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What Would Electronic Music Be Like Today, if Kraftwerk Hadn’t Popped? (Questions from my Electronic Music Students)

December 16th 2023  || by  || Add Reply

I get a fair amount of questions from the students in my UEMP (Ultimate Electronic Music Production) course each year. Often these are questions about specific genres or production approaches or synths. This Fall, though, I got some bigger-picture ones, so why not share a couple of the answers here.

Q:  “Would it be possible to create another branch on the tree [of origins of electronic music] in our modern world of electronic music?”

A:  Technically and in theory everything is possible. Practically, quite difficult; it’s difficult to not be fundamentally influenced by what we already know. I believe a completely new, thick branch (directly growing out of the double-trunk of the Electronic Music Tree rooted in France and Germany) will / can only be grown by a non-musician artist, from another discipline, like painting, sculpture, dance or poetry. One could argue that Schaeffer, Stockhausen, etc. made significant progress thank to their not-purely-musical interests. The less someone is exposed to music, the more likely they won’t be influenced by the genres already out there (any existing “branches”), especially the 1950s-70s roots, and can think artistically but freely. The only time the origins of an entirely new direction in electronic music was not tied to the 70s and was a musical in its source (Jamaica), was Jungle (then Drum & Bass) in the early ’90s.  The unrelated components being in the right time and place and actually cross-influencing one another – such coincidental cultural collaborations are uncommon in today’s too-multinational world. Though, maybe we could still give a Model D and a zoom recorder to the indigenous tribes of the Amazon who live far away from modern civilizations, collaborate with them and see what comes out of it…

At the same time, a new smaller branch (a branch growing out of a large branch of the tree) might come from a musically-oriented (trained or not) person in a different musical environment (possibly not even electronic music). Again, the less they know about electronic music, the less likely they will be effected by what has existed before them, thus, the more likely they will create something uninfluenced by existing electronic music. Still, it’s likely that we will be able to trance the results back to one of the main trunks of the tree (i.e. GRM, BBC, JMJ, Kraftwek, Vangelis, Tomita, Eno, etc.).

Like I often say in the beginning of UEMP semesters: the technology to create something groundbreaking and original intentionally break has been in front of us, for many years. Powerful computers and more free plugins that one could explore in a lifetime are now in our pockets. Affordable technology to write the music of the future is reality, even for the average college student. But you have to fight the part of your DNA that always makes you create music similarly to the way you normally create and listen. Producing Musique concrète has the ability to take you very far from all that…  listen to your Musique concrète work a half year later and you might be surprised by what you had created. An inspiring point to start from.

Q: “If Kraftwerk hadn’t popped when they did, how does Julius believe things would have turned out, since he was exposed there?”
– and –
Q: If Kraftwerk never existed, where do you think electronic music would be today? Would it be at a previous point on the electronic music timeline or would it have gone in a completely different direction?

A: Well, I’m not that old to have been there… I was a small kid playing the piano in the 80s when Kraftwerk had been already around for a decade and well-known in Europe… so their influence on most everything-in-4/4 in electronic music was a done deal by then. But I’ll take a stab at hypothesizing about this fascinating proposition.

It is truly interesting to think about what would have happened to electronic music if Krafwerk’s Autobahn wouldn’t have received much attention, or hadn’t even been released… or if Ralf und Florian wouldn’t have met or even existed. Well, let’s break this down based on the components that Kraftwerk combined into a pioneering new direction in electronic music:

