Teenage Riot
 

At the university campus where I work, there are pockets of student protest groups that've managed to comandeer their own little meeting rooms, with stereos and the like. I catch what they're listening to and it's always either dubstep or reggae or the odd bit of hip hop. I don't think I've ever heard a rock record once. Contrast that with stories of US troops whizzing around the middle east in tanks, blarring out Pantera and Neil Young CDs. So does Rock have even the slightest relevance to young rebellious teenagers anymore?

that's a nice question to discuss...for teens nowdays the guitar it's a "strange" object.

Rock music hasn't been an inspiration to protesting by itself since I remember being conscious of exisisting. And it's not like the keener on opposing descriminating laws will have necessarily a good taste in rock music anyway. Rock music(the more hardcore, I'm the real deal underground type of stuff) itself has become increasingly wordless over the years, or just plain outsider reporting narrative. The whole Dylan, Lydon etc tradition of playing it doesn't suit these times because the world is naturally a more complex place. Even the personal struggles seldom get dealt with in a suitable manner imo.

What interested me wasn't so much the lack of rock being played by the protestors so much as the example I saw on TV of a US tank blasting out Pantera. The more I think about it, though, the more i think it's a bit of a non point.

It's not surprising American soldiers think Pantera or the like are threatening music in this time and age. Not really sure what you mean though.

It depends on who you talk to...to a bunch of Epitaph punks, their music is the soundtrack to the New Enlightenment.

Remember the "Not My President" tshirts?

That makes two of us, then.

I wonder if this is specific to your uni; I imagine your uni is largely made up of, y'know, 'urban' sorts. I know Bristol, similarly, has a pretty large dubstep/ dance-oriented culture, but I wonder if the same would be true in places like Leeds or Manchester?

But I'd like to think that what dubstep and reggae represent is forms of music which aren't really reconcilable with the sort of music 'they' understand. Cameron lists his favourite band as the Smiths who are, while very good, incredibly white, so anything which is contrary to that is going to be more popular. The older generation get guitars, and while the acid generation is coming to power, I still get the impression that people in their late-30s onwards who are pro-coalition probably don't 'get' dance culture.

The problem I have in saying this is that I know there's very few people on SYG who get it either.

It seems like kids have too many distractions these days to actually learn to play an instrument well. But what makes guitar based music uncool to kids these days is that their baby boomer parents like it... and anything that is cool to your parents is totally unhip naturally. In the Middle East Rock music is cool because their parents HATE that they listen to it.

'Actually learn to play an instrument well' - have you ever tried to use a sampler? I play quite a few instruments to a high standard (guitar, violin, clarinet, percussion) but making dance music is completely beyond me. It's a radically different way of working, but by no means subservient to other modes of production.

It worries me that your old-world attitude is very common amongst producers. It always amazes me how, in the 21st-century, there are still troglodytes out there who think that the guitar is somehow more 'real' than other instruments (especially given that guitarists are notoriously the least likely to understand the absolute barest rudiments of music theory).

Most guitarists are idiots in my experience.

I think it is a trend which is common at most uni's. I have friends who study at uni's such as Oxford and Imperial. They haven't really met anyone who likes bands such as Sonic Youth. I only really have one friend where I study who shares a similar music taste. Most people seem to like dubstep or even if they do like rock music it doesn't extend much further than generic pop punk or chart indie.

I have done DJ sets at parties and in pubs. I have attempted to play bands such as Sonic Youth before but it tends to clear the dance floor. Having said that I still play rock but mainly lo fi bands such as Wavves and Jacuzzi Boys. Something which is upbeat and danceable. Most of the time however I stick to Motown and Hip Hop.

I use a sampler every day (literally), all it takes is a few button pushes. You are NOT a musician if all you use is a sampler but it is a great tool in the whole song writing process. You need to learn to play an instrument that can make noise without electricity to be considered a musician for fuck's sake. And you need to be able to keep time without a computer quantizing everything.

Making dance music and hip hop beats with a computer/sampler is pretty mind numbingly easy.

I fundamentally disagree with your general point but agree that the sampler poses an interesting problem in terms of its status as a musical instrument. It's not something people 'play', as they would a piano or guitar, but programme. Whether that makes any real difference, though, I'm not sure; you're still effectively processing and creating sounds to be used in a musical way, only not in real time. It's the same question for drum machines compared with regular drums. Is a person who programmes patterns into a drum machine any less a musician than a person sitting playing a kit? The dictionary definition of a musician is someone who composes, conducts or performs music. A person solely using step-time instruments may arguably not be performing but they're certainly composing - as well as creating.

yeah, i write music down on paper and people seem to respect that as a manner of music creation and personally i don't see why a sampler or computer is any less "real" than notation

as much as i sort-of like rock music, i don't remember willingly listening to it in a social situation for many years(with the exception of rock events of course). dubstep,reggae and rap are indeed much better for that


imo the worst teenagers are the ones who think floyd(shit),zeppelin(shit) the rolling stones(shit) and various other classic rock(mostly shit) are simply the best music ever created and music sucks now. generally having long hair and liking drugs, i've only been out of a highschool about 5 years and the thoughts of the 60s obsessed teenagers still make shudder

There you have it. They are programmers, not musicians.


