# Brian Eno has it right IMHO.



## Ashermusic (Nov 2, 2019)

Brian Eno Explains the Loss of Humanity in Modern Music


In music, as in film, we have reached a point where every element of every composition can be fully produced and automated by computers. This is a breakthrough that allows producers with little or no musical training the ability to rapidly turn out hits.




www.openculture.com


----------



## bvaughn0402 (Nov 2, 2019)

While I agree ... I wonder ... how would that look in real life?

For example, would it be more helpful to never Quantize? Never use Melodyne (or anything equivalent)?

In other words, there are certainly some things that don't necessarily contribute to this (tape vs hard drive), but certain things that definitely can (e.g., Quantize/Melodyne).


----------



## D Halgren (Nov 2, 2019)

I love The Brain!


----------



## David Cuny (Nov 3, 2019)

Ashermusic said:


> Brian Eno Explains the Loss of Humanity in Modern Music
> 
> 
> In music, as in film, we have reached a point where every element of every composition can be fully produced and automated by computers. This is a breakthrough that allows producers with little or no musical training the ability to rapidly turn out hits.
> ...



*Caveat:* This is a knee-jerk reaction where I failed to watch the corresponding video and instead respond directly to the quote. Shame on me. 

I disagree with a blanket statement that the using computers corresponds to a "loss of humanity".

There's a couple more ideas embedded here that I'm not sure I agree with, either:

Every element of film can be fully produced "by" computers.
Musical ability without formal training is less real than formal education.
People prefer machine precision over music skill.
There's a difference between producing something "by" computers - which implies the computer is creating the product - and "with" computers, where computers are the tool.

For example, CGI films are produced "with" computers using writers, modelers, riggers, animators, lighting, foley, voice artists and a virtual army of other talented and creative humans.

As for musical ability and formal training, many skills in different fields can be acquired without the rigors of formal training. In fact, this conference paper states:



> In a 1979 interview, Lester Bangs asked Brian Eno to clarify his already notorious assertion that he is no musician. Eno replied by stating his belief that formal training and instrumental virtuosity—“digital skills”—should not be the sine qua non for music making. On the contrary, the lack of the strictures that may come with a traditional music education can lead to surprising results that may fall outside accepted boundaries. In this chapter, I trace Eno’s unconventional approach back to the experimental tradition in which he was an active participant in the earlier parts of his career.


----------



## Michel Simons (Nov 3, 2019)

David Cuny said:


> *Caveat:* This is a knee-jerk reaction where I failed to watch the corresponding video and instead respond directly to the quote. Shame on me.
> 
> I disagree with a blanket statement that the using computers corresponds to a "loss of humanity".
> 
> ...



I just read the article (without watching the video as well; although it looks like something I have already seen before) and I didn't read into it what you seem to have.


----------



## dgburns (Nov 3, 2019)

oy vey


----------



## cmillar (Nov 3, 2019)

Great article, and he's got it right.

Speaking for myself, I'd rather hear a pure electronic/analog/digital synthesizer piece of music or score (ie: Bladerunner score, Kraftwerk music, some DJ's work, some of Zimmer's electronic scores, early KRS One rap with samples/Akai's, pop music produced with synths from the 70's, 80's, 90's) .... than hear a film score that is made with sampling libraries of orchestral instruments.

Why? Because the libraries dictate how you compose...you have to accomodate the weaknesses of them not being REAL musicians.

If you're after MUSIC with soul and thought, then it's never good enough for a composer who knows what it should sound like.

If you're after SOUND, then you might emulate some kind of emotion through tricking people into thinking that you've got some real humans producing sound.

But, 9 times out of 10, the producers haven't a clue. And, sadly, either do too many of today's 'composers'.

Therefore, overly quantized, looped-sound-bits, ostinatos, etc. etc. become the flavor of the day. It's churned out super fast, you can edit super fast, and the bean counters at the corporation are happy.

I'd rather hear Brian Eno's electronic/sampled work.... at least he puts some thought and soul into it.


