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I've just been getting heavily into Steve Reich and other lesser known 20th Century and minimalist composers. It's been a great time of musical development for me, but the problem is, I find lots of Aphex Twin, BoC, and other IDM music boring now. I know they're great music makers and should be respected, but from the point of view that I see music now, they're sorely lacking. Can anyone recommend any IDM or general electronic music where the composer(s) are classically trained or have a good knowledge of music theory? Please don't think I am looking snobbily down on people who make music and aren't classically trained, I still respect them, but I would simply love to hear some eletronic music by people who know their music theory. Btw-you should all listen to Takashi Yoshimatsu's "Threnody for Toki" and Steve Reich's "Music For 18 Musicians", two of my favorite pieces of late. |
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I am looking snobbily down on people who make music that are classically trained, I dont respect them ;) Steve Reich is pretty decent but I actually like the tribute cd to him, made by modern electronic music composers that remix few of Reich most known works. My favourite artists dont have any classical training like AE, U-Ziq, RZA, AFX etc etc so FrluuuuuUCK music theory, that just destroys the fun! |
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working within too structured boundries often limits creativity. at the end of the day, it doesnt matter if a piece is either technically or musically perfect, its how it sounds and how it affects the listener that is important. Still, i have a lot of respect for the likes of Phillip Glass & Michael Nyman. |
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Its all about the sound. The art of sound. |
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But being musical helps. Sure, you can make some good music without knowing how to play an instrument or knowing any music theory, but it definately helps. Squarepusher said himself that learning the bass and drums really boosted his drum programming and basslines, and I agree. Often I find IDM melodies to be good but underdevoped. |
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Fair point. i have basic musical knowledge, i know about keys & time sigs and so but it was never structured training, moreso improvised jazz sessions and stuff with my tutor. so it does help, knowing that something is going to fit. the "guessing" technique can work & sound awesome, but a lot of the time you end up with shit like brothomstates. |
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"Its all about the sound. The art of sound." I used to think that, now I think it's more about harmony and melody, and how you break from the rules. |
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but if you stick to to rigid a structure the rules cannot be broken. |
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someone on here wrote this article about classical/music theory based roots in IDM, it's kind of long but maybe you'll get something out of it |
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Listen: when you write a book, you need to learn how to write properly, before you begin to break the rules and mix and match tenses, flashbacks, and various literary techniques (I'm no expert on the matter!) Same with music. Before you start pissing around and doing your own thing, I think you should be able to write proper structured music and learn how to develope harmonies and melodies. I mean, Confield is an amazing album...I'd love it EVEN more if Autechre knew their music theory, and shoved in some minimalist developement ideas and music forumalae and patterns. |
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A good example of composing skills not being important is Steve Reich's "Piano Phase". It doesn't require knowledge about composing but the track still sounds great! It just takes the IDEA to shift two samples... |
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with music. you can put any old stuff together and make a decent sound. you can also make a shit one. with writing, if you put random letters together its never gonna make sense. this is what makes music ( & art ) great; it is a free expression of peoples thoughts, emotions and ideas. construction & structure are important but not the be all & end all in music |
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Actually, I do agree with you. I'd simply love to hear, however, some IDM that HAS got a classical backbone! I still love Autechre and stuff, anyway. |
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..furthermore, no amount of training or learning can inspire creatvity. i'm gifted with my language skills in an academic sense, but i cannot write an article or book or whatever that would capture people's imaginations etc.. i just dont have that gift. |
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Interesting statements by all here. If you take the Beatles as an example then you can see that no musical training is no bad thing. McCartney had no idea what a stave was. Tell him to play a semi-breve and he'll look at your blankly. Tell him a not for four beats and he will. The Beatles are up there with the most popular bands/singers of all time. Possible No. 1. A lack of formal training didn't hold them back at all did it? So why were they so succesful? Is it because they weren't restrained by "knowledge" and did what they thought sounded good rather than what adhered to the "rules"? Surely the same applies to Aphex etc as they haven't been trained in any way ([]pusher plays Bass I know) that would restrict their thinking and understanding of music. |
