Commitment

[Will Frances]

Drum machines are the new dogs thats for sure

[ross-alexander]

Haha its true I'll stand by that. It is very sceney now music and it is to the detriment of quality in my opinion. Maybe it's always been the same, but I'm becoming a grumpier more miserable old cunt over time and very happy about it

[Hades]

Haha its true I'll stand by that. It is very sceney now music and it is to the detriment of quality in my opinion. Maybe it's always been the same, but I'm becoming a grumpier more miserable old cunt over time and very happy about it

if you ask me,
it's not getting grumpy
it's just developing an acquired taste.

[ross-alexander]

Haha nice one Hades I'll take that Had some mad insights into it all this year so definitely all about taking what's positive out of it all and having a chuckle at everything else!

[reflektah]

I don't expect to make this into a full time thing, although it would be nice to make some money to maybe buy a piece of hardware every now and then - make it a self supporting hobby. I do DJ every now and then at local events but that's just for fun, main source of income is still a job which I'm quite happy with. I think that's more than many can say.

I can't really see myself not making music or being involved on some level.

[ross-alexander]

When I see the stuff some really quite high level artists go through ( in a pretty niche area really) seems a hell of a struggle to get by and there's always someone there ready to stab you in the back. Wouldn't want that sort of thing to spoil what is such an enriching pastime really. Then you've got the really good artists out there in techno that have always had jobs to support themselves. There are literally loads of them

[ross-alexander]

Few examples would be inigo kennedy, Paul Birken. The late (great) James stinson Rip (drexciya). Probably loads more. What I would say is you probably do need some sort of a sabbatical or long period of time to sort of break the back of all the technical side of music but that aside I'm sure anyone could dip in and out enough to create something of value. It's quality not quantity that should be strived for. For me anyway. That won't get you out there playing every week but you could make work that's respected and you are proud of.

[Hades]

Few examples would be inigo kennedy, Paul Birken. The late (great) James stinson Rip (drexciya). Probably loads more. What I would say is you probably do need some sort of a sabbatical or long period of time to sort of break the back of all the technical side of music but that aside I'm sure anyone could dip in and out enough to create something of value. It's quality not quantity that should be strived for. For me anyway. That won't get you out there playing every week but you could make work that's respected and you are proud of.

Couldn't agree with you more.
Personally, I'm happy I had the years with lots of free days because when I had so much time it was really easy to find the motivation to learn the technical aspects of it,
like learning your sound design or even reading manuals or other helpful books/articles/...
I'm pretty sure that if I would have had my current job, I would have wanted to be making music and not be doing any of the boring stuff,
so no way I would have spend all that time learning, I would have been trying to create something asap.

But that whole theory vs practice thing...
Yesterday was X-mas family thing, and I was once more able to witness the incredibly stupid limitations a classical training in Belgium brings.
All 3 of my nieces play piano now, and my oldest niece has been playing for about 6 or 7 years now.
She was trying to play some Adèle track, and she couldn't play it, while I could sight-read and play the piece.
It was an extremely easy piece, so I explained to her how if she just remembered the chords it used, it would be very easy to remember the song,
because the left hand plaid 2 notes of the chord while the right hand did an arpeggiation of the chord, some times with an inversion.
She just couldn't follow what I was saying. And then 2 hours later, she plays a technically very hard piece and totally nails it (at least with the playing).
This is really bizarre : when you learn piano over here, they teach you to "play" a piece just by reading the notes and learning your fingers how to play it,
and in music theory, they teach you a few scales and all, but they never bother properly with chords or with decent harmony.
You're just being trained to be a monkey really. It's so sad to see that stuff.
So in a way they teach you practice but not enough theory.

I hope they break out of that shit some day.

[Barfunkel]

Piano teaching is like that everywhere I think? It's not really taught as a supplementary skill to composition, but rather as a completely separate skill. You learn how to make your fingers follow the notation and that's it.

If I ever have the money to take lessons, I'll try to find a jazz teacher who'll from the very beginning will teach with improvisation and composition in mind. Hellluva expensive though...

