like the art fits the times, then. We live in a society where it's easier to "like" something on Facebook, or "friend" someone on Instagram rather than talking in person to another human.
In any case, I disagree with almost all of that. Almost all music you hear today is digital, filtered through electronics, and coming out of mass-produced speakers. Often in some giant shopping complex, in Your Town, USA.
Why write on Hacker News using a computer when you should be writing with quill and ink to your local newspaper? Assuming you aren't against Johannes Gutenberg and his heretical ideas.
Maybe you haven't developed an ear to distinguish between the good and bad? Walk down my college town bar scene and it's awash with dudes who have poured years into an acoustic and it all sounds the same to me... except my buddy Dave (who has the same feelings toward beats as you BTW and honestly I think it's because his guitar is a social crutch...)
Personally I've found DAW style copy and pasting, along with a skeleton set of quality effects, has provided an infinite space for learning and creation. I would never strut around calling myself a musician, but I am a graphic artist and the overlap between the fields is significant. In fact, I attribute my talent for wallpaper and tiled pattern design almost entirely to my loop making. Want to learn motion graphics? Muck about with some jazz drum loops.
I'd say there is enough overlap between beat production and all sorts of fields to warrant a curious mind to explore this world without a silly stigma.
I use DAW's as well. I make ambient music and sound collages as a hobby. I have a large loop and VST instrument collection and have purchased and used numerous apps. My argument is that to have a thorough understanding of music one should be well-rounded and begin with analog; one should become proficient at an instrument. I can't imagine not knowing how to play guitar, tune it up, improvise on it, play it in real time using scales, affecting its sound with my musculature, feeling the infinite nuance of the striking of a single note by how you strike it with said musculature. I can't imagine not having spent time in garages with friends communicating through instruments. That education is invaluable and will deepen your understanding. I just think starting in an artificial realm is a bad idea for a proper music education and people will benefit more by learning music in-the-world, at least initially. This isn't to say that doing this won't make you the open mic guy doing drivel Dave Matthews covers on an acoustic, as you mention.
You're a musician, you're just not classically trained in traditional instruments.
It's the same as a modern photographer who doesn't know how develop film, does it make you less of a artist because your photos were developed on a LCD screen. If anything, it frees you from spending time in a darkroom and instead have more time shooting photos.
Having assisted a photographer who spent weeks coming up with ideas for and planning sometimes single photographs we traveled like 100km to take, a both very gifted and work obsessed person, I am absolutely firm in "not being a real photographer" even though I do have somewhat of an eye for it, if I may say so myself. That's not to belittle what I or others do, but my way to tip my hat. I cannot use one word to conflate all that, she paints with light, she thinks long and hard about what she will paint and how she will do it, she knows her palette, and doing right by what ever is going on in her head as well as she can consumes her. I am not that way, and I doubt the people who make most of the photos we see on the web are that way.
And yes, she could do that 100% digitally too, she uses digital if need be, and the big frame camera stuff she scans anyway, to mangle in photoshop. She just also spent her nights in the dark room she had built in her apartment ^^
Have you ever met someone who is passionate about dancing? The kind that kills your knees by the time you're 30? Imagine saying to them "oh, I'm a dancer too", just because I sometimes dance at home or at the club. In a sense, yes I'm a "dancer", in another, heck no. And the distinction I'm looking for isn't covered by "professional photographer" at all.
Oh, and I also feel that way about the "music" I make with trackers. I put it in quotes not because I don't listen to it for hours on end with a grin on my face, but because I just derp around until I like the result. I know how seriously in contrast I take the lyrics I write, that's an entirely different game; but the "music" really could be the way I make it or a million other ways, I don't care too much. I'm easy to please and lazy in that regard. Everybody has to decide that for themselves, I'm not trying to delineate "serious art" or define "art" in general, but still, if you'd call me a musician I'd say that feels subjectively wrong, I don't want that label, it's a bit too big.
For me, I disagree. I'm a fairly untalented guitar player. I spent 2 years with several teachers and self-learning and I can't really play anything. I can improvise a bit, knowing the Minor Pentatonic scale for example, but I can't really re-produce anyone else's music. I also have a lack of motivation to do so; after all, someone already wrote and performs that.
On the other hand, I am able to write my own music using tools like Guitar Pro, Garage Band, music sequencers, etc. I can even play that music if I'm careful to write it inside of my limited knowledge of the guitar. I really wish I would have been introduced to an easier way of creating music when I was younger so that I first became a hobby music builder and later moved on to playing.
Not really sure exactly what you're saying but I think this says a lot: "I also have a lack of motivation to do so." So don't. Compose the equivalent of Rite of Spring without the motivation to even play a single instrument proficiently and I'll concede instruments are irrelevant and DAW's are an appropriate starting ground for actual musicians.
I consider anyone who creates music a musician. Some of my favorite sounds are the ones created by amateurs in the subway. My favorite guitar players are self taught. I won't be composing Right of Spring, but that's not what music is about for me.
Shameless plug, but have you heard of Magic Instruments[1]? It sounds like the bottleneck is the guitar's user interface and not your music ability. One of the features is what we call Magic Mode, where a single button is a chord and buttons are laid out in any key/scale, but it can also be played like a traditional guitar.
Wow. I have to say I hate this. This dumbs it down for sure. This is just one step up from guitar hero, which is at least premised as a game. It sounds like there is just no room for nuance and personality in that guitar. SMH.