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But it isn't restrictive! Once you are confident in the rules, you can smartly break them. Like Stockhousen and Phillip Glass and Steve Reich and others have. Autechre amaze me considering they have no backround musical knowledge. Aphex, on the other hand, sometimes displays his lack of knowledge with some pretty medicore and simplistic harmonies and melodies (no offence to any massive fans here) |
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I'm pretty sure Aphex knows quite a lot about music theory to be honest - Even his early SAW85-92 stuff is written very much in established keys and chord structures. Despite what ppl say - Most successful electronic producers I've known/met are actually quite accomplished musicians. I love what Aphex does myself - His melodies are beautifully simple and remind you of nursery rhymes sometimes - Although he does write some quite clever stuff too. It's actually much harder to achieve clever simplicity and minimalism, like Aphex and Autechre do, than to just write 25 part string arrangements and things. I find a great many classical musicians are very over-rated. |
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In this day and age it is VERY worth your while to learn a little about music! Especially as most kids these days just want to mess with plug-ins and drum breaks - Anything to give you an edge should be given some serious attention IMO. It's no substitute for imagination or creativity - But anything to expand your musical ability can only be a good thing. |
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Hmmm "when you write a book, you need to learn how to write properly, before you begin to break the rules"... "Same with music. Before you start messing around and doing your own thing, I think you should be able to write proper structured music and learn how to develop harmonies and melodies" As I see it the problem with what your saying is that the only fundamental rules in music (and by fundamental I mean unchangeable) are the Pythagorean Laws Of Vibration And Frequency, or "The Music Of The Spheres".. Though the way the Laws are written can be changed, what they relate to cannot. Which notes sit happily with others is not universally agreed, ie Eastern music differs from Western Music Theory. So Western Music Theory is just one way storing and retrieving music, combined very a efficient method of interpreting the Pythagorean Laws.. But it's not the only such method, any 1 of us could create our own system/language, or bypass it altogether which is what most of us probably do. The advantage of a common musical language though go without saying. There are no musical rules to break, just unheard combinations of frequencies to find.. Music is the interpretation of sound.. Musical ability is of course drastically improved by learning to play or creating music by what ever means, but learning western music theory only teaches u western music theory, Just one of many possible interpretations of the "Music Of The Spheres". learning French doesn't mean you know your way around Paris.. Ps I know I contradict myself.. Am I talking bollocks or making sense? :) |
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which aphex melodies sound mediorce to u and show his lack of understanding? please tell me im interesting. im not being sarcastic. i am interested, they all sound fine to me |
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that makes sense, but you can't "learn" Creativity, thats the only point i'm making.no matter how it is made, it depends on the individual to define it as music, art, or bollocks. |
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track 2 off AB3 is very mediocre. |
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Whilst a lot of I Care Because You Do is fabulous, some of it sounds bad to my ears. The last track in particular sounds like he found some interesting chords, but then didn't know what to do with them. Track 2 also irritates me; the violins are just badly written imo. Finally, more chordal variation would have been nice...The RDJames album is fine, but it is all very childlike and sounds like he just pissed around in C Major using on the C, G and F chords for the majority of the album (though he may have been doing this on purpose to make is sound more funny, silly, so I could be wrong here). Druqks is much interesting to me. |
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Your comment on Autechre interests me - what is it that they're doing that amazes you, and how does it relate to knowledge of traditional / formal musical theory? (personally I rather prefer Aphex's naive work over stuff where he's obviously trying to be excessively clever) |
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Maybe Autechre don't realise what they're doing, but I like what they do in relation to minimalist music-gradual changes, repeating patterns with new patterns being created from non-changing existing patterns, interesting rule-breaking of structure (particularly Surripere) and the whole way they build-up/break down tracks reminds me a lot of the classican music I've been hearing. Then there's the whole sound-creation thing... ;) Now I'd like to know a band who do this stuff, but know what they're doing! (if you get me, hehe) |
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RJ's child-like quality is very much intentional, you can tell - I think it works wonderfully for him. I'm sure he's classically trainned, or at least took piano lessons as a kid - There's that picture of him on the WATMM site, holding a violin - He's actually holding the bow properly which isn't as easy as it sounds! RJ's sound is wonderfully simple. But if you're talking about serious intellectual music you should look to the black artists of the last century - The likes of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, they've been truely pushing the technical & theoretical aspect of music to its limits - To the point where most people will never be able to fully understand/appreciate it. For me though, RJ's style and musicality couldn't be better - He's a true musical prodigy - You can tell he conceptualises everything - You can certainly never learn an ability like that. |
