Nobody appreciates small time electronic music makers/electronic musician for most is a lonely life

[jancivil]

tired of the oversimplification of the Electronic vs "real" music debate.

to play [parts] in, whether MIDI or guitar / WAY easier for me than sitting there and entering in notes, automation curves, and step sequences with my mouse. actually that's a bit too much like work, in my opinion. So my hat is off to anybody that can sequence in an entire track without picking up an instrument.

where I think a lot of electronic music falls flat is in the arrangements

it's not really supposed to / try to make a human to human connection.

you can quantize it to total musical perfection, and you can produce the entire thing in your underwear without having to work with any other musicians. But it loses something in that transition.

From this perspective in terms of these as pure criteria, I resemble that 'electronic music maker' as much or more than any other type. I'm working from bed today.

However, some notes.
The person drawing in the notes in the sequencer in, what you are saying is kind of just lifeless music, is using quantize as a convenience and a crutch. Quantizing is not so much a means towards 'perfection' unless you believe a robot is quite superior to a human per se.

There are enough people that have noticed the basis for a 'beat', and know to do straight 16ths on a 'hihat', four-on-the-floor - or two - on the 'kick', and which of four counts make a backbeat. And quantize on, no worries ever. But if you ever got busy with a kit of drums, or put your time in with a drummer, in a band, intercourse with people DOING it, you would tend to find that quantized 'beat' really f**king paltry or lacking much of a point.

So we have all of this dross from people that want attention through 'music making', or Production. That don't even seem to notice that before there was computers enabling this whole facility, people expected to put enormous amounts of time in and obtained skills on instruments before they Showed. I've actually seen people fighting the idea vigorously if you bring it up.

I don't think that has to describe anybody necessarily, but it's about curiosity and the depth of one's commitment.
We're none of us such geniuses that we can function in this almost a vacuum, you have to inform yourself by working with people, give-and-take, real-time. The depth of your personality is proportionate with how you extend yourself and interact with things outside yourself, the world, reality.

If you are forced to make it all happen by hand, what you draw in the editors is majorly informed and deepened, widened, 'embiggened' by it.
But people become less and less curious and more and more automatic in other ways as well.
Cf. HG Wells, The Time Machine. Your muscles, use 'em or lose 'em. Don't use a crutch before you've ever walked.

[jancivil]

there is a lot of competition, so if you want people to care, stand out, 'do something fantastic'.

If what you think reps 'people care' is a high number of followers at Soundcloud, that involves canvassing basically.
I know people that make fantastic music that do not have promotion resources or backing that have a lot of action at SC, they're very social and SOME of that comes from real, physical life. But if you want a lot of views on Youtube or a big number at SC just out of your 'online presence', you need to be spamtastic.

[ghettosynth]

There is no reason people should care unless you've done something fantastic and even then you need to suck some major dick to get ahead.

Well, I think that something that's often missing from these threads is what does the OP mean by "appreciate?" My aforementioned friend's idea / doesn't give a crap about being famous for music or making money at it.

I just find someone whinging here about 'appreciation' misplaced

Well, yes. I suppose what I'm saying, in part, to OP and other would be whiners, is "if you want actionable advice, stop whining and state your goals."

and given what context I can gather a bit cart-before-the-horse.

Ah, well, they can't all be gems.

[AudioPhile2]

That's because it's something relatively easy to pick up. I know there can be much more dignity to electronic music than that, such as sound design, which is a whole universe in itself. But that said, I know people who can create a simple beat in Ableton in minutes without any music knowledge. It's much easier to do than writing a song on a guitar that's worth listening to.

Add to that the accessibility of Soundcloud and anyone's a rock star. With so many of these scenarios out there, not everyone of them can get noticed.

Your example brings up many of the concept problems that pretty much f**ck these things:

What people is now calling electronic music, or "electronica", is, in fact, EDM, or "Electronic Dance Music". Notice the DANCE word. It means that this music is "utilitarian", in that it serves a purpose that's extraneous to music itself. Therefore, we cannot consider it ART

A bold claim. Too bold.

When you use that big word "utilitarian", you're simply talking about the context in which the piece of music has been placed; i.e. a movie, an elevator, a dance show. It's like saying Monet's water lilies aren't art because you saw them reprinted on a post card.

I'd also point out that Electronica (or Electronic Music) has more genres than just EDM.

[AudioPhile2]

Your example brings up many of the concept problems that pretty much f**ck these things:

1. First - assembling a bunch of loops in Ableton is NOT electronic music. Actually, it will likely ending not being anything worthing AT ALL.

What are you even talking about? I slapped together a song that can stand on it's own within a few hours just last night - whether it's good or not is up for discussion, but that's not the point we're making here.

As for your definition of art, again: what are you even talking about?
So, video games have been recognized as an art form. They are meant to be played and the player is welcome to explore their options within the bounds of the game, but regardless the game is meant for enjoyment and to be played. That is it's job, so by your logical is is utilitarian and therefore no longer an art form?
I'm pretty certain any piece of media cannot only play a role, but be art at the same time.[/quote]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who took issue with his narrow-minded definition of art.

[ghettosynth]

Your example brings up many of the concept problems that pretty much f**ck these things:

1. First - assembling a bunch of loops in Ableton is NOT electronic music. Actually, it will likely ending not being anything worthing AT ALL.

What are you even talking about? I slapped together a song that can stand on it's own within a few hours just last night - whether it's good or not is up for discussion, but that's not the point we're making here.

