Making music people don't understand...

[ketamine]

Well it generally happens because the person listening doesn't "get" what you're trying to do... For instance, in the dubstep/garage/crackle world, we "understand" static, hiss, drop outs, lowpassed muffled noises, keys jingling, etc... & when you make that kind of tune, people can still judge whether its good or bad at being "crackly"... but because they know what you're doing, they don't say it sucks just because its all sonically lo-fi...

This is the kind of music I make. It is what it is.

I hate when a person who hears you "make music" and then want to hear it, and then scrunch their face up because its all weird and they say it sucks--and you know, that within your genre, it does not suck. But they don't "get" what you were trying to do.

Worse is people who find your music randomly probably searching for something else, and then say disparaging comments about it, when its obvious they weren't even looking for that type of sound.

Mainly because music is so personal. We are all learning & growing, and so I don't care when somebody *within* my music tastes gives me critizism, but it hurts and irritates me to no end when some idiot who only listens to radio pop & never even heard of underground artists like Emika, Burial, James Blake, and god forbid, somebody like Mr Oizo...

And that's another subject... Suppose your song sounds exactly the way it does, ON PURPOSE?
How can artists like Squarepusher & Mr Oizo get away with basically random noises threwn together, but when a no-name does it, it "Sucks. You need to keep trying"...

No. Maybe the tune is random & glitchy & stupid on purpose you dip sh*t.

/Rant.

[therapist]

It's one of those annoying things I guess. Largely because it is a handy excuse if your music is complete shit to be able to say the listener doesn't understand it.

I definitely find it easier to feel the lo-fi, off-kilter production stuff when there is clearly some musical basis there. It would be nice to not care at all about people who don't get your music, but it doesn't work like that.

I don't know what this response what supposed to achieve. Or if it makes any sense. Or if you even wanted people to reply. I want to hear your music now.

[ketamine]

I definitely find it easier to feel the lo-fi, off-kilter production stuff when there is clearly some musical basis there.

But what if that wasn't your goal?

What if you made that for experimenting with sounds / sound design? Then somebody hears it and judges it like everything needs to be a dancefloor killer. That's how IDM came to exist to begin with... headphone music. Some stuff is too unmusical and random to be played out...

[aeser]

music being shit is opinion not fact. there are many people into noise whereas most people would consider it "shit", one persons opinion is no more valid than another. there are always more mainstream things than others which will appeal to more people, but if you go by numbers of people who like something as validation of how good it is as a piece of music then stuff like ke$ha is the best music out there as it is the most mainstream, but at the end of the day does my thinking ke$ha is shit mean anything when she makes more money and has more fans than i could ever hope to? at the end of the day her music is relevant to the people who like it. i think insane clown posse is pretty horrible but they still sold millions of records to people who basically worship them.

playing the musical elitist game doesn't really do anything to enhance your own life or enjoyment of music, there's always someone who considers themselves more of an elitist than you and thinks what you listen to is shit. at the end of the day, like what you like and leave it at that, some people hopefully connect to what you like too, but if not, fuck it, who cares. enjoy what you enjoy and don't sweat people not being into the same stuff.

[Volatile Psycle]

Don't get hung up on it. Do you listen to his/her/its fav music and think its shit?

They were just voicing their opinion which is no great shakes, its just hard to hear it sometimes because its something you've put your heart and soul into

[ketamine]

music being shit is opinion not fact. there are many people into noise whereas most people would consider it "shit", one persons opinion is no more valid than another. there are always more mainstream things than others which will appeal to more people, but if you go by numbers of people who like something as validation of how good it is as a piece of music then stuff like ke$ha is the best music out there as it is the most mainstream, but at the end of the day does my thinking ke$ha is shit mean anything when she makes more money and has more fans than i could ever hope to? at the end of the day her music is relevant to the people who like it. i think insane clown posse is pretty horrible but they still sold millions of records to people who basically worship them.

playing the musical elitist game doesn't really do anything to enhance your own life or enjoyment of music, there's always someone who considers themselves more of an elitist than you and thinks what you listen to is shit. at the end of the day, like what you like and leave it at that, some people hopefully connect to what you like too, but if not, fuck it, who cares. enjoy what you enjoy and don't sweat people not being into the same stuff.

Thanks. Made me feel better, but its so frustrating sometimes. Like this:





Sometimes, THATS the kind of weird sh*t I want to make too. Then people say bad things about it, and judge me like I'm less of a person.

How does he get away with doing that kind of thing, and I can't?

[wub]

Then somebody hears it and judges it like everything needs to be a dancefloor killer.

That's their perogative though - same as people will paint a bowl of fruit and call it art, or look at a two red lines on a black background and say it's not.

I have this sometimes, I dunno. Like a tune is a tune is a tune is all well and good, I've made tunes that are dancefloor flavours and I like that. But the one I've got in my head right now making me think about during this thread isn't a dancefloor tune. It's got a beat to it, but it's more of a sound collage experiment to see if I could turn FL into a live performance tool for capturing random audio clips and seeing what they sound like. Turns out I can.

