Electronic music is often seen as not real music because of its lack of instruments, what are your thoughts about it?
Electronic music not real music?
- Thread starter spikenbuffy
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HowiMetdaSlayer
𝕔𝕠𝕔𝕠𝕒 𝕒𝕕𝕕𝕚𝕔𝕥 ☕️
Have mixed feelings about this...
One one hand I definitely have had, in the past, more respect for those that can actually play an instrument. However, part of me thinks that that may be kind of judgemental. I mean whatever gets the music out of one's head and into the world should be a good thing, right? 😳
One one hand I definitely have had, in the past, more respect for those that can actually play an instrument. However, part of me thinks that that may be kind of judgemental. I mean whatever gets the music out of one's head and into the world should be a good thing, right? 😳
Skanky Vamp
Sniffin' the Slayer
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I used to make EDM (although it trended more towards the trip hop side of things) before I knew it was called EDM. Notice the M part of it. And it does have instruments in it. They just are digital and samples.
Sigh. I miss my midi.
I miss my turntables and mixer too.
Sigh. I miss my midi.
I miss my turntables and mixer too.
I agree with @HowiMetdaSlayer
I think if it's listenable and has some artistic merit, it can be called music, whether it's synthesized entirely from a machine or made up of musicians playing pop bottles, wine glasses, wash boards, etc.
I do think that a lot of electronic music can be played on autopilot, which explains the bad stuff. But there's bad music out there all over the place, not necessarily just electronic.
I think if it's listenable and has some artistic merit, it can be called music, whether it's synthesized entirely from a machine or made up of musicians playing pop bottles, wine glasses, wash boards, etc.
I do think that a lot of electronic music can be played on autopilot, which explains the bad stuff. But there's bad music out there all over the place, not necessarily just electronic.
Skanky Vamp
Oh, I thought you meant like loops and repeating tracks running on autopilot.
Skanky Vamp
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Or the friggin amazing, awesome spectacular stuff if you are talking about Kawehi.
emspace
lol, I meant it's kind of put on autopilot and forgotten on the computer. Not that somebody listen can go on autopilot - because that's totally okay!
thrasherpix
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Reminds me of things like how surfers tend to look down on boogie boarders. On one hand I can see it, one side has to work harder. On the other hand, if the other side is in it just to have fun, then so what? Seems to apply here.
But I don't know how hard it is to learn to play electronic music. If I did I might have a different opinion on it.
I do know vocaloids make incredible bank in places like Japan and are spreading...I saw one vocaloid concert on YT and I had to admit that was amazing, though I don't know how many professional musicians they had (or computer programmers, etc), but I haven't heard of any musicians involved trashing THEIR rooms or having rabid fan followers like the holographic vocaloids. Since capitalism determines much of our reality, that would seem to validate electronic music (since vocaloids seem to be a variant or type of that).
But I don't know how hard it is to learn to play electronic music. If I did I might have a different opinion on it.
I do know vocaloids make incredible bank in places like Japan and are spreading...I saw one vocaloid concert on YT and I had to admit that was amazing, though I don't know how many professional musicians they had (or computer programmers, etc), but I haven't heard of any musicians involved trashing THEIR rooms or having rabid fan followers like the holographic vocaloids. Since capitalism determines much of our reality, that would seem to validate electronic music (since vocaloids seem to be a variant or type of that).
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Kratos
Scooby
I like any music that sounds good. I enjoy listening to some electropop by Rachel Stevens, Nicola Roberts, Kesha, Calvin Harris, etc. Some videogame music is really catchy too.
Anyanka Bunny Slayer
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Ethan Reigns
Scooby
Music is a sound - how it's produced is not a consideration. There are groups like Kraftwerk that programmed their synthesizers and when the set was over, they would walk off the stage and leave the synthesizers playing on their internal programmers. It was still music.
What constitutes desirable sound is another question. Some electronic organs used a top octave generator that was just a divider driven by a single oscillator with 12 different division outputs followed by twelve flip-flop divide-by-two stages in succession. If you combined divided signals to create a voice (which is a single musical sound like a string or air column), the harmonics would all be phase-locked so you get a sound that does not represent what you would get from a real instrument where the partials are not truly harmonic. For example, if you play a 300 Hz fundamental on an acoustic guitar, the second partial may be at 595.4 Hz (1.985 x fundamental), the third partial may be at 897.0 Hz (2.99 x fundamental), the fourth at 1198.1 Hz (3.994 x fundamental) and 1500.0 Hz (5.00 x fundamental). The differences between actual and true harmonic are caused by the detuning effect of energy delivered to the hole in the body of the guitar under the strings. If you look at the waveform, it appears that parts of the waveform are running slowly through each other. But with a divider-type organ, everything is phase-locked and the waveform shows no changes. The differences between these two waveforms is noticeable - the phase-locked sound is less natural.
Drum machines are usually quite simple compared to what drums actually do. The typical synthesizer uses a twin-T filter with enough feedback to keep the resonance going for a bit. A real drum is a circular resonator with partials that are roots of a Bessel function of the zeroth order. The roots are nowhere near harmonic. The first five zeroes of the 0th order Bessel function are at 2.405, 5.520, 8.654, 11.792 and 14,931. These are extremely inharmonic. Some pipe organs use large-diameter pipes for stringed instrument voices like violin because the circular resonance adds Bessel-function partials that give the rather cluttered spectrum of a violin.
