i did read the whole thread and did not claim that you don not like electronic music. but how could you claim that it is music but that those who create it are not musicians? you said that anything that cannot be played without electricity is not a musical instrument, and i said that a turntable could technically work without electricity.

Because you can be a composer without being a musician (not mutually exclusive). A musician has to be able to play an instrument. It works the other way too; you can be a musician without being a composer.


No, I said if you can't make music when the power goes out you aren't really a musician. Should we expect some "acoustic" turn table sets then? Or are you just grasping at straws? A DJ is useless without a mixer (and power).

your logic is flawed. because the electronic musician is the person creating the music. and if you do claim that it is music, then the person who creates it, not composes, but physically makes the sounds happen, would be a musician. i dont for instance consider phillip jeck and christian marclay to be composers but rather musicians.


regardless, there are turntables that can be made to make sounds without electricity, just like the grammaphone. yes it would not sound the same as with a mixer and whatnot, but it still makes sounds. just like many electric guitarists who rely heavily on effects would not have much to do when the power goes out.

Some nit-picking points (seeing as this is already an entirely preposterous discussion): There are DJs who can and have played acoustically - Otomo Yoshihide and Project Dark being the first two that come to mind. I'd be surprised if Marclay hadn't as well.

Schumann played the piano but ruined his fingers trying to stretch them, hence turning to being solely a composer (in your terms). Linguistically, the point I'm making is that producer, composer, arranger [etc] are all sub-categories of 'musician' rather than the other way around; that you're struggling to make a coherent point suggests that the world doesn't exist in your atomistic linguistic solipsisms.

Edit: More nit-picking -


It's not 'basically the same'. It's definitely similar, but the one doesn't immediately transpose to the other. I've picked up an Alto recently and it's very different fingering to my Eb clarinet. The embouchure is very different as well. You can get a sound out of each, certainly, but playing them well is a very different matter.

Yeah - not as well as I did a few years ago (practice has turned elsewhere lately) but it's good fun. Unfortunately, tone is something that needs more practice than I can seriously give it. Sadface.

hevusa, your logic is faulty because is too centered around a set of values that somehow consider that musicians only play real instruments (I will not attach them to any style of music, though I think, from my own personal experience, that this attitude is most common within rock music fans especially - not jazz or classical, or any other style based on acoustic/electric instruments). Unfortunately you're too attached to those values to even be able to think outside of them and to realize that fundamentally, your definition is biased, no matter how many people point out why you're wrong (I don't actually think I will change your point of view).
Just read any definition of "musician", anywhere. I'll take the most basic you can find on wikipedia : "A musician is a person who writes, performs, or makes music". That is all. Any person who picks up a random item, bangs on it and asserts it's a musical piece is a musician. As Glice said, this does not make you a good musician. A distinction has to be made. Just like "Art" does not instantly mean "masterpiece". You need to get rid of your prejudices to realise that just as an electric guitar is just as real as a clarinet, a sampler or a mixer or a turntable is just as real as an electric guitar. Because there's no such thing as "realness", or "real musical instrument". A musical instrument is, by definition, a tool (cause really, an instrument is a tool) that is used to produce music. There is no mention of any "you need to be able to produce music when the power goes out" or "you need to be able to play acoustic instruments". That is all. But you are blinded by your values and therefore not able to see it (and sadly, you probably will not even try to think outside those values and try and understand what everyone is telling you)

Now to answer the original thread.


I believe this is linked to the fact that nowadays - obviously this has been the case for quite a while now -, rock music and the whole rock culture (philosophies, clothes, etc) are being diffused massively by basically any kind of media in the world - obviously not ALL kinds of rock music and rock culture but only a limited fringe of it, which is still presented as representative of rock as it is (though it quite isn't) -, are accepted as normal by the people who govern your country (as Glice pointed out, Cameron is a Smiths fan, for instance), etc. And you cannot associate something with rebellion if the system you are trying to fight against (I know what I am saying is very, very cliché, but hey) is precisely promoting it. You want something that seemingly differs from what this system is promoting (I say seemingly because in the end, I don't really think that most reggae or hip hop really propose a really rebellious message anymore - I might be wrong - ; dubstep, as a mostly instrumental music, does not even really contain a real message - and though the way it has seemingly grown up from its roots in the London underground to the international mainstream only by itself, with little to no help from the media, might be seen as rebellious, I doubt it really is -). I'm not sure what I'm saying has much sense, but it has in my head ahah.

(and obviously I'm not trying to say one form of music is better than another. I'm just trying to find reasons why rock would not be considered as rebellious anymore while reggae would)

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't alto sax more similiar to flute than clarinet? I played clarinet years ago and I had to learn the fingerings for the alto sax.

Also:


hevusa, why can't you just admit you're wrong? Do you not think that maybe you're wrong if no one is agreeing with you and you have pretty much every intelligent member of the board grinding against what you think?

So anyone who can make a collage is an artist then. Who knew?
I guess I need to update my resume. It can now include artist, dancer, photographer, sculpture, etc. Awesome!

The thing that we're sort of avoiding is the ideology of the rockist; as soon as he admits that indirectly-affected instruments are musically valid, his giving precedence to rock music has to incorporate a more sophisticated aesthetic; essentially, his aesthetic as it stands is a pillar of salt and re-affirming that ideology is the only (delusional) way of maintaining some spurious sense of 'musicianly' superiority.

What happens if someone who reads music (me, fugazifan) says that a 'real' musician has to be able to read? That makes us* wankers, right? But it's the same structure of argument - spurious half-baked notions of (doubly) reified 'quality' which ignore the subtle dynamics and contours of aesthetics as they are diffused through social interactions.

*Edit: to be clear, it only makes me a wanker for being the one who says it, unless Herr fan chooses to repeat it.

I'm wrong. Anyone who can use a computer is considered a musician these days I guess. No actual performance abilities needed. Also news to me... I'm an artist!

Yes. But anyone who can make a collage is not a good artist. That is the difference. The notion of "artist" is neutral. "Good artist" implies that the work of this artist has qualities - though I would argue that such qualities are actually purely subjective.

Pretty much anybody who is aware of the evolution of art in general in the 20th century..

I think that makes you right, not wankers. Unless you could consider someone who is illiterate a writer. Interesting topic though.

For me it is strange to consider people who use a device that requires no musical ability as musicians. Go figure.

So, say, someone like Dorian Concept, who can read music, but writes it on a computer, is like half a real musician ?

Yeah.

Yeah. A bad one.

Nearly one century ago now, Duchamp showed that you could be an artist by exposing a urinal, then André Breton showed how litterature could be created through automatic writing, then junk art showed that any item could be used to create art, then Karlheinz Stockhausen showed how music could be based on aleatoric elements, then John Cage showed how music could be strictly be reduced to pure silence, amongst others.
(and I'm just using some of the most famous examples, of course - I could also mention James Tenney's 3 pages in the shape of a pear)
Now I just don't see why, with all those things that happened in the 20th century and expanded the definition of art, someone who creates music with a computer would not be considered a musician, and an artist.

I would consider him a composer if he doesn't know how to play any instruments. But hey, I can now consider myself an "artist" I guess. I make a pretty mean collage.

He does not only writes his music but also plays it with his computer, of course. And if you check Derek's image a few posts ago, or basically any message in this thread, you will learn that a composer is - oh ! - also a musician.

Wow, hev, you're really closed-minded...