But yeah, not something I'd ever want to play back to someone, or maybe I would and I don't know the right people who'd want to listen...but for me making music has never been about having people listen to it. Not saying that it's the same for everyone, naturally - the Dubs board is evidence enough of that - but making dancefloor banger time after time isn't why I make music.

Some are and that's cool and if people like what has turned out a certain way and interpret it in the way that I think I maybe wanted it to be interpreted, then awesome something has aligned somewhere in the scheme of things and that's good and we should all be very happy. But if they don't or no one hears it, or it's tucked away on a sound design LP project that doesn't exist outside of c:\Bounced\whole_tracks_2012 (true story) then it doesn't matter.

Music for me is a constant cycle of interpretation and replication. I'll listen to different things all day, then when I'm at home and have my blinds down and locked away from the world (metaphorically at least) I try and mentally regurgitate the ideas and inspirations and little glimmers of lightbulbs that have danced across my ears during the day, try and see if I can rearrange the jigsaw in my head of sounds into something cohesive, not necessarily cohesive in terms of TEH ZOMG BEATPORT TOP 376 or whatever but cohesive to the point where I can sit back and think yeah that's what I had in mind, conciously or otherwise.

[therapist]

I definitely find it easier to feel the lo-fi, off-kilter production stuff when there is clearly some musical basis there.

But what if that wasn't your goal?

What if you made that for experimenting with sounds / sound design? Then somebody hears it and judges it like everything needs to be a dancefloor killer. That's how IDM came to exist to begin with... headphone music. Some stuff is too unmusical and random to be played out...

Poor choice of words perhaps. By "musical basis" I didn't mean it has to be orchestrated/structured/produced like 'real' song. It's one of those intangible things that's impossible to describe I think, production just doesn't matter when you find a piece that really speaks to you. But I think there must be a point where a piece of music is, objectively, just crap.

That Oizo thing is a good example, you wouldn't get those sounds just by not knowing to EQ or do this or that, it's artistic. But as Wub said, the word Art is just about meaningless too.

[alphacat]

[imo]

The only thing that counts: do YOU like your music? If yes, then

Period.

[VirtualMark]

This goes back to the art argument, from the noise post. Where i disagreed with the whole forum on what is art and what isn't.

I personally think a tune should have musical content of one sort or another, even if it's glitchy and fragmented. Anyone can record a bunch of static, not so many people can make a good tune from it.

My goal is pretty clear when making a tune - i'd like to be able to make a dancefloor banger that's really popular. I love that sort of tune, and want to be able to do my own versions. I totally appreciate that its not everyone's cup of tea, and wouldn't expect everyone else to like the same stuff. Same goes for someone else's music - i might not like the genre they're doing, but wouldn't ever say their music sucks.

I might give feedback on production if asked to, that's different. For example, if a lead couldn't be heard very well, its maybe not the artists intention so its worth a comment. But the style of their music - that's obviously what they wanted to make and should be respected as such.

I do think some things defy belief. This guy was sued as he used silence in his tune, had to pay a 6 figure settlement. Using silence is apparently copying someone else's "work". Now call me old fashioned, but i don't consider silence a song.

[wub]

i don't consider silence a song.

Do you consider white a colour?

[Aufnahmewindwuschel]

i wouldnt say that emika burial james blake and mr oizo are underground though

[wub]

Ozio would've been if not for Flat Beat. Avant garde (and that's pushing the limits of that term) politically motivated noiselectonica artist who makes one dancefloor orientated tune that gets picked up for a global ad campaign.

[Hircine]

i don't consider silence a song.

Do you consider white a colour?

While working with music and noise I learned to love silence. We spend most of our time trying to comunicate, trying to be heard, sending messages each time louder and louder and yet a moment of silence can say so much. White noise is nothing more than audible silence produced by machines and yet I find it so much more pleasant than a piano melody.

[ketamine]

i wouldnt say that emika burial james blake and mr oizo are underground though

None of us would, but ask your average person walking down the street (even teens) and they will not know who they are.

[wub]

I sometimes sit with my laptop headphones on and no music playing - can hear the distant electronic cracklings as background programs cycle through.

[ketamine]

I sometimes sit with my laptop headphones on and no music playing

I do this all the time, it't a strange comfort for some reason.

[VirtualMark]

i don't consider silence a song.

Do you consider white a colour?

Of course. But i don't consider an empty canvas a painting, a blank piece of paper a story or a blank dvd a movie. Making a 'song' out of nothing turns it into exactly that - nothing.

[VirtualMark]

I sometimes sit with my laptop headphones on and no music playing - can hear the distant electronic cracklings as background programs cycle through.

Lol that's cpu whine, are you using the onboard audio? My laptop does this too, i often forget i have headphones on.

[wub]

i don't consider silence a song.

Do you consider white a colour?

Of course. But i don't consider an empty canvas a painting, a blank piece of paper a story or a blank dvd a movie. Making a 'song' out of nothing turns it into exactly that - nothing.

But white is not a colour - it is the abscence of any colour. So by considering white a colour, you must also consider silence a song, such as it is the abscence of sound.