  • The 4/4 time signature would have become popular in electronic music in some fashion anyway, since it was the middle ages’ 2/4 folk dance rhythms then the ’60s disco’s straightforward patterns that evolved into 4/4 dance-able rhythms – the point being dance-able – in other genres as well.
  • Sequenced, quantized basslines and arps would have been sooner or later migrated from Jarre’s and Schultze’s kitchen to other, more rhythm-based genres. Kraftwerk was inspired by the persistent, “quantized” action of mechanical machines, but certainly not the only one who got inspiration from heavy industries.
  • Vocoders were in use even before Kraftwerk, although without the band and its influence on others (e.g. YMO, Moroder), vocoders might have actually disappeared earlier.
  • Minimalism in itself was around in painting, sculpture, architecture, film-making, etc. before the 1970s (let alone the concept of wabi-sabi from centuries before). Terry Riley was already active before Kraftwerk and other musical creators of the ’70s were also making very different type of music on minimalist principles (e.g. Brian Eno’s ambient).
  • The idea of “robots” making music…  now this was a big one. It was big because this concept was able to connect the minimal aesthetic with most people, who were curious about the future. And when I say people, I mean nearly everyone – just think about all the major sci-fi movie franchises that originated in the 70s. Shortly after the Moon landing and with portable computers starting to appear, it was the perfect timing for everyone to entertain the idea “The Future is Now”.  Thank to people’s curiosity about robots and robot-like musicians, unlike “untouchable” high-artists and abstract minimalists, Kraftwerk was able to bring minimalism into the mainstream. This is the aspect without which I’m not sure if the band’s music would have had the same enormous influence on popular electronic music. And without that, the genres that later evolved (and still evolve) from Kraftwerk’s aesthetic (first and foremost techno and its derivatives) might exist only as minor, underground sub-genres these days.
YMO Solid State Survivor electronic music theory

Yellow Magic Orchestra was, self-admittedly, the Japanese version of the German robots. What if these gentle “robots” infused in jazz chords would have broken into the mainstream before Kraftwerk, and Dusseldorf would have only remained a national treasure?

I believe that without Kraftwerk, the precision and angular German-ness might be present only in a smaller proportion in electronic music. Four-on-the-floor wouldn’t automatically mean that it’s quantized kicks on downbeats, sequenced basslines wouldn’t be necessarily repeated as 1/8th or 1/16th notes or as octave-alternating straightforward sequences, bass lines wouldn’t predominantly have short decay and very short-release VCA envelopes – as they often do today. In other words, a higher proportion of electronic music would be less “tight”, and maybe more… …French.  Maybe softer, likely more textural, probably groovy and rhythmically varied yet easily dance-able genres would be the default “EDM”. That is, at least until 1990 and DnB in the U.K. and later in 2010 Skrillex bringing rhythm-based electronic music into the U.S. mainstream. (But wait, would DnB have been the same without the counter-culture role it had in Eurodance times? And, would Skrillex have made the same debut album in 2010 without the influence of Kraftwerk-and-techno on baby Sonny during the 1990s?  This is the paradox of synthception…  noone knows…  but likely, he’d be shredding metal today.)

In any case, while Germany’s influence was successfully pushed back in other areas during the 20th Century, they might have unknowingly won the long-term cultural influence on electronic music. (And Dusseldorf’s direction was relatable by many, far more than Berlin’s high art.) Their sharp character has influenced other areas as well; just think about cars. The passionate and adventurous Italians’ slogans are “Only those who dare, truly live – We are the Competition.” (Ferrari), and “Expect the Unexpected” (Lamborghini). Meanwhile, BMW’s slogan since WW2 has been “The Ultimate Driving Machine” (despite of this being a enormous lie). The automotive world could have been as graceful without the past 30 years’ German cars as the world of modern Japanese robots is without German robots in it.

I truly love the music of Kraftwerk and I’m glad that it got popular. Though looking at their influence today, maybe too popular?

An even more interesting conundrum is the role of counter-culture. Let’s say, if without Kraftwerk, electronic music would have evolved to be less quantized and less “raw” during the past 5 decades, would various types of non-electronic music have tried to counteract it less? With Disco Demolition Night never taking place, Afrika Bambaataa not having anything to steal, the Pet Shop Boys playing bass on bass guitar, and DJs having to know at least a little bit about harmonies, electronic music skeptics haters would have had to look for different targets… or just chill and make even more rock and pop. If a softer, more romantic form of electronic music had been the norm throughout the 1980s and ’90s, would have a different set of genres become more minimal, tight, quantized, aggressive by now? Or would we have reached the current aesthetic of block-y, rigid on/off notes in electronic music anyway, given the black-or-white binarity that’s already woven into so many areas of our overly-practical life today? This is as big of a philosophical question as you can expect to face when you hypothetically re-write the history of electronic music…  so I’d rather look for the answers from Nietzsche Descartes.

Where is the Music?

September 11th 2022  || by  || Add Reply

Did the covid pandemic help to produce more or better, fresher music?