----------



## 2chris (Nov 3, 2019)

Eno of all people needs to think about how ignorant he sounds. I’m a fan of Eno but this is stupid hot take garbage. Good music is good because of the sum of its parts and the feeling it creates in the listener, not because it's “real” instruments, sampled instruments or phrases, some kind electronic instrument, or something a computer helped with. Most of the time the listener doesn’t know or care what they’re hearing, they listen holistically. To the majority of listeners, they couldn’t tell you a great composition made from orchestral samples or the real thing if they are willing to listen to it. Good music inspires a feeling, period.

When hip hop sampled classic songs, did it create a lesser form of expression that was only derivative of the original? Sometimes, yes, and sometimes it’s excellent curation that works toward exactly what an artist/producer wants to make a new creation. Sometimes it was all the artist had access to. Artists turned to an MPC2000 over session instruments and musicians? They didn’t have access to formal education, so it’s worth less than formally trained musicians? If sampled music evokes a feeling among a generation of people, it can get someone to a level of artistry to tell their story. That is a good reason it persists today.

To me this is like an oil painter arguing that photography takes away artistry because anyone can take a photo. Yes, but thats ignorant. If you’re that closed minded, poor you, but the things that make a photo art aren’t that different from what would inspire that art in an oil painter. The digital age just creates more low quality noise to find the gems that are inspiring and evoke a feeling. Good artistry is harder to come by because of low quality noise taking more space, but just because that phenomenon exists, don’t let it dismiss great works that don’t follow some weird sentiment of what artistry “should” be.


----------



## Sears Poncho (Nov 3, 2019)

2chris said:


> Eno of all people needs to think about how ignorant he sounds. I’m a fan of Eno but this is stupid hot take garbage. Good music is good because of the sum of its parts and the feeling it creates in the listener, not because it's “real” instruments, sampled instruments or phrases, some kind electronic instrument, or something a computer helped with.


Agreed, and he's making an even bigger mistake:

The singer/songwriter making 15 bucks in tips at the coffeehouse is every bit a part of the "music biz" as Taylor Swift. So is the Dixieland band. The Glenn Miller and Dorsey bands still tour, filled with whippersnappers born 50+ years after the heyday. Gospel music has a lot of live and quasi-live recordings. "Modern music" is enormous, as is the "biz". I use Sibelius, but aside from that my writing work is old-school Boston Pops style, it's hilarious to think a computer can do that and I'm as much part of the "music biz" as anyone else.


----------



## motomotomoto (Nov 3, 2019)

2chris said:


> Eno of all people needs to think about how ignorant he sounds. I’m a fan of Eno but this is stupid hot take garbage. Good music is good because of the sum of its parts and the feeling it creates in the listener, not because it's “real” instruments, sampled instruments or phrases, some kind electronic instrument, or something a computer helped with. Most of the time the listener doesn’t know or care what they’re hearing, they listen holistically. To the majority of listeners, they couldn’t tell you a great composition made from orchestral samples or the real thing if they are willing to listen to it. Good music inspires a feeling, period.
> 
> When hip hop sampled classic songs, did it create a lesser form of expression that was only derivative of the original? Sometimes, yes, and sometimes it’s excellent curation that works toward exactly what an artist/producer wants to make a new creation. Sometimes it was all the artist had access to. Artists turned to an MPC2000 over session instruments and musicians? They didn’t have access to formal education, so it’s worth less than formally trained musicians? If sampled music evokes a feeling among a generation of people, it can get someone to a level of artistry to tell their story. That is a good reason it persists today.
> 
> To me this is like an oil painter arguing that photography takes away artistry because anyone can take a photo. Yes, but thats ignorant. If you’re that closed minded, poor you, but the things that make a photo art aren’t that different from what would inspire that art in an oil painter. The digital age just creates more low quality noise to find the gems that are inspiring and evoke a feeling. Good artistry is harder to come by because of low quality noise taking more space, but just because that phenomenon exists, don’t let it dismiss great works that don’t follow some weird sentiment of what artistry “should” be.



did you read the whole article? i didn’t take away from it that eno was against technology or sampled instruments etc... just warning that quantizing everything and applying heavy pitch correction everywhere sucks the life out of the music, something that most composers / producers already know anyway.


----------



## 2chris (Nov 3, 2019)

motomotomoto said:


> did you read the whole article? i didn’t take away from it that eno was against technology or sampled instruments etc... just warning that quantizing everything and applying heavy pitch correction everywhere sucks the life out of the music, something that most composers / producers already know anyway.


