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Are We Still Composers?

Day 1: Modular synth wall + A.I.- guided sequencing + acoustic instruments/sources. Turn everything on, walk out of the studio, make a drink, shuffle back in, hit record, sit at the piano stool, look out the window, (take a sip, noodle a bit) x 8 or 12 times, hit stop, change settings, move to another instrument, hit record, etc...
Day 2: Edit
Repeat.
That’s what I’m aiming for when I retire.
 
Day 1: Modular synth wall + A.I.- guided sequencing + acoustic instruments/sources. Turn everything on, walk out of the studio, make a drink, shuffle back in, hit record, sit at the piano stool, look out the window, (take a sip, noodle a bit) x 8 or 12 times, hit stop, change settings, move to another instrument, hit record, etc...
Day 2: Edit
Repeat.
That’s what I’m aiming for when I retire.
How bout a neural interface that takes the music in yer noggin straight to the daw?
 
Composing would be so much easier if they created the brainbolt connection that plugs starignt into your forehead.

Crystal clear 192k 32bit float 0 latency, jitter free thought recording. With class leading A/D brain conversion technology, and an unprecedented 0 to 10 billion brainnamic range. Seemlessley intergreating with your chosen DAW to create compelling music, straight from the brain.

Link it. Think it. Brainbolt.
 
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Composing would be so much easier if they created the brainbolt connection that plugs starignt into your forehead.

Crystal clear 192k 32bit float 0 latency, jitter free thought recording. With class leading A/D brain conversion technology, and an unprecedented 0 to 10 billion brainnamic range. Seemlessley intergreating with your chosen DAW to create compelling music, straight from the brain.

Link it. Think it. Brainbolt.
You better register that now!
 
Nah, I'm one of the good ones;)

Link it. Think it. Brainbolt.

Should be on a blimp in the Blade Runner

Some one once told me I could sell steam to a turd. Screw music! Screw labour! Who needs a slogan??
Nah, I'm one of the good ones;)

Link it. Think it. Brainbolt.

Should be on a blimp in the Blade Runner universe.

Haha! That would be awesome.

Some one once told me I could sell steam to a turd...

Need a slogan? :o)
 
Lazy or not, a composer is a composer. Doesn't really matter what tools you use but not playing piano is like forcing yourself to use pillows to make orange juice.
As someone who is both a composer and who does not play piano, I can say for certain that this is true.
 
Lazy or not, a composer is a composer. Doesn't really matter what tools you use but not playing piano is like forcing yourself to use pillows to make orange juice.

As a non piano player, I would like to disagree so much with this... Unfortunately, I can't. Back to using pillows :,-(
 
Lazy or not, a composer is a composer. Doesn't really matter what tools you use but not playing piano is like forcing yourself to use pillows to make orange juice.

Greg,
I'm not sure composing is about the piano in some forms of music, especially orchestral. In fact I'd say the piano is a hindrance in orchestral writing.
 
So if anyone buys your "composition" you are a composer?
If that's true then why bother discuss it?
Take all the extras at a filmset, are they actors? I don't think the "real" actors think so, but then again they might get picked out by the director to play a better part, and then they are, right?

To me composing happens inside my head and transformed to sound via paper (Sibelius/Dorico) and then recorded in my DAW. I my experience the moment in transition between the "paper" and the DAW is important, because the moment it's in the DAW every thing is about sound, and sound to me is the next level in composing. If the composition is good enough it will survive and "shine" in the end.
I worked in my youth together with a guitarist who always put on a drum machine when he composed. It worked very well for him, but to me it seemed that he always fell back into his comfort zone, and having a hard time to come up with something new. He is now the most successful film composer in Denmark!
And then I thought we had passed by all this nonsense about music theory and learning to read/write music! Reading music is a craftsmanship, it's a language to communicate music. Learning that language let's you understand the musical elements behind all the fine music written today and before our time. And the theory is not used to beat "the music" out of students, it's used - invented - to be able to understand and describe some common elements in music, making it possible to form a enlightened conversation about it. Sorry it has always p**sed me off to listen to people who defend their lacking knowledge in this field with the argument, that they don't NEED it, when I so many times have listened to - and worked with - the same people, and must say, yes you do.
 
Vangelis is on interview actually stating he doesn't. He has a Russian woman transcribe all his work by ear. Which is a feat in and of itself. Not that it means much though. Vangelis is talented in a way I think none of us could ever hope to be...:thumbsdown:

Just to clarify; reading and writing notes is part of a toolbox you can use to create music. It is a handy one, and partly, in some areas of music composition, an indispensable skill.

I could learn to read notes. Maybe one day, when the need arises, I will learn to read them. Right now, however, I am fully sunken into the synth-sound design aesthetic, which I truly, deeply love. I am not talking about the whole epic thing either, which I don't like. That said, stopping making music now to learn how to read notes would stop my musical aspirations dead in their tracks. There's only so much time to spend in a day; I choose to devote that to creating new timbres and textures that are as of yet unheard.

I still am musical, so I'm not mangling sounds for mangling's sake. I just love to explore that aspect and combine it with some more traditional musical elements.

Point is: I choose to focus on a completely different aspect of making music. An aspect which in my opinion is as much a part of the craft as anything mentioned here. And this is what I'm trying to get at: what is 'the craft' exactly? What does that constitute? If I choose, willingly, one aspect over the other to focus on, make me lesser of a practitioner of said 'craft?'

I say the I don't give a hoot about the craft as such not because I don't see it as a craft. I say it because I have had enough people saying you need to do x or y otherwise you are not a 'real composer', whatever that means. I learned to stop apologizing for something I shouldn't have to apologize for.


One man's composer is another's poser :)

Seriously though, you cannot tell me that great electronic music composers don't work to develop a craft, albeit it different from. traditional composing craft. You cannot be a really good consistent composer in any genre without craft. Without it, you may have moments of brilliance but it will be overwhelmingly outweighed by banality.

Thanks for correcting me about Vangelis, I am surprised.
 
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