Since the 2020 onset of the pandemic, I had to change aspects of my lifestyle and many plans — like most everyone else.  Although my 2020/21 music performances had to be canceled and I even moved my lectures online, I’ve had the opportunity to catch up on giving talks, interview and join panels during the past couple of years. The topics ranged from music production, sound synthesis, performance technology to the culture of music and sound, fan events, directions in film scoring and even representing my anti-AI principles at a prestigious audio panel for the Audio Engineering Society.

It’s great to talk at industry events and panels, but what I enjoy about “prosumer” audiences, up and coming music people, is their non-pretentious huger for knowledge and creatively interesting questions. A topic I spoke about for a small and intimate audience at the Silicon Valley Music Production Summit last year is a good example of how to avoid the same old formula questions and talk about some fresh ideas, uncensored by cultural expectations. Its high point was my compositional justification for considering a recent pop tune “better music” than one of Mozart’s well-known works.

Unlike the rest of the music-making community, I did not use the unexpectedly available home-bound time to “write a song a day”. I did not jump on fb/IG to offer music production workshops to the masses, even though, suddenly every other human with no real production experience became a “music producer” in 2020… Nor did I purchase production gear to upgrade my studio to “perfect my sound” during the downtime – apparently, everyone else did, as Sweetwater closed a year of record profits. I didn’t even finish my long-long due forgotten future: W2 album.

What I did instead was the opposite: I listened. let me explain.

bedroom producer

“I had nothinig else to do under the lockdown, so I made tracks… lots of new tracks! I got many clicks so now I’m teaching other producers how to produce music… lots of it!”

Do we really need a few million new tracks every day?

It’s great that people now have very affordable tools to create music – the process should be certainly available for all to enjoy. But distributing all the “tracks” that most anyone now who knows how to use a computer can “produce” overnight, might not be what humanity needs. See, the problem is not the quantity, but the quality of the great majority of that huge quantity. Placing technology first and music second unsurprisingly results in very similar output from a diverse range of people, which usually lack authenticity and originality. I consider production mainly as packaging for musical ideas. Starting with the packaging (and even doing that mainly by copying the “experts” of packaging) will unlikely allow for injecting great content into the finished package after the fact. And, you know what tons of empty packaging is… trash. To me, this is a simple equation: quality and quantity are diametrically opposed concepts.

Lots of good music takes time

On top of the quantity issue, some things just take time; no pandemic can force us, at at least not directly, to be more productive at the same quality standards. I’m not questioning the production quality of a high-output “producer” (although with continuous production, dilution is bound to happen). Nor am I suggesting that good work has to take years. What I am suggesting is a balance between absorbing and expressing, like a good conversation. There must be some kind of emotional input in order for us to create an emotional output. The input can be a feeling, an event, a situation, whatever effects us. The output is what we express in our own voice, whether that be through music, painting or another art form. Processing too many emotions too quickly may simply not allow us to fully and deeply absorb them. Similarly, we can’t expect ourselves to create interesting content if we don’t have enough emotional input to begin with. Forcing this natural process of absorption-expression for the sake of higher productivity will inevitably produce more but shallower art.

I for sure would not be opposed to hearing fewer new releases but fresher, more original music. I well remember attending a platinum producers’ panel at a major audio convention. After talking about the old vs new in music production techniques for an hour, one of the more seasoned producers ended the panel with the rhetorical question: “But where is the music today!?”.

That was in 2012. Now, ten years later, the question is more relevant than ever.

 

Concept Albums, Influences and the Reinterpretation of Feelings – Pt.1

March 14th 2016  || by  || Add Reply

I like some creators’ concepts a lot, but ironically, I’m not passionate about their music. And those artists’ music that I find exciting for stylistic or other reasons, often have a concept behind them that I can’t associate myself with – or have no concept at all.

This brings up an interesting question about the relationship between concept and taste. Should a piece of art that you find interesting have a concept that you can relate to? Does a concept that greatly interests you guarantee that you will like the art that’s formed around it? I certainly don’t think so. Yet, concepts can make a piece of art much stronger and more timeless. Concept albums ideally sprout from the exploration of feelings or ideas, opinions or facts, and express them through one or another art form. I say ideally, because technically we shouldn’t call an artwork concept-based if the work was retrofitted with a concept after it was created, but in some cases the realization or idea of meaning might actually come during or after the creative process.