Maybe I took it too far, but how are computers doing everything in film and music? There are premises that don’t make sense in the article or video. I agree with the premise of hard quantizing and loudness war being factors with the homogeneous nature of some genres, but it’s not computers doing that. People can chose the volume, and people can choose to quantize, shuffle, or play things in live. A person is making a music choice, and someone else is usually reviewing that, commenting, and sometimes feedback shapes the art.

In another article Eno talks about treating a studio like an instrument, and how he eventually stopped going into a studio with prepared work, and letting the studio help him find his way. He’s an interesting guy. I like the premise of humanizing music, cool, but take the good with the bad. Technology is a tool we get to choose how to use. It’s not doing our work, just as the studio didn’t write his music. It was his vision and experimentation that brought his work, not the fact he had one synth or another, or a certain tape recorder.

The thing he often says that I agree with is a tendency toward working and reworking to the point nothing is done. Where daw’s make this worse, and that improvising, humanizing, and mistakes can bring great music that a daw can lose. I feel this is true.


----------



## Ashermusic (Nov 4, 2019)

His main point is that people now use the tools to seek what they think is perfection, and humans are by definition imperfect and its their imperfections that make their music more interesting.

Does anyone really want to hear Bruce Springsteen Auto-tuned and quantized?


----------



## motomotomoto (Nov 4, 2019)

Ashermusic said:


> His main point is that people now use the tools to seek what they think is perfection, and humans are by definition imperfect and its their imperfections that make their music more interesting.
> 
> Does anyone really want to hear Bruce Springsteen Auto-tuned and quantized?


Yes exactly, in no way is eno anti these technologies, just the way some use them.


----------



## KallumS (Nov 4, 2019)

I think he's overestimating the issue. Every producer I know makes sure to loosely quantize and adjust notes to be off the grid. Most drum programming tutorials will tell you to humanize the midi notes. Not everyone is out there making Kraftwerk style robot music.


----------



## JohnG (Nov 4, 2019)

of course it's a matter of degree. Too much is too much, but who's to say when we hit that limit?

One of the most enjoyable songs I've heard in a long time is, "That Was a Pretty Good Beard." It's on youtube but whatever -- it's about as far from "produced" as you could want. On the other hand, if people like Katie Perry and it brightens their lives, so what?

*How Should We Work?*

I think it's risky whenever we have "ought" "should" "mustn't" creep into how we compose or record, whether the speaker is arguing in favour of more or less "book-learnin,' which tools / instruments we're supposed to use, and so on. That kind of normative thinking is ok if you're trying to work out why an arrangement, or a single chord isn't accomplishing what you want, but otherwise it feels like scolds -- people trying to justify why they're superior if they have a PhD or they're superior because they don't.

*Too Much Precision?*

Ironically, given the concern over too much precision from computers, I have found that the absolute A players play with far more accuracy than my sample libraries. It's uncanny what the folks at Abbey Road or the A-list players in Los Angeles can execute. Freaky, actually! But of course it doesn't sound antiseptic or lacking in humanity.

So I guess I find these discussions interesting but ultimately nonsense if they stray to an extreme.


----------



## Ashermusic (Nov 4, 2019)

Brian is indeed arguing against the extreme and the ubiquity of it. He is not saying nobody should ever edit. 

He is saying the intention to make perfect is anti-human because, and I too have worked with A-list players, all humans who play an instrument or sing do so with some degree of imperfection.


----------



## cqd (Nov 4, 2019)

I think what's really doing it isn't that everything is being quantized (that isn't helping..) but that it's being done on a computer screen linearly or whatever..It's not being written on an instrument in kind of three dimensional time with the writer at the center, but it's like 4 bars of that, 4 bars of that etc..


----------



## VinRice (Nov 4, 2019)

Ashermusic said:


> Does anyone really want to hear Bruce Springsteen Auto-tuned and quantized?