[Hades]

Piano teaching is like that everywhere I think? It's not really taught as a supplementary skill to composition, but rather as a completely separate skill. You learn how to make your fingers follow the notation and that's it.

If I ever have the money to take lessons, I'll try to find a jazz teacher who'll from the very beginning will teach with improvisation and composition in mind. Hellluva expensive though...

well, I honestly don't know,
only reason I even brought up the topic of classical education is because surface earlier on in this topic kind of threw it at my face as some kind of luxury
(don't worry, no offence taken mr surface )
and it kind of got me thinking about the subject again.
To me it's absolutely not a luxury, but that's just speaking from the perspective of the country I live in.
The only thing I can thank my parents for is that they let me do that stuff,
but it was me walking all the kilometers, it was me practicing my fingers, it was me taking the shit from my totally coincé piano teacher because I didn't follow her instructions enough (excellent for your self esteem when that happens to you on a weekly basis for years, I can assure you ), it was me being committed to it.
And I'm not saying this is some kind of heroic statement, because I am convinced anyone can do this,
anyone can learn how to play an instrument.
But yeah, it means putting in the hours, commitment, once again.

Regarding improvising... You know how I feel about that.
I think the classical music education in my country NEVER teaches you to improvise.
I learned that by myself, and I still remember how almost "wrong" it felt to start playing something that wasn't on my sheet music.
Yesterday my niece asked me to play a Yann Tiersen piece of "Le fabuleux destin de Amélie Poulin".
(they just watched the film the night before)
I hadn't played it in at least a year but I've played it so many times it's not hard to remember it.
So I played it once, then started improvising on the piece for a few minutes.
When I stopped, my oldest niece knew I was improvising, her younger sister hadn't even noticed, just thought it was part of the piece.
It's really hard for me to take a birds-eye perspective on this : I've always played piano, as long as I can remember (my mom claims I started playing simple stuff since I was 4),
when you learn an instrument that young, it's hard to imagine what it's like to learn an instrument when you are a grown-up.
But nonetheless, even as a kid it takes a certain commitment.

I had this discussion with my mom yesterday about perfect pitch.
She said she used to be able to tell in what key a piece is by hearing it.
I'm not able to do that though I do have perfect pitch.
She said she's convinced that this is only for a really small part the result of her music education but mostly something you're born with.
I honestly don't know.

[Hades]

and another thing about learning to play an instrument.
My oldest sister had just recently bought a digital piano,
so her kids can practice without the others going "stop playing I wanna watch television".

Man, that's such a cliché. My mother told me her brothers and sisters were constantly complaining about her playing and were all the time yelling she should stop.
When I was young, my youngest sister had this habit of watching every stupid fucking soap opera there was on tv (thank you Australia),
so I had exactly the same thing going on.
I even remember when she asked me to play on her wedding I said "hey sis, my cousin plays pretty damn well, go ask him"
just cause I was so frustrated from her attitude in all the previous years...

That's another way you gotta hang in there,
say fuck you when other family members get pissed off because you need to practice a bit.
Nobody's gonna yell at you for collecting stamps or cause you're doing football practice.

[Kromasome]

and another thing about learning to play an instrument.
My oldest sister had just recently bought a digital piano,
so her kids can practice without the others going "stop playing I wanna watch television".

Man, that's such a cliché. My mother told me her brothers and sisters were constantly complaining about her playing and were all the time yelling she should stop.
When I was young, my youngest sister had this habit of watching every stupid fucking soap opera there was on tv (thank you Australia),
so I had exactly the same thing going on.
I even remember when she asked me to play on her wedding I said "hey sis, my cousin plays pretty damn well, go ask him"
just cause I was so frustrated from her attitude in all the previous years...

That's another way you gotta hang in there,
say fuck you when other family members get pissed off because you need to practice a bit.
Nobody's gonna yell at you for collecting stamps or cause you're doing football practice.

Sorry about that!!

At least we aren't responsible for this (that I know of)

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