Thanks for the feedback, this isn't the first time we've heard this exact comment, I'm going to try and start a constructive dialog.
> Wow. I have to say I hate this. This dumbs it down for sure.
I can see how this dumbs it down for people in the beginning, but where does a beginner learn how to play an instrument with a 90% failure rate in the first year? It's clear that the problem hasn't been solved, otherwise more than 6% of the US population would playing a musical instrument.
> This is just one step up from guitar hero, which is at least premised as a game.
Partially correct, it's as easy as Guitar Hero in the beginning, but the only correlation is that there are buttons instead of strings on the fretboard. Otherwise, it's an entirely different product. We're a computer that is shaped like a guitar.
> It sounds like there is just no room for nuance and personality in that guitar.
While it's fun to think that guitar made of wood with tensioned strings and metal has more personality vs. a guitar made of plastic and metal, without trying the instrument yourself I beg you to defer your criticism until you try it.
Kind of like electric cars vs. ICE cars. I'm a car geek through and through and there is nothing like slamming your foot into the gas pedal and going fast. The smell of petrol and the noise from the engine/exhaust are the visceral traits people talk about when they drive their ICE cars. Does Tesla lack personality and nuance because you don't smell and hear the same things? I like to think it's a different personality because I still get the same goosebumps when you switch to insanity mode and floor it.
>I can see how this dumbs it down for people in the beginning, but where does a beginner learn how to play an instrument with a 90% failure rate in the first year? It's clear that the problem hasn't been solved, otherwise more than 6% of the US population would playing a musical instrument.
I don't see that failure rate as a bad thing. People who don't want to play guitar that bad will "fail," which also could be known as moving on to something else (?). How is this guitar a stepping stone to actually playing a guitar though? I imagine most people will simply stop at this guitar and use it as a party trick, which is fine; I'd even play around on it if it was on hand. The furthest this guitar can go in teaching someone to play an actual guitar is the matching of the strumming hand to the fretting hand's basic location on a fret board, to say nothing of the fingering (pushing a button doesn't come close). In other words this guitar it seems will get you like... .5% of the way to being proficient at an actual guitar and really no more. The strings on this guitar seem oddly loose, like rubber bands. Just an observation. I'm sure you guys have a reason for this. More catch for untrained thumbs, no blistering? The only way I see this being a step toward real guitar playing is if someone has a really good feeling about being able to hold a guitar shaped instrument and being able to coherently produce sound and decides to give it a full go. But the reality is that making the leap to a real guitar will lead them to run about against the same wall that everyone runs up against: the pain, blisters, hours of infuriating attempts at fingering, having to learn shapes, names of notes and chords, having to learn to tune, read sheet music or tabs, listen to songs to learn them by trial and error, etc.
>Partially correct, it's as easy as Guitar Hero in the beginning, but the only correlation is that there are buttons instead of strings on the fretboard. Otherwise, it's an entirely different product. We're a computer that is shaped like a guitar.
Exactly. So learning to play this is learning to play a computer shaped like a guitar, not a guitar. Like I said, if someone gets a good feeling out of this and that's what it takes to take the plunge into the long hours of pain that guitar learning is then that can be a positive. Though I really cringe at the thought that someone might be fooled into thinking they've arrived at a replacement for a real guitar.
>While it's fun to think that guitar made of wood with tensioned strings and metal has more personality vs. a guitar made of plastic and metal, without trying the instrument yourself I beg you to defer your criticism until you try it.
Okay. I don't see how you can suggest that this guitar is capable of any nuance. It's a brute chord computer. The muscles of a hand on a real guitar with a pick or thumb can operate in such minute and multifarious ways that as far as I can see cannot be done on this guitar. You can play a single note on a real guitar in so many different ways. You can strike the string with varying intensity, you can palm mute the string, you can use varying pressure with the fretting finger on the note, you can vibrato, bend, and so on. Maybe I'm missing something. Can you do slides on your guitar? Bends, vibrato? The basics. Is picking your strings vs. finger-picking different or is the signal just interpreted the same? Can you influence the timbre in any way other than using that knob? Can you post a video of someone doing a solo on your guitar? Doesn't seem possible. I guess you can use it to write basic songs if you're a songwriter. I guess on your guitar you can fret chords at a speed that is inhumanly possible, which is sort of interesting. If I played this I'd be tempted to treat the chord buttons like individual notes to come up with something outlandish. But I don't get how you can insinuate that the guitar is capable of doing what a real guitar can, if that is what you're doing. I take back my "hate" comment. I don't hate it. I'd mess around. But my criticisms above pertaining to your insinuation stand.
>Kind of like electric cars vs. ICE cars. I'm a car geek through and through and there is nothing like slamming your foot into the gas pedal and going fast. The smell of petrol and the noise from the engine/exhaust are the visceral traits people talk about when they drive their ICE cars. Does Tesla lack personality and nuance because you don't smell and hear the same things? I like to think it's a different personality because I still get the same goosebumps when you switch to insanity mode and floor it.
I don't think that analogy works. A Tesla has all the functionality of a combustible car. Your guitar doesn't seem to have the same functionality as a guitar, has most of the functionality cut out, paring it down to chords, and that's saying nothing of the sound of the actual chords, which sound like my first $80 electric plugged through my first $50 amp. There's not a rich tone there. Maybe you could sell it with an amp with effects.