You've made this argument before Jay but it's an unsophisticated one. Of course I don't want to hear 'Born in the USA' auto-tuned but that's because it is an artefact of it's time and Bruce is now a 'national treasure'. The simple truth is that if Bruce was unknown and making that song now, it would probably be gently auto-tuned by a skilled operative and you would be none the wiser. The 'domain' of popular music has moved on and the 'gatekeepers' of that domain (the buying/streaming public) have deemed that for certain markets a glassy perfection of production is preferred. It is what it is. Pop music however is not the totality of the music business, so there are vast areas of music for which auto-tune is irrelevant (though I have used it in a piece where the cellist fucked-up - worked brilliantly)

Eno's comments would be typical 'old man farting in the wind' (I'm an old man) but for the fact that coming from somebody of his reputation they will hopefully encourage the young'ns not to rely so heavily on post manipulation but on capturing performance, which would benefit them greatly going forward.


----------



## cmillar (Nov 4, 2019)

Brian Eno knows what he's talking about; as did / does Quincy Jones when he stated: "....the trouble with today's so-called producers and musicians is that hardly any of them have ever actually played an instrument....they miss out on what it's like to make music with real people.....playing a real instrument gives you the experience of breathing, shaping phrases, playing in tune with others and having a physical connection to the music....."

I've paraphrased a bit, but that's a lot of what he said several years ago.


----------



## DerSiebteRabe (Nov 4, 2019)

I'm always like, the odd man out on this but, I especially don't care about whether or not the music is "human" when it comes to movies and video games, which — at least on the large scale — are largely soulless consumer products just there to make as much money as they can, as quickly as they can, are chalked-full of propaganda, and then are discarded by the masses for the next thing.

Like, you watch a big Hollywood movie (or an indie-attempt at such) where the actors and actresses all have tons make-up and personal artists, plastic surgery, fake sets, fake monsters, fake breasts, fake backgrounds, by-the-numbers-plots, endless reboots and remakes, entire animated films and games where literally everything on screen is computer generated, and all of these aspects can be found among popstars as well — but I'm supposed to draw the line at the music being plastic?

People aren't wrong for liking these things; suggesting music or art in general should consist of nothing but would be a problem, but nobody actually does suggest that so...

While I can agree that we ought to place greater value on distinctly human elements to music, there is still room for both that and the "perfect" world and they can augment each other.

For me, maybe it's because I've always considered myself to be a "composer" first and foremost, my greatest concern is "Can you write a good tune?" How you make it happen is of lesser concern.


----------



## marclawsonmusic (Nov 4, 2019)

Sears Poncho said:


> The singer/songwriter making 15 bucks in tips at the coffeehouse is every bit a part of the "music biz" as Taylor Swift.



I dunno... I never felt part of 'the music biz' when I played free gigs at the coffee shop (or open mic) for tips. I felt more like a real musician when I got a paycheck at the end of the night.


----------



## Living Fossil (Nov 4, 2019)

Ashermusic said:


> His main point is that people now use the tools to seek what they think is perfection, and humans are by definition imperfect and its their imperfections that make their music more interesting.
> 
> Does anyone really want to hear Bruce Springsteen Auto-tuned and quantized?



No, but i also don't want to hear Cher's "Believe" without autotune.
And i would miss that great south park episode that features Parker & Stone's take on that particular song.


The problem of Eno's statement is that it's so vague that it's not very meaningful.
Of course, lot of today's music suffers from over-quantisation.

But let's be honest:
Lot of the records from the good old days were crap too, sometimes for the opposite reason.
Drummers with a bad timing are no fun.
Bad intonation can be cute but also bothering as hell.


----------



## Arbee (Nov 4, 2019)

There is certainly a fine line between "perfect" and "good enough". It wasn't so long ago really that music had to be performed in front of you, so you heard it once and it was "gone". Given recorded music is intended to be heard again, and again, and again, what might start off as an "endearing artistic artefact" can quickly become just an irritating flaw after repeated listens. There are quite a few of those moments (rhythmic mostly) in my beloved Led Zeppelin archives .

In my mind there is quite a chasm, and becoming wider and wider with sonic design, between live music (including live recordings) and studio produced music as art forms. No better or worse, just different intentions and different listening experiences.


----------



## dflood (Nov 4, 2019)

I must be doing something wrong, because after I record a track, I generally spend most of my time de-humanizing it.