What constitutes desirable sound is another question. Some electronic organs used a top octave generator that was just a divider driven by a single oscillator with 12 different division outputs followed by twelve flip-flop divide-by-two stages in succession. If you combined divided signals to create a voice (which is a single musical sound like a string or air column), the harmonics would all be phase-locked so you get a sound that does not represent what you would get from a real instrument where the partials are not truly harmonic. For example, if you play a 300 Hz fundamental on an acoustic guitar, the second partial may be at 595.4 Hz (1.985 x fundamental), the third partial may be at 897.0 Hz (2.99 x fundamental), the fourth at 1198.1 Hz (3.994 x fundamental) and 1500.0 Hz (5.00 x fundamental). The differences between actual and true harmonic are caused by the detuning effect of energy delivered to the hole in the body of the guitar under the strings. If you look at the waveform, it appears that parts of the waveform are running slowly through each other. But with a divider-type organ, everything is phase-locked and the waveform shows no changes. The differences between these two waveforms is noticeable - the phase-locked sound is less natural.
Drum machines are usually quite simple compared to what drums actually do. The typical synthesizer uses a twin-T filter with enough feedback to keep the resonance going for a bit. A real drum is a circular resonator with partials that are roots of a Bessel function of the zeroth order. The roots are nowhere near harmonic. The first five zeroes of the 0th order Bessel function are at 2.405, 5.520, 8.654, 11.792 and 14,931. These are extremely inharmonic. Some pipe organs use large-diameter pipes for stringed instrument voices like violin because the circular resonance adds Bessel-function partials that give the rather cluttered spectrum of a violin.
ILLYRIAN
Druish Pervonian Wizard
What is electronic music, melodic sounds produced with electronic equipment or how about the amplification of sound from a violin or a guitar?
Love the question though, Electronic music not real music? If spikenbuffy thought it wasn't real music why is it referred to as music?
Love the question though, Electronic music not real music? If spikenbuffy thought it wasn't real music why is it referred to as music?
Ethan Reigns
Scooby
There are several degrees of separation from all-acoustic music. You can amplify an acoustic guitar using a microphone and amplifier or use can use the electrical outputs from an electric guitar and amplify that. The electric guitar has almost no acoustic output because there is very little coupling into the air. Then you have sampled music which includes a Mellotron, a keyboard device that plays eight seconds of recorded tapes that were recordings of an acoustic instrument. Then there are "instruments" that are purely electronic from beginning to end. Electronic organs were the first of these and I have a Minshall Model E and a Hammond Solovox that have their own quirks but they are purely electronic. The original of these was the Telharmonium, a device that appears to be an assault on the Guiness Book of Records. It weighed 200 tons, It was powerful enough to provide music through an entire telephone system. It was sized to fit on six railway flatcars.
All of it is music. Some sounds are better than others and some people appreciate music being played by musicians in real time rather than programmed once and using a programmer device to schedule the notes. Some instruments can be programmed on their own whereas others use a MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) input with the music stored in "gesture capture" form indicating in real time note on, note off etc. Without amplifiers, modern stadium rock could never have happened. I have been at concerts where Screamer opened for the Beachboys and another one where Meatloaf opened for Electric Light Orchestra and they are cherished memories. The last concert I went to was Greta van Fleet and although the venue sucked, the music was great.
TriBel
Scooby
The mouth's a musical instrument so why not a synthesizer, a washboard or a pair of spoons? Slaves used drums not as "music" but to convey a message, to talk to each other, when collective speech was prohibited. I'm pretty flexible with it...there'd be a shortage of 70/80s music in my life without it. In fact, I prefer Pet Shop Boys "Where The Streets Have no Name" to U2's (but that might be because I think Bono's a prat).
Mr Trick
Scooby
Kraftwerk are probably one of the most original innovative bands. Proof right there that there can be skill and craft to electronic music. Ladytron are one of my favourite bands of the last couple of decades too. I probably prefer the intimacy of traditional instruments. Some times Electronic music can sound too produced, but there's a lot of great music which has come from it too.
ILLYRIAN
Druish Pervonian Wizard
What about when individual instruments were developed using electronics rather than musical advancements? I remember when the piano/ organ/ bass player for Led Zeppelin helped developed a Midi Organ. He had a pipe organ in his home in South Devon, it produced a wonderful sound.
The best electronic pop music I've heard of late was Ruelle, shame I couldn't buy her music in WA.
The best electronic pop music I've heard of late was Ruelle, shame I couldn't buy her music in WA.
Ethan Reigns
Scooby
One strange case was the story of how Teresa Anderssen became a looper artist. She emigrated from Sweden to New Orleans - a week before Katrina hit. There were no backup musicians available, so she used a looper to build a song from pieces she recorded in real time on a looper, so she could play a stanza then record it and play it over and over again while she was playing something else. Here is a video of her in her kitchen playing "Birds Fly Away" and you can see her working the looper pedals:
[youtube]
[youtube]