this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2024
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How do you feel about other tech-based tools making an artists life easier, like sequencers, VSTs, DAWs, and the like? I see it as maybe another tool to use.
With all of the tools you described the entire creative process is still done by a human musician. Sequencers have to be programmed. VSTs are just instruments and they DAWs have simply replaced expensive studio equipment so poors like me can produce a decent sounding track.
I don't want to see generated images or AI coded video games either.
Beethoven and all the classical composers and musicians are spinning in their graves. Music should be made by humans with instruments, not boxes with electricity in them! /s
At the end of the day it's another tool that makes the process easier. Not only does the user have significant artistic control but it is a great way to lower the bar for people to work on something they feel a responsibility for- which is a great way to encourage more traditional musical skills.
Beethoven would have loved DAWs and synthesizers. He would have vomited at the thought of a machine plying HIS trade autonomously.
Given that music boxes are very very old it is plausible that beethoven could have made a remark sharing his opinion on this exact issue. I don't mean to agree/disagree with your point, I just find that kind of interesting.
I get that you don't need to be a professional instrument player to make good music...or be a professional composer...but if everything that takes effort, knowledge, experience and practice is done for you, what are you really contributing? Curation, maybe?
This is great for people who make indie games to focus on gameplay and structure. You can make a full soundtrack and background images in a 2 minutes for free. But you can't say it is going to help foster the creativity that great composers valued, because you will eventually see e.g. music at the top level, as styles you can remix with some characteristics, but won't be aware of how they are built and can be rebuilt to create something truly new.
This will limit creativity, because we will associate novelty with a high-level remix/fusion in a preset number of dimensions instead of the much higher possibilities coming from complexity underneath.
...it's like I'm talking about low-level programming languages vs high-level ones :)
None of those tools has ever made a full releasable track for anyone, just like the tape machine never created music out of nowhere.
Arguably a lot of these tools are designed specifically to reduce the effort a human has to put in to create the art they want to make too.
You're getting downvoted but you are right. Stuff like this is a super cool example of exactly the type of thing you are talking about imo.
There's a lot of AI generated art that sucks. But that does not imply that in skilled hands an artist can't use those tools in creative/interesting ways.
Technicalities probably, but much like computery things in general these tools don't make all things easier necessarily. If pure making and playing of music is the goal, then just pickup an instrument. Record it with a nice preamp and microphone in an appropriate space. These tools allow many more and different options however. Of course I can approximate an orchestra good enough for low budget projects if not tv shows, without needing to hire an actual orchestra. And apply convolution reverb of the sistene chapel, or my bathroom. No complaints about the massive world of possibilities at our finger tips. But if I could hire a local school orchestra, the recording gear, and have an afternoon on such a project , it would be alot more fun than scrolling for hours for the right picollo flute sample, wrestling with licences (including cost) , upgrade hassles, and other tech headaches of this digital age. Back to my banjo. Saying all that I prefer when the tools mature into instruments and methods in their own right. e.g mpc sampling and performance, ableton live magic , and more. Plus its not all mutually exclusive. Do whats right for the art at the given time.
Valid question, fuck those downvoters.