How Computers Ruined Rock Music

[rick-slo]

Think this is pretty neat:

[KevWind]

I saw that on another forum and watched it
It has some decent info and no doubt it can be a problem (but I would think more so in current Pop than Rock , but that is just a guess ) I do think there is a bit of editorial hype as well. As with anything the tools do not "ruin",,,,, people overusing or misusing can

[Brent Hahn]

I think that a computer can capture the feel of a live band, or even an overdubbing band, just as "humanly" as a tape machine can. But with a computer, there's the possibility of fixing the bits here and there which you might find a bit "too human." Doesn't mean you have to. But you can save an otherwise great take.

[rick-slo]

At 17:30 the summation comments including "one person playing at a time".

[gwlee7]

I enjoy Beato’s what makes this song great videos a lot. Haven’t watched this one yet. He can be a “sure of himself” sometimes.

[Bob Womack]

People kill music.

I've long referred to lead guitar as the "finger olympics." People want to experience other people attempting great things and either succeeding or crashing and burning. That's where part of the excitement comes from. So it is with music. Without attempting and accomplishing or failing, music becomes equivalent to wind-up music boxes. Part of the joy is experiencing excellence in performance, accomplishment. It is that way whether you are hearing a Baroque minuet or a solo acoustic piece or an ensemble piece. Way back in the 1980s they discovered this with the whole MIDI revolution. They could play the whole band with a handful of keyboards and a TRS-808 drum machine but it was BORING and mechanical. They had to bring in guitarists to play with imperfect humanity to bring the thing back to life.

I'm reminded of "the curse of CGI." These days in film, quantity and size of practically everything is created with CGI. It can look quite impressive, but the knowledge that the bigness of the scene never actually happened, never existed, takes the wind out of suspension of disbelief for many in the audience. For instance, modern film representations of swarms of WWII aircraft flying might be impressive on the surface but the knowledge that they are only graphics underlies our consciousness. When you compare that to a movie called The Battle of Britain ("BOB"), filmed in 1969, it pales. BOB battle scenes contain a large collection of WWII aircraft. The bombers were the entire bomber fleet of Spain. At the time, the collection of fighters formed the largest private air force in the world. The flight scenes there are FAR more believable, even with their shortcomings, than modern CGI. Similarly, for the D-Day film, The Longest Day, they had 2000 extras in uniforms run away from the strafing run of the two (2, count 'em) German planes that were actually able to make it to the beachhead on the actual day. For Twelve O'Clock High, a stunt pilot actually belly-landed a real B-17 bomber, something no-one wants to do. All this contributed to a feeling that you were actually witnessing something big occurring. By contrast, the modern Red Tails movie depicting the Tuskegee Airmen was hampered by the fact that the CGI fighter aircraft in the combat scenes behaved more like Star Wars spacecraft than piston-powered prop-driven aircraft.

Thus it is with music: you must maintain the suspense generated by the possibility of failure in order generate excitement. Your big attempts need to be big. Your parts need to have humanity. When I am producing and performing in the studio I tend to buck the trend towards perfection. When I am creating and performing lead guitar parts for music I try to perform them all the way through, front to back. You know, you often improvise these parts. While I may play until I crash and burn and then punch-in again until I crash again, etc., once I get a solo that I like I'll usually come back and re-perform the solo front to back as a whole so that it contains that challenge of attempt and accomplishment. Without it there is no excitement. There's no fear of failure.

Bob

[Mr. Jelly]

Biased as I am I like the old takes where a group of jazz/studio musicians along with the artist or groups like The Beatles created an arrangement of a pop tune and then played it for the recording. Though there were overdubs they were minimal. The music really has life in it. Pop music sounds changed with the technology. Autotune anyone?

[rick-slo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-GrRIgdmW8

[Trevor B.]

Not to be too much of a naysayer here but there's a lot more than two plugins killing musical expression in the 21st century, rock or otherwise. We live in an era dominated by visceral impact and visual thrill seeking. Neither has anything to do with auditory perception. These days even at Figure Skating shows like Stars on Ice the bass in the musical accompaniments (musical used here in the loosest sense) is so loud it goes right up one's spine. My point is this, most of the time now people aren't even aware of music unless they "feel it" or "see it" as opposed to hear it. That's my rant for the day and I'm sticking to it!

[runamuck]

I haven't watched the video but have a reaction to the title which I think is nonsense. Good music starts and ends with a song and it's the songs that are missing substance and interest these days, in my opinion.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by runamuck

I haven't watched the video but have a reaction to the title which I think is nonsense. Good music starts and ends with a song and it's the songs that are missing substance and interest these days, in my opinion.

Watch the video. You could start a different thread of course.

[runamuck]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Watch the video. You could start a different thread of course.

OK, sorry if I was off topic.

[Trevor B.]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Watch the video. You could start a different thread of course.

I watched the video and Herbie Hancock unequivocally makes the case for spontaneity and real, live performance, not to mention perspective and co-operation.
It's a fantastic narrative told with eloquence and ironically, humility.
Thanks for posting it!

[runamuck]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Watch the video. You could start a different thread of course.

I watched the video. The title should be "quantization kills ALL music".

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by runamuck

I watched the video. The title should be "quantization kills ALL music".

I agree, because as I said "tools" do not do anything...
But !!! in all fairness the title of the video accomplishes exactly what it is supposed to do.
The task of the title, is to get people to click on it and view , after all a monetized YouTube channel, makes its revenue from the number of views (not the validity of the title in relation to the gist of the presentation)



While I would certainly also agree that it is hard to beat the feel of assembled group playing at the same time, thus why live performance is still working.
That said as Trevor B mentioned the condition of todays music pop and even rock music, is far more complex than just caused by two software algorithms