----------



## cmillar (Nov 5, 2019)

Living Fossil said:


> No, but i also don't want to hear Cher's "Believe" without autotune.
> ....
> Lot of the records from the good old days were crap too, sometimes for the opposite reason.
> Drummers with a bad timing are no fun.
> Bad intonation can be cute but also bothering as hell.



Back "in the day", all the 'wanna-be's' and musical 'posers' were usually replaced by great musicians that could actually play their instruments when it came time to actually record an album.

ie: the 'Wrecking Crew' and other fantastic studio musicians the world over who actually had spent years honing their skills and craft while having the real musicality to be able to create and play music in many different styles and genres of music

Great, real musicians can crank out music that's played in tune, in time, and with musicality and inspiration.

Poor musicians waste money, time, and everybody's patience while trying to record something.

Same with using samples on everything to 'sound real'....you have to spend overtime and countless hours just trying to replicate something that a real musician could crank out in 5 minutes instead of 5 days or 5 hours, depending on what you're trying to replicate.

Therefore....we all take the easy route and just compose to what the sample's dictate...we have to record to the strengths or weaknesses of the libraries and the fact that they're all just digital snapshots of real sound.

So, we settle for 2nd best, and the producers now have grown up not knowing anything different.

Musical mediocrity now gets mistaken for actual human potential. I dare say that the vast majority of producers (of all kinds of music and media, and the producers of film and TV) really haven't a clue as to what humans are actually capable of doing.

Pretty sad state of affairs.


----------



## GtrString (Nov 5, 2019)

I think Eno partly is right, but is creating controversy by lack of precision in his statement (or maybe the media is creating that angle, so we are incented to write posts like this). Yes, it is possible to use plug-in presets to finalize the production of a track. But computers do nothing but process the ideas of software programmers, which means that you basically rely on other people to do sound design and mix and master your music.

With computers this process is not direct, like in the hardware only days, but mediated through software. This basically means human interaction is factored out as a process of stimuli and creativity. To me that is just irrational, because the software is black-boxing a lot of creative ideas, considerations and desicions.

While it is true that anyone now can achieve "broadcast quality" sound, with little effort, it is also uniforming the notion of what is perceived as "good" sound to some extent. Not for those who really are knowledgeable, but for some, music software is a myth factory, creating false uniform beliefs and standards. And the more mass those myths achieve, the harder, or more esoteric, it will be to maintain high standards for creativity, uniqueness and context sensibility.

And by no standards are computers able to produce musical ideas by themselves. That's where the silent implications in Eno's blanket statement is dead wrong. It's, of course, all in the programming of the algorithms. Actual people are coding those algorithms. So, the questions we should ask, whom are we giving license to produce music in the future, and why? Is cheap convenience the new "quality" criteria? Who are the people that has big stakes in that spin of terms, and why? Let's follow the money..

Will software developers, with great programming skills, be the next celebrity artists, like DJ's became popular live performers?


----------



## Living Fossil (Nov 5, 2019)

cmillar said:


> Therefore....we all take the easy route and just compose to what the sample's dictate...we have to record to the strengths or weaknesses of the libraries and the fact that they're all just digital snapshots of real sound.



@cmillar : I guess you meant "we" in a very generalized way. Personally, i record musicians for almost every project, except those that are really very small. And most composers i know go this route too.
Concerning the replaced musicians on records: Yes, that was often a thing.
Still i remember just too many records that in my opinion sound bad. BTW this includes some of Eno's more ambienty works too.
I still think there is a huge cultural decline going on, but for different reasons.
The role that cultural education plays in school is one of them.
The fact that music is judged almost only by commercial factors is another one.
(don't forget, that the traditional european concert music [i.e. "classical" music] was not written for mass audiences)


----------



## 2chris (Nov 5, 2019)

DerSiebteRabe said:


> I'm always like, the odd man out on this but, I especially don't care about whether or not the music is "human" when it comes to movies and video games, which — at least on the large scale — are largely soulless consumer products just there to make as much money as they can, as quickly as they can, are chalked-full of propaganda, and then are discarded by the masses for the next thing.
> 
> Like, you watch a big Hollywood movie (or an indie-attempt at such) where the actors and actresses all have tons make-up and personal artists, plastic surgery, fake sets, fake monsters, fake breasts, fake backgrounds, by-the-numbers-plots, endless reboots and remakes, entire animated films and games where literally everything on screen is computer generated, and all of these aspects can be found among popstars as well — but I'm supposed to draw the line at the music being plastic?
> 
> ...