Concept vs. Style

So how is it possible that I keep finding myself on either side of this equation but rarely in the intersection of them? I believe that the answer is: evolution of ideas and an organic process to create originality.

I see the “lack of finding work right in the intersection” problem as an opportunity for a natural evolution into new territories, aspiration to create the new, that will belong to that intersection – at least for some. Let’s say you love what an artist says about his/her inspirations, creative process, concepts that their music is expressing, but you don’t care for their music. It happens to me quite often that someone describes their ars poetica or creative process, which makes me excited to hear their music, but when I hear it, the music doesn’t resonate with me at all and I stop listening with disappointment. Artists, like all humans, subconsciously build their previous experiences into their own work; so what do creators do when they get inspired by a concept, feeling or idea but don’t agree with its expression? They create their own version to express it their way! Or create a variation of it. Or (sub)consciously build it into their own concepts. Either way, the result becomes something new. Like a story that gets embellished with lines borrowed from other stories and told differently every time. After a while it becomes a different story, filled with diverse roots and influences. Once you tell your own story (concept) your own way (musical expression), it should become a perfectly matched intersection between feel/idea and musical expression – at least for one listener: you. And when publicly released, the work can continue the process of influencing others by its concept (message) or by its design (music).

Is having a concept a must?

What about great music with no concept whatsoever behind it? As much as I appreciate original compositions and unique sonics (the value or originality in these is actually even measurable to a degree), I don’t think that it’s enough; I just don’t think that a conceptless album is as strong of a piece of art as the same release with a concept can be. After all, music is the most universal language (no, it’s certainly not math!) – but just beautifully speaking that language while having nothing to say isn’t appealing to me. However, once it’s expressing a message (whether abstract or concrete), the mix of that message and its expression can trigger a reaction with our own feelings (memories), which in turn can modify the intended meaning of the concept. It can effect us differently from the way it was meant to – isn’t that the basis of progression, though? Isn’t it beautiful how mutually influential the elements of concept and style can be?

One of my teachers in elementary school said, as the class was analyzing a poem, “What matters is not if you know everything about the circumstances in which the poet wrote this poem and you can analyze what he meant by every line. What matters is what the poem means to you.” So true. If it means something to you, if it effects you, it was worth creating it.

Ironically, I used to say quite often that my life is all about music, composition and sounds. Now 39 years into it I feel that music is “just” a tool, although an extremely powerful one, that we can use to communicate emotions and concepts with. However, those feelings and ideas should exist in us in the first place.

Art forms influencing each other

Another aspect of this theory that fascinates me is the cross-influence between various forms of art and expression. For example, a photograph at an exhibition might have a certain emotional effect on me. This emotion, combined (usually subconsciously) with my own related feelings can result in a new feeling, which then I express (and let my audience experience) – but not necessarily through photography, but music. Or sculpture. Or another expressive form. Thematically there might be no detectable link between the original photograph in the museum and the music track on my album, but the emotional connection (translated by my own experience of those emotions) might be extremely strong. In fact, it can be stronger than just to call it influence – it might be a variation of the same message (but without any relation to the way it was expressed by the original photographer). We could even think of it as my personal musical score to the original photograph – without having an understanding of how the photo made it’s photographer feel in the first place. But without that photo, my expression of it wouldn’t exist either.

Based on this thinking it might be unsurprising that many composers (myself included) are more influenced by other forms of art than other pieces of music. (I’m actually working on an “influence gallery” for this very website.) I believe that influence should be more about a new interpretation of the concept, the feeling, the idea (of another type of work or experience), than the kind of musical expression (style, melody, etc.) that was used to bring it to light and which you might like. Again, a photo or a country song with a strong concept might have a bigger effect on the originality of my work in electronic music, than hearing electronic music with a similar style to mine. In the latter case, I’d be more likely to subconsciously copy elements of expression (melody, harmony, rhythm, texture, performance), as opposed to be thematically influenced by an idea.

Follow the process from top left to bottom right. The shaded grey area represents the listeners. The orange elements on the right represent those listeners who are creators themselves.

Musical concept, feeling, meaning, influence and re-interpretation. The relationship between concept albums, creators and audiences. (click to open large)

So then why do interviewers always ask about our musical influences? Isn’t that just asking about the wrong side (the language, not the story) that you might have grown up with and actually can’t get out of your subconscious? If anything, that kind of influence is actually a narrowing factor in the originality of your expression, rather than an actual influence on your message. When listening to me speaking about my music, wouldn’t you be more interested in what stories, feelings, ideas we might have in common, than what kind of music we both grew up with or enjoy listening to (the “packaging” we both prefer before we unwrap the message)?