For fuck's sake! YES YES YES
kids these days aren't interested in playing instruments... too many digital distractions. plus their parents think guitars are "cool".

You are such a very, very stupid person. It worries me a lot that out there, in real life, you're probably as much of an idiot as you are on the internet. Please stop existing, or at least go exist somewhere where my brilliance can't be offended by your astonishing idiocy.

I agree with Glice. Fuck off.

YES.

I'm glad you are actually interested in the topic...
if you can play guitar, violin, clarinet, and percussion pushing buttons on a sampler shouldn't be too hard. give it a try sometime.

What topic is that? You're stuck in someone else's nostalgia and should fuck off (as Derek astutely pointed out). I'm telling you to fuck off because you're an insufferable idiot with moronic, atavistic ideas (as Herr Pimples has pointed out). You seem to think... well, you seem to think something that my Mother, bless her, would think was preposterous. A musician is surely someone who produces music. There's really nothing more to that than that.

Missed the edit: making decent computer- or sampler-based music is genuinely beyond me. Making a horrible mess is very much within my grasp. I just have no intuitive relation to that way of producing, and the utmost respect for those who can do it, rather than glibly assuming they're inferior. You dick.

You can produce/write music without being a musician. So your logic is faulty there young stud.
The topic ain't me, that's for sure (but I'm flattered, really).

People who use samplers and/or make hip hop beats have spent years honing their craft just as much as the next Joe Wankaguitarsolo.

My logic is faulty? You're saying that Schumann wasn't a musician?

Also, unless I'm much mistaken, I'm older than you, and you're still a dickhead.

Edit: Seriously though, what other criterion can there be for 'being a musician' than 'produces music'? I'm genuinely baffled.

If he didn't play a musical instrument, no, he was just a composer. To be a musician you need the ability to play an instrument (something the kids are doing less and less these days). Programming a sampler/computer doesn't make you a fucking musician.

He was just a composer? That's all he was? A composer. So if, say, Aphex Twin suddenly picks up a guitar - any guitar, tuned, stringed or not - and hits it with an object, he suddenly, after some 20-odd years of 'not being a musician', becomes a musician because he's made a sound with an object with an apparent surface acoustic? Are pianist musicians? Only they (like dance producers) don't directly affect the production of sound but set the mechanics into motion for that sound to be produced. Same with a cimbalom or a hurdy-gurdy. Theraminists - are they musicians?

Again, missed the edit: programming a computer doesn't make you a good musician. What is an instrument? I'd guess the definition is 'a means of producing sound' - you'll notice it's the same word we use to refer to objects with functions - a hammer is an instrument to hit nails in with. A guitar, computer, whistle or wolf carcass are all instruments that can produce sounds; that is, they are the instruments of musicians.

Pookie, dear, you're as old as some of the best vintage models, so I'll go with that.

What about those who do both? Do you even have enough knowledge of how a lot of music is composed these days? Of course you haven't. If you can discuss names in detail, you have an argument. If not, you're just being, well, argumentative.

He's definitely a Buchla, isn't he? Nice and warm tone, but he's KEEPING IT SIMPLE (eh? eh?)

Both what? You have to be more specific.

I don't have to. You have the argument. Argue it.

In my heart I hope it hasn't come down to that.

Sure, but they aren't musicians. They are programmers/composers/arrangers. If the power goes out and you can't create music you can hear in the room you aren't a musician.

I claim my ten pounds.

Hevusa is worse than Hitler. Rockist asshole. Shame on you.

I like sampler/electronic based music just fine (Autechre and Aphex Twin ranks high for me). I just don't consider people that ONLY know how to program a sampler to be a musician. A sampler is not a musical instrument. I wouldn't consider myself an artist if I could only make collages.

Robert Rauschenberg didn't only do collages. People that ONLY do collages aren't artists anymore than someone who only programs a sampler is a musician.

you can play clarinet? sweet that is the instrument i have mastered. Actually I have been playing everyday lately.

Did you know the fingering on a clarinet is basically the same as an alto saxophone? So you could probably play one if you ever picked one up. Fun. (I play alto sax).

sorry to join in late and ask the obvious question- hevusa, unless it takes a nation of millions to hold us back has a real guitar solo then it is not music?
oh and your logic is failed because a record can be played without electricity. a theremin cannot.
and schumann was a pianist.
and, does that make every teenager with a de-tuned guitar a musician?

If Schumann played piano he was more than just a composer, he was a musician as well.

I fail to see what a hand cranked record player has to do with your point. Are you actually grasping at straws to the point that you think a DJ could spin records without electricity and make that feasible? hahaha. If you are that reinforces my point (if that and the theremin is the best you could do). How would the mixer in-between record players work without electricity?