i’d give you 20 bucks if you’d really do that.
I probably get 20 years too 
Why don’t we just hand Fritz’ kids some instruments and see what they come up with?
my thoughts exactly
maybe the relation between humans and music begins as them being listeners and not creators (birds, …)
but this still does not explain
- how standards/norms have developped in music, and why they exist.
- and while norms exist, we are not even able to explain why that rythm/melody is more appreciated, over an other, from people.
The Western 12 note equal temperament comes down to scale and is VERY well documented! Watch the interview with the create of Melodyne I posted in this forum for a very brief rundown and take note of the books he mentions if you want some reading material.
Saying not everybody likes the same rhythms and melodies (although melody comes back to notes and scale so you should again see above) this point doesn’t really make any sense to me.
I’m not challenging the fact that music theory exists, is well documented and is a referential to write “proper” music.
I didn’t mean scale when I used the word norm. I wanted to talk about the underlying rules that determine if a majority of people is about to hate it or to like it.
I agree with the fact that not everybody likes the same rythms and melodies, but you may agree that the fact hit songs exist is a proof that there is a certain cohesion in the tastes of people (not talking about hits created by majors).
Are you able to explain in details why Mickael Jackson or the Beattles (or whatever you like) songs sound so good ?
This is what makes me feel lost
In a world of overcompressed ads, oversaturated promos, filling every space, that goes too fast, that’s too quick, you can say ok, I stop. I understand.
I understand the “silence” strategy, because music comes from a kind of zero point vacuum energy, that is close to the concept of silence.
However, let’s be logical. I don’t recommend this method. For at least 2 reasons.
1. Breaking the rules.
I cannot break expectations if I don’t know previously what are the expectations.
There are conventions. Ok. But if I want to sound unconventionnal, I have to know first the conventions. So let’s play conventionnal tracks, let’s play mainstream music. Let’s make cover songs. First.
Now let’s break something in it now, in secret, alone, in my studio. Let’s willfully ignore that someone else has also used my methods, with my tools, and the same vsti I also used, with the same presets, and starting from the same musical culture or references, let’s ignore that someone else has created a similar breakthrough in music. It’s not because we both ignore our respective works, that it will change the way we get - in secret -, nearly the same results.
If I really want to get a unique sound, a unique track, and unique results, and say that’s a pure creation, coming from nowhere, never heard before, I need to be radically unconventionnal, to use my tools the bad way, or the wrong way, to melt instruments and styles that come from very different horizons. I should even create new tools and even create new prototypes or new instruments. But (1) I have to play others to know what is right or wrong, what is conventionnal or not. And (2) I have to play others to know if they have not yet produced the same answer BEFORE. Well, am I too late or not ? I’ll never know if I refuse to play the others.
It’s logical.
The solution is not to stop listening to other’s music.
The solution is to introduce a good and true variation in a repetitive world, and to use a tool that allows you to be the first to give it to music.
2. The death of music
If we all stop to listen others, others will simply stop to express themselves. Because “why make a music that will not be heard” ? When you talk, you talk for someone else otherwise you slowly come to the conclusion that there’s nothing to say, and you finally say nothing. I’m sure that you know you’ve got someone that is waiting for you to make the supreme track, even if it’s just one person. This is the core, the source of your energy : it’s not in yourself, it’s in the hand of a good public that’s waiting for you, waiting for you that you’ve balls enough to dare. And that’s why you make what you make, because of these persons.
But have you ever imagined that you, as a musician, could be the destination of the music of another musician ? You’re the public of someone else. If you stop listening or playing the others, they will slowly come to the conclusion, that they have nothing to express. And they will slowly stop sharing and making their music for you, thinking that it’s useless. And when listeners and producer stop, men, there’s nothing anymore, that’s all.
I’m going to tell you what is the result of a global nothing : nothing “at all”.
BTW what about listening silence alltogether and because we’re ready to help our friends in our community, what about producing silence ? Let’s create empty xrns tracks and empty songs with lots of nothing. Let’s create a new genre : the nothing genre. Let’s send to our public blank cds for free. Hoping that the zero point vacuum energy will feed our mutual inspiration. For sure, the renoise dev team won’t encounter much difficulty with a NULL DSP DEVICE, that produces a nothing, for the same fee.
3. Solution
The solution is to play the others but to play them “in the background” , with a lower volume, especially the overcompressed tracks that don’t give you some space to think and elaborate something in the musical space around you.
And then, if you are up to date, concerning your musical references, and what’s going on, mainstream and underground, you need a tool to produce quickly something new, BEFORE the others.
I’ve got a question. Didn’t you used Renoise for that reason, because it allows you to get fast, quick results ? Because it allows you to track faster than fast tracker ?
The faster you are, the faster you’ll be the first, the better you’ll get chances to be new.
yeah, said this before, but ever since i started playing Beatles Rockband i am killing myself over the question of ‘how do they do it?’. how is it that almost every single song i hear from them, whether i’ve known it for a long time or not, sounds so goddamn awesome?
then i remember that for some questions there are no answers, only more questions.
was thinking about this thread tonight, and it occurred to me just how difficult it is to be without musical influence. even if you decide to not listen to music for quite some time, you will still have some songs you remember by heart, and they will always be there popping into your head and influencing you. so, i think to do this completely is practically impossible. indeed, like TheBellows & kazakore mentioned, Fritzl-techniques of solitary confinement for children would need to be employed to truly prevent all musical reference in the mind. this would probably also spring forth one of the first truly original (musical) ideas in ages. or we would all be damn surprised if the first record to come out of such a situation would sound exactly like The Backstreet Boys 