You will see another funny thing when you look at the middle area of the diagram on the right. The parts that many producers, writers, etc. focus on the most is technology. While production technology (i.e. recording software, the engineering, the studio) can greatly influence the musical expression (hence the dark blue arrow pointing left, back from production to expression), it is a relatively small part of the overall journey, and this reverse direction (using the technology as an idea-generator and not as a tool to translate one) can even be responsible for a disconnect from the original concept…  just think of those instances when a suddenly found “cool sound” caused your work to deviate from the originally intended feel.

My conclusion – and advice

Understand your own message but do let yourself be influenced by others’ interpretations.
Don’t let technology interfere in impressive but irrelevant ways – experimentation is fantastic as long as it is purposely channeled towards enhancing your initial concept.
Rather, be open to get influenced by experiences, concepts, feelings coming from other forms of art than yours. Unlike those “how to break writer’s block” articles that tell you to listen to more music of your peers, or copy the style of other composers, I suggest that you first figure out what you want to say and focus less on how you want to say it.  A strong concept will inspire the “how”-s automatically.

To be continued…

 

New Year’s Resolutions for 2014

December 31st 2013  || by  || Add Reply

I am ready to make a few unusual and some expected commitments for the year 2014. Although these are coming from personal realizations, opinions and circumstances, I’ve decided to share three of them with my audience (with some explanation included), hoping that some of you might find them inspirational (or thought provoking) and applicable for your own life or work. Plus, putting them out for listeners from all over the Planet to read will force me to actually stick to them…

Resolution #1: I will not purchase new software or hardware

This is actually harder than it sounds. Trying to leave my “gearhead” past behind, it might not be possible to simply ignore new developments and cool products. But, even though I won’t unsubscribe from the 20+ music technology related e-newsletters I am receiving on a weekly basis, the real challenge will be making the decision not to purchase the latest and greatest equipment or plugin. Why? I could simply say “I have more than enough gear in Studio CS” (and this would be the truth), but then you would say (if you’re a gearhead): “You can’t ever have too much gear!”. As I used to think the same, it might need some explanation why I think otherwise these days.

The less gear you have, the more you have to try: try to come up with unconventional solutions, try to get more out of what you have, try new and unusual combinations and end up with new and unique outcomes. Less convenience makes you think and work harder. Faster processing and more memory, more software, bigger algorhythm do not mean better music.

There are so many examples to put this in a wider perspective. For instance, think about the computers NASA used in the ’60s and ’70s. Their most complex program was 6 MB and Apollo 11 was guided to the Moon and back to Earth by a computer with 64 KiloBytes of memory and a processor running at 0.05 MHz – about the speed of a pocket calculator. Yet it was enough to assist a mission that changed history. Or, think about the Synclavier or the Fairlight CMI sampler of the early ’80s, with their processor running at around 1 MHz, both were responsible for amazingly realistic sounds in the works of many composers of the day.

I look at software similarly. Typically, what you will find in the newest versions, latest upgrades, is convenience. New features and functions might be marketed as “new capabilities”, but in fact, I have not come across any “new capabilities” for several years now, any features that wouldn’t have been possible to achieve before – usually in more complex but also more flexible ways. Whether we’re talking about new variations of formant synthesis, sequenceable effects processing, automation matrix or other “this will triple your creativity” gimmicks, it’s been all out there for those who choose to go beyond clicking on preset buttons – and it’s been around for a long time. This makes me think of the good old times that I was spending in front of the early version of Cubase (the whole program fit on four 3.5″ floppy discs), being more productive than ever.

I believe that we have passed the point where the advantage of the accelerated technical progress was practically measurable in most fields (the medical profession might be one of the exceptions). While more or less following Moore’s law, technological advancement is accelerating exponentially, in my opinion the benefits are only advancing logarithmically (the pace of change of the effect is decelerating). This brings the latest 64-channel theater surround sound systems to mind – as impressive as it sounds, I wonder how many listeners will perceive and actually enjoy its benefits over today’s 9.2 systems (knowing that most people can’t even distinguish a 5.1 from a 7.1 experience).