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Oh, and you must remember - Autechre have been playing keyboards since the 80's - You can't experiment with rhythm and harmony, profesionally, and for that long, without developing immense instinctual musicality. |
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This is a really cool topic because this has been interesting me a lot lately as well. The bottom line is, unless your a genious of music, learning about composition and music theory in no way hinders the art of music (in cases where there is good music being made), but organizes it in a way so we can understand and use it as a palette for creating music. The Richard D. James album has tons of composition and harmony/melody writing in it. People that simply dismiss formal training as uselss and creativity-numbing are pretty misled. Yeah, people that don't infuse creativity with proper training can create awful music, but when it clicks it makes good music. Anyway, I've been researching this stuff, and so far I've found this guy Edgar Varese. Check him out, he's from way back when. The best example I've found though is music from The Richard D. James album, but thats as far as my AFX knowledge goes. |
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You might wanna check out Jaga Jazzist too, if you haven't already. |
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whatever makes good music... if someone never touched a theory book in his life, but makes music that is amazing, good for him. if some guy studies his ass off for years, learning theory, and makes music that is amazing, good for him. both can suck though. like someone said earlier... there is no replacement for creativity (or talent). However... I think if you took that same person, and gave him music theory... it would help him even more. Mix pure talent with knowledge... I dont see how it could be bad. And what people say about "but learning the rules limits you" are making assumptions, based on I dont know what... just because you learn something, doesnt mean its engraved and programmed into you. You choose what you want to use. So there cant be any harm in learning... if it helps you, then great, use it... if not, then dont use it. Its that simple. I just think people should stop caring so much about HOW people write music. It really doesnt matter. If you like music that has more technical elements, that you can recognize... theres nothing wrong with that. What ever makes you enjoy it more. And if you dont enjoy alot of technical stuff, then just dont listen. But dont slag off others who like it... because its all subjective. As long as it makes the one listening happy... whats it matter? |
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richard devine and hrvatski are both formally trained musicians btw |
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The structure thing is what gets me - when they're on top of their game, they're creating tracks that could be the templates for entirely new song forms with their own alien logic. OTOH too often they do the "something nice that soon plows into the toilet" structure. :D |
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Whoes structure sorry? |
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yes, richard devine has a background in classical music, all of his tracks follow classical composition structures. i personally find his music to be quite boring. manitoba is a classically trained pianist, and i'm pretty sure greg davis is formally trained as well, as for some other 'idm' artists with classical roots. you should look into morton subotnick. he was an academic electronic composer from the 50's and 60's and made some really nutty stuff, easily as bizarre and intense as the likes of autechre. look for his piece 'the wild bull' for a good example. |
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check out world's end gitldriend, i only know of farewell kingdom which is superb in it's orchestrations and use of breakbeats ala squarepusher... don't forget that many people do dance music in electronic music, that doesn't follow at all the rules for classical music composition... |
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I didn't read through all the posts so if this mentioned, I apologize....but I read once that Richard D James had a great interest and studied music theory when he first started out with music. I could be wrong though. |
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i couldnt believe the similarites between idm music and minimalism when i first heard autechre's early stuff and afx...at first idm seemed just like minimalism with beats...in my opinion idm is kinda like the next progression of avant-garde...apart from all that post-classical shit that seems to be going around at the moment...what a wank. |
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man, this post sounds really arrogant. I've had discussions with people who are trained musicians about this before and they always come off as snobby and think too highly of themselves and the elite classically trained musicians. For me, music = entertainment and FUN, if I want to wank over how smart I am I will go back and look at my aptitude test results or something. I write dumb IDM with silly synths and shit and crazy beats coz I find it fun. I dunno, if you're thinking about music solely from this viewpoint, I think your view on music is lacking...or you're simply thinking too much. I dunno. Each to his own I guess. |
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oh sorry Zeus' post said was I wanted to but far better. |
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