Great question! Well i spend all my day teaching people how to make music so I probably am in a good position to answer this one....nowaysj wrote:Are there musical and nonmusical people, and if so, are the nonmusical ever capable of producing quality music through hard work and dedication, or will there always be something lacking in their work?
Oh yeah, hey what's up?
When i teach how to make music i dissect music down to elements and try to teach a forumula...a 32 bar intro, 49 bar main body, breakdown, main body 2, outro...using melody, bass, drums, pads.... I have studied music since i was young so i can easily be analytical about how sounds are put together. For the students who maybe haven't had musical training breaking things down to a formula can help them to write tracks.....
Now a formula alone is only the outline of a track...you have to paint in what happens in the melodic, rhythmic etc parts... So although you can be formulaic about structure and instrumentation i think that the creativity comes with what the musical parts do within that structure. Also when you know structures you can manipulate them whilst still making sure your tracks have momentum and progression.
Now i think anyone can learn how to structure a piece of music and anyone can learn how to use music software and also anyone can know what musical layers should be used to have a full track. This stuff is maths rather than music tho. Non musical people can easily create structured sounds.
Music is such a massive and indepth thing. Maybe people could compose a melody but not arrange it the parts into a full song... or maybe they can synthesise brilliant sounds from scratch but not write melodies.... or maybe they can compose and arrange a great piece of music but have no idea about how to engineer things to sound polished, clean and big (whilst still having some rawness). Back in the 60s-90s you had a team of people working on a track and each person would have their specialist area - editor, arranger, composer, lyricist, performer, studio engineer, mastering engineer - however these days you have yourself and a laptop/computer. Computer musicians are expected to do everything and i think it is very few people who can do everything well. I can listen to music by people selling thousands of records and think...they should have put variation in the drums there; or the snare is too dry; or that second drop needs some variation; or that sound is too resonant. So computer musicians need to be everything and so now i don't think it is even down to musical and non-musical people...rather you have to be musical, mathematical, scientific and creative to consistently produce good work on your own....
Also prior to dance music you had bands where each person played their own instrument... now we have orchestras at our fingertips and we have to write the drums, melody, harmony etc.... You can get deep into music...even down to building your own synths on Reaktor/MAXMSP. Obviously you can spend all day writing a great sound but not doing anything with it so there has to be a balance but i think very often people just are eager to get stuff out so they sit down Reason and have a track done in a day, put it up on Soundcloud and forget about it....I don't think that makes them non-musical but it does mean the are not embracing enough of the facets of music to produce quality and timeless music....It is hard and takes time to develop tracks... I never finish a track in under 6 months... although the basics of the structure and instrumentation may be done in two 8 hour sessions it takes time to develop the track... you have to listen to music in different places and environments and let the sounds live with you...play it in clubs & on the radio...at night and day etc....
So focussing on the question. If we treat music as the composition side of things then I think there are some people who are musical and others who aren't however this is not down to education or the ability to play an instrument... I have always written music and always played instruments but Succulent-C (my best mate who has stuff out on UK Trends) has never studied music and had never written music before he met me...infact the first time i met him i was shocked as he couldn't even whistle in tune... i thought he was tone-def however i taught him the basics of music making and he is obviously a 'musical' person as he picked it up quickly and took naturally to writing rhythms and melodies and has made some great tracks.... For his releases I have done some additional engineering (compression etc) but as far as musical ideas go he can do it.
So i spend all day teaching people to write music but it is a very few who apply creativity to their music...often you get 20 wobble bass tracks at 140, 10 housey tracks, and a lot of very basic tracks in no particular genre that are nothing more than melody, drums and bass strucutred exactly using the forumula i give. Sometimes you can see talent and people really taking it to the next level and applying creative ideas to their tracks (or their tracks are basic but good and i will give them ideas about how they could develop the ideas).
Even for the most musical person it is a constant learning experience, how to write melodies, play melodies, write rhythms, engineer, master, structure, little production techniques, using FX and automation creatively... if you are not constantly learning new things and having new ideas then there is no point.
it seems to me that in 2011 if you like music then you then write music and i do think that the fact all software can be downloaded quickly and easily is dangerous generally... there are less people to just be fans and enjoy music. I love football but i would never try and be a pro! Because anyone can pick up reason, download some samples and refills and make a passable pastiche of dubstep/drum and bass/UKF etc it is meaning that things get formulaic quickly and there is saturation in every genre. Back when you needed to buy synths, hefty computers and software you didn't get everyone thinking that they can make it as an artist....Now i do think that it is potentially brilliant that anyone can download a bit of software and make music but only if people put in enough time to creating their music, let it ferment & always look to push themselves and innovate...even if the innovations sound awful for the first 3 years of producing at least they will be doing something different... you have to learn how to use software and then develop your own unique sound and until then you shouldn't try and be famous....otherwise we will get people who have not even had time to discover whether they are musical or non-musical and there will always be something missing from their music (originality, creativity, production values, variation etc...).