So, do we really need GigaByte-sized operating systems and TeraBytes of samples to create amazing sounds and music? (And let’s not even open up the analog can of worms here.)  Taking this a step farther in light of the Apollo example: does the world need faster and faster technology to make history? Do we need to run fast to get farther and see less, or rather slow down and enjoy the journey? As for me… using technology as an occasional aid, it’s time to enjoy a healthy mix of the easy-to-miss wonders of yesterday and the creative challenges of tomorrow.

Resolution #2: I will use my smartphone less

I do like the “everything at one place” aspect of smartphones. I appreciate the practicality of the minimalistic algorhythm and small application size that runs on them. But I hate that they are leading the way in letting technology drive and schedule our lives, instead of inspiring us to free up time we spend with daily routines, and replace it with real productivity. Everyone knows by now how companies love to provide cellphones to their employees (to effectively extend their work hours without pay). But people are equally at fault. How many times do you check your phone a day? Some statistics say the average user does it 23 times, some research mentions numbers over one-hundred… either way, it’s too often. What’s the point of checking your emails, social networking status, weather, etc. constantly?  How come no one felt being left out of the loop 15 years ago when launching your email once in the morning and once in the evening was enough? People still networked, and actually kept relationships more personal and reliable.

I do not want to waste any more time than I must with these routine tasks and I do not want to let technology become the purpose, rather than the tool. If I save only 3 minutes on average by turning on my phone only 10 times less a day, that’s already half an hour a day (over a full week per year!) that I can use my time for more useful activities. Let’s be the smarter one of our phones and ourselves.

Resolution #3: The New Album…. I will finally finish it and it shall be released.

My original plan was that first time in my life, I can spend all the time I want to compose music and sounds for my 8th studio album – one that is especially close to my heart. I even proudly shared my “no deadline” approach with some of my friends and students: “if it takes many years, then it takes many years… I won’t release it until I feel it’s near perfect”. The process started in 2009, and had no planned release date. After I delayed the release date several times, I have come to realize: what sounded good in theory, wouldn’t work in practice, for at least three reasons:

1. I’m never 100% satisfied with the mix of my own works, so technically the album will never be 100% finished. I just have to accept 98%. And due to the nature of music production, it takes about the same amount of time to get form zero to 98% as much it takes to get from 98% to 100% – there is always something to improve. Often I’m not even sure if I’m really improving on a detail or just moving over horizontally to explore another option.  So those last 2% just aren’t worth the time.

2. Having been receiving your questions about the release date from all over the Planet at an increasing rate made me finally realize, that I owe it to my listeners to put out the new materials in a reasonable time. Working on my music by myself for too long is not only exponentially less productive (see above) but also exponentially more selfish.

3. Not wrapping up the first album (of my new concept album series of 4 albums) will prevent me from moving on, shifting my thoughts to the second topic and start working on the 2nd album.

I take this opportunity to thank everyone who inquired about the new albums and ensured me of their support. I’ll be proud to have you as a VIP passenger on this musical journey in 2014.

Happy New Year’s resolutions!

 

 

 

Three Less Obvious Enemies of Originality

July 28th 2013  || by  || 1 Comment

“What’s wrong with not being original?” – asked the celebrity and stepped back into his mansion.

Too Many Options

Brian Eno once said: “What you need are fewer possibilities… that are more interesting. It’s not more options that you want, it’s more useful options”. I think this is more true today than ever, and I might add: those few useful options will often come from the least obvious sources. So you want to be different, express your individuality, your personal message, come up with original content? Think about how you could make your process simpler. Think about how you could use gear that not everyone uses (sorry, NI). Restrict your convenient options – set up rules that prevent you from taking the same route from idea conceptualization to production twice. Work within these new set of rules, then destroy them and create new ones. Give up as much convenience as much you can handle. Let me know what results you have achieved.

When it comes to gear or software, there is a certain temptation for many of us who like diversity in sound generation and processing, to have lots of it. However, the truth is that you have to allow time for yourself to grow up to your gear. It’s kind of like a friendship. To make new friends every week and spend thirty minutes weekly with each new friend will less likely result in a strong friendship, than meeting fewer people and getting to know them better. Which situation do you think will get you farther, a lot of acquaintances or a few close friends? So, after you have gotten to know your gear down to the smallest details, let yourself run out of the obvious options; that’s where the real discovery starts. The reward comes when you start taking different than usual approaches to achieve interesting results. I’m not talking about ignoring the presets here, I’m referring to more or less ignoring the whole system (long live Anonymous!) – the methods by which the instrument or piece of equipment is supposed to be used.