I really like your jaded view here. It's absolutely valid in my opinion. Music is a product as much as it's an art. If the loudness war is winning, or heavily quantized music resonates with people, or a director falls in love with temp music that has no "artistry" and has been used a million times and wants you to imitate that to get paid - WHO CARES? The audience doesn't care if they played it live, or have a past of gigging with musicians. That helps them as an artist if they have more experience, but the product is the product. If the end product speaks to people, and they enjoy it or at least buy it - that's a decent product regardless of whether a group of creators agree.

I stand by saying, to me at least, good music speaks to the listener. That can mean lots of things. The other side of music is that it's a product, and for many (myself NOT included - to me it's a hobby), music is how you make a living. In that world, the client/consumer is king, and it goes back to - does it speak to the end user?


----------



## Ashermusic (Nov 5, 2019)

Living Fossil said:


> No, but i also don't want to hear Cher's "Believe" without autotune.



I don't want to hear it either way


----------



## Ashermusic (Nov 5, 2019)

cmillar said:


> and the producers now have grown up not knowing anything different.
> 
> Musical mediocrity now gets mistaken for actual human potential. I dare say that the vast majority of producers (of all kinds of music and media, and the producers of film and TV) really haven't a clue as to what humans are actually capable of doing.
> 
> Pretty sad state of affairs.



My take, exactly. When all you have had is Ripple, you don't appreciate why fine wine is fine wine.


----------



## Greg (Nov 5, 2019)

Well articulated warning heard loud and clear. Been trying to embrace more "mistakes" in my work lately. It's always those happy accidents like clashes of harmony you didn't expect or syncopation in the rhythm that makes a track feel special. To my ears anyway.


----------



## DS_Joost (Nov 5, 2019)

This is one of those reasons why I started viewing my computer as an instrument rather than an orchestral emulation box. I believe the whole orchestral emulation thing is... Well... Boring. We can do realistic mockups. So what? I don't care. We got all this power in front of us and we're still gushing over 16x round robins and what have you, and while I appreciate the effort, for me, it's become total nonsense!

Contrast this with me five years ago when I started this thing. I wanted to be a big time composer, doing the things the James Horners and Hans Zimmers and John Williamses of this world did. But I ran into a big wall. It wasn't the samples, it wasn't the software, it was none of that.

It was me having all this power at my fingertips to create something awesome and new and what was I doing? Imitating things that were already there. Boring, mindnumbingly boring.

Where am I going with this? Because there is artistical value within the tools that we use. But we don't use them to experiment. The problem isn't with the quantizing, with the editing, all that. It's because we use all those tools we have to create "perfect" renditions of things we already know. I have heard hundreds of filmscores in my life and you know what...

I'm gonna say something controversial here: guitars are boring, because we've been overusing them for so long. Bass is boring. Drums are boring. Cellos are boring. French Horns are boring.

It's all become bloody boring because we have been doing the same goddamn things on them for years now. Heck, synths have become boring because everybody is throwing out the same drones on them for more than ten years now.

So you are saying you got a computer chock full of 25 synths, 50 sample libraries, 10 equalizers, 5 compressors, 13 different reverbs and all that comes out sounds the same as anyone else?

The problem isn't the tools. It's our ability to innovate even when the tools for progress are delivered to us on a silver platter. The only thing that's changed is that recordings sound more "perfect".

There is no problem with the tools or the possibilities. Not to step onto anyone's toes here, but you got all this power and you use it for the umpteenth mockup rendition of Theme from Jurassic Park in order to verify the purchase of an instrument by trying to get as close to something that already exists.

That, to me, is what's the problem today. We iterate, but forget to innovate.

I am not saying I am some holy genius inventing new stuff everyday, by the way. I don't condone others for stagnation. That's merely my observation.


----------



## cmillar (Nov 6, 2019)

Just as important....I still can't believe that people think Budweiser is a 'beer'.


----------