I realize that I am also guilty of surrounding myself with too much gear. I remember the times when I had a very small studio and I was able to operate it with my eyes closed (literally – even navigate in sub-menus of certain equipment). Some of those pieces are still part of Studio CS today, and I keep on finding new and interesting ways of using them. On the other hand, I still have a lot of experimenting to do with my current setup, to venture into the sonic excursions I haven’t taken before. Not only I refrain from using any presets, but I’m rarely satisfied with the results that come from the “normal use” of these pieces of gear. Ultimately, I often gravitate back toward using the equipment I had developed a more in-depth “relationship” with. (A neat example would be my Yamaha PSR-6 synth, which is basically a toy that I had bought on eBay for $20, to bring back the memories of my first childhood keyboard, a PSR-2. Today, it certainly does sound like a toy, yet those sounds are part of game menus and movie soundtracks you might have already heard… yes, a $20 synth in major productions. Other sounds from this “toy” even found their way into my upcoming album [edit: the already released forgotten future], after some multi-tracking and lots of processing. Makes me think of pointless conversations about 192kHz and the need for pristine-sounding elite preamps…

This is not to say that less is always more. Although, if you are a new, aspiring composer or producer, less is definitely more, more becomes more after (many) years of use experience. With the friend analogy, once you have a few really close friends, why not have a couple more who you can get to know just as well? But it definitely takes thousands and thousands of hours to get to the point where one can utilize a studio full of equipment in a truly original ways. Most gearheads think that it would be so cool to take over a professional studio for a week… imagine what would happen if you had all the gear you can imagine at your disposal? There is a great (I believe Hungarian) phrase to describe it: “the abundance of confusion”. Probably you wouldn’t get much interesting music done, unless you resorted to using a couple of pieces of gear.

Reflex meeblip SE

Reflex meeblip SE – it doesn’t get much simpler than this, you would think. Actually, with an interesting combination of processes, even this simple piece of gear (the simplest equipment in Studio CS) is capable of reaching a wide range of unique sonic territories.

Several years ago I actually went through a period when I couldn’t get the music in my head realized the way I imagined – for a few months, none of my sessions were productive, at least by an elevated standard of originality. It was quite frustrating: sitting in the studio full of equipment, with ideas in my head (so not a “writer’s block”), yet I wasn’t able to get my idea to the point of solid realization. I thought I was ready to use a great diversity of technology simultaneously – turns out I wasn’t. After many lost session, I solved this issue by temporarily eliminating most of the equipment from my process and using only a couple of pieces. It worked great. Then I would designate a couple of months to work only with a very limited set of equipment, to get the most out of each piece according to my given needs. You would think of this masochist method as restrictive, but it was quite the opposite.  After years of working this way, I have almost grown up to Studio CS and developed a really good yet different “connection” with each piece.

Lack of true physical connection

Cables. They’re great. They let you be modular. They let you break rules. They let you hold your sounds and music in your hands while you’re deciding where to send them next. Cables stand for hands-on, physical connections and outboard gear. No plugins, no mouse, no updates, no launch errors, no forced upgrades. They represent the real stuff, something tangible. Virtual connections are just like software – flexible, convenient, but try to grab the ones and zeros they are made of. They don’t exist. Cables definitely do… and have something physical on both ends. A tube compressor. An analog synth. An effect pedal. There is nothing wrong with using virtual connections, but at least, try to combine the best of both words and keep some real cables in the part of your signal path that you wouldn’t even think could be used creatively.

Cables

Spare cables with undetermined purpose laying around before my recent studio relocation. I love cables; in my mind, they represent flexibility and provide an experience to music production that’s as far form a mouse pointer as it gets.
Sure, they’re messy. So is cooking, as opposed to junk food from the drive-thru.

Speaking of physical connections, I have to mention the very interface we use to input music into our sequencers or recording software. These days we use software for most everything, and from year to year it takes less and less effort to interface with computers. The mouse is going out, leaving space for the one- and more finger-operation of touch screens. While I recognize their advantages and superiority over the mouse, I believe that they can’t yet replace (but rather complement) the act of physically touching actual 3-dimensional objects – in music production, these can be sliders, faders, buttons, knobs, dials, keys, keyboards, strings, sticks… you name it. The expressiveness we can transfer through, and the tactile feedback we receive from these objects is much more diverse than using a flat-surface touch screen for everything. We use a mouse or two fingers for browsing, email, work, shopping online, watching movies online… shouldn’t the process of creation be utilizing some different gestures than those that we use throughout the day anyway? No wonder that some of the electronic music instrument developers see the future of music technology in the way we interface with our instruments, rather than the sound generator itself. Robert Moog realized this early on, and focused on theremins before he re-started his synth manufacturing operation in 2002. Even then, his biggest new addition to the Voyager (relative to the Model D) was the 3-axis control pad. (More about the consequence of diverse interfaces and the advantages of physically generating and performing music in my Analog vs. Digital synths article.)

More cables

More analog and digital cables at Studio CS. Some connect synths to effect units, others connect seemingly unmatchable pieces of gear, taking the sound to a new direction.

Templates and signature sounds

Sometimes a computer virus can be a good thing. Of course, they are a curse when they strike just before you wrap up an important project and they wipe out your drive. But when you “only” lose the old files or templates you use for your projects, a virus can be a great benefit and have a healthy cleansing effect on your creativity. Having to re-create things or start from scratch in most cases ensures that you’re going to end up with different, often more interesting results, maybe better ones than what you would have gotten with your trusty templates.

In music, repeating yourself is too easy; it’s for the lazy and those who prefer convenience over originality (see quote on top). Of course, I’m talking about independent work – not industrial production work, like film scoring or mainstream songwriting, where safety, convenience, speed, trends and even imitation can often be more important (and better paid for) factors than originality; it usually doesn’t matter if the composer uses his or her template (or even “borrows” someone else’s), as long as it fits into the process: done as expected, submitted on deadline. For these quick and efficient type of projects, viruses can halt production and cause serious financial damage.

About a decade ago I stopped saving my sounds and settings into the synths and processors I created them with. I decided to deliberately cause this inconvenience for myself, to make sure that even when one of my previously used sounds would work well in a new piece, I would have to create a new, original one. I have not regret it a bit. Just think about the pre-digital times, when sounds, effects, mixing settings couldn’t be saved simply by pushing a button. How much more originality came from that era, when most sounds and most every piece of music was created from scratch, and was often impossible to repeat (perform) the same way. Originality wasn’t a goal artists were forcing, it just happened organically. Even the patch drawings (of settings) didn’t give the composer exactly the same results every time.

The only two exceptions from this practice are performances and signature sounds. If the style of a composer or producer is heavily characterized by the sounds or instruments used, sometimes it’s understandable if s/he wants to re-use these elements; that is, if the reason is not laziness but the desire to evoke the feel of a previous music piece, to create a link to an earlier work (hopefully rather an emotional, than a promotional link), or to perform the music live. For instance, I have kept three of my used-to-be signature sounds (they come from the time of Mountain Flying) but have used them maybe three times in the past 15 years. The main lead sound from Mountain Flying I, II and III had been quietly resting in a sound module for years before I decided to use it again for the lead part of Fly Away (on Transitions). Fans had been asking for a sequel to Mountain Flying, and though I was not intending to create a sequel album, one day in 2004 the track Fly Away was born. My old MF sound not only worked perfectly for the lead, but was largely responsible for bringing back the feel of the windy, snow-covered mountains from 1999’s Mountain Flying.

1999's Mountain Flying CD Cover (Periferic Records original edition)

1999’s Mountain Flying CD Cover (Periferic Records original edition)

Signature sounds and live performances aside, I can only respect and celebrate those composers and producers who sound themselves but do not sound the same over and over again – especially in electronic music, where texture is a major building block of music. I suspect the same applies to painters, sculptors, graphic artists, videographers, animators, writers, poets and most everyone who creates original work – where templates can be the enemy of originality. Convenient, but limiting: they might not let you see different directions, take new approaches, change up the usual process.

Have you discovered some other not-so-obvious enemies of originality? Comment or let me know.

 

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  • Live in California (2017)
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