As for your definition of art, again: what are you even talking about?
So, video games have been recognized as an art form. They are meant to be played and the player is welcome to explore their options within the bounds of the game, but regardless the game is meant for enjoyment and to be played. That is it's job, so by your logical is is utilitarian and therefore no longer an art form?
I'm pretty certain any piece of media cannot only play a role, but be art at the same time.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who took issue with his narrow-minded definition of art.

You're not man, I actually had some replies, but I get tired of posting my thoughts here, so I just moved them elsewhere. But, yes, the claim is far too strong and, IMNSHO, a bit self-serving.

[AudioPhile2]

Nice

The opposition is growing!

[Functional]

Tbh after reading all these posts, all I can say is that some people seem to focus more into getting followers than actually showing any kind of musicianship. I totally agree with what jancivil has said; do something that stands out if you want to stand out. Or the EDM route; do something that is utter mainstream and spam yourself atop.

If you got nothing new to give, don't expect popularity nor recognition from audience that seeks something new. Mainstage EDM is the only exception and there you'll need a completely different sense of music, after acquiring that just stand in the line of thousands comparable artists waiting for breakthrough or get contacts, suck them and spam as much as possible (being clever also helps).

Though if you want to make living by music, you better start doing other stuff as well. Such as DJ, mixing engineer (though avoid monitor mixing for your mental health), sound design, post-production stuff, field recording etc. Being broad is good until you find what you want/don't want to do.

And guess what? All this stuff builds you up as a musician. I didn't really learn to appreciate sound design, live performances etc. until I started working in those circles.

[ntom]

If you got nothing new to give, don't expect popularity nor recognition from audience that seeks something new. Mainstage EDM is the only exception and there you'll need a completely different sense of music, after acquiring that just stand in the line of thousands comparable artists waiting for breakthrough or get contacts, suck them and spam as much as possible (being clever also helps).

I'm gonna have to argue this point. Having something new doesn't suddenly merit success (even if the "new" thing is new AND interesting).
People constantly ask for "something" new when we see sales of media pieces that have been doing the same tropes for years now sell like hot cakes while those that are doing something new barely about to make any sort of a number close to the tried-and-true.

Having something new and innovative is not going to sell your music at all, that's not what it takes. In fact it would probably be easier to sell someone on the idea of typical EDM music since that is what the general consumer knows, than it would be to try and sell him/her on some sort of outlandish new genre, or style, or whatever it is.
So, honestly, I think it boils down to luck and promotion.

[Functional]

See the problem here is that you're mixing two different kind of audiences here. Audience of mainstage EDM and pretty much everyone else. See the former is based upon different principles, which you clearly recognize to some extent. Latter, OTOH, is different.

See, mainstage EDM (and similar cliques) is mostly about manipulating an audience that isn't exactly too deeply involved in music (or so as we understand it, anyway). It's a competition of fads and the artists that represent them and sometimes the fad might contain something new (et al brostep, though one who brought it up wasn't the creator) and usually nothing new (think prog house, I can name Finnish artists who did that over ten years ago...).

See, people are easy to manipulate and some people (companies) like to take advantage of that. It turns out that the mainstage EDM scene is perfect for the purpose. And because there's thousands of people who want to "break through", there's plenty of supply for the names. Heck, a lot of them can have a single ghostproducer behind them.

So yeah, small time bedroom producer is worthless to these folks and they rarely create anything new anyway, which isn't even important to them. Genres usually form somewhere, until they catch mainstream audience and get consumed by money.

So I'd start looking for something else than recognition from mainstream audience as a bedroom producer. Personally I just find music fun and would never expect to have any kind of audience even if I was releasing some. It's more about exploring myself, I guess.

Oh and btw, I never said that originality grants success. But it helps you a lot in that journey.

[AudioPhile2]

But apparently, you don't know that electronic music predates synthesizers too

What on earth are you talking about? Are you that desperate to sling mud?

Yes. Yes he is.

[foosnark]

I'm gonna have to argue this point. Having something new doesn't suddenly merit success (even if the "new" thing is new AND interesting)...

Having something new and innovative is not going to sell your music at all, that's not what it takes. In fact it would probably be easier to sell someone on the idea of typical EDM music since that is what the general consumer knows, than it would be to try and sell him/her on some sort of outlandish new genre, or style, or whatever it is.

This.

Almost everything I do is something new and, at least to me, interesting -- otherwise I wouldn't bother. If I accidentally or intentionally find a way to duplicate music I've heard before, I have a nice laugh at it and move on.

I have no interest in spending money or effort promoting my music, and little interest in compromising my music to make it more accessible. (I do compromise with "not painful." Usually.) I also have no expectation that an audience will spontaneously form around my music just because of its sheer genius and brilliant execution.

If I cared about writing stuff that would sell, and about promoting it, I'd see some degree of "success" as measured in number of fans, and possibly in dollars. But that's a lot more compromise and effort for less reward than going to my 9-to-5 and then going home to make the music I want to make.

[Functional]

But apparently, you don't know that electronic music predates synthesizers too

What on earth are you talking about? Are you that desperate to sling mud?

Yes. Yes he is.

Totally depends on how you look at "electronic music". I'd be willing to bet that older professors at IRCAM wouldn't necessarily see synthesizers predominating electronic music. After all, it depends completely on how you see "electronic music". To some it's simply music that is mostly played/produced by synthesizers, others see it as music augumented by electronic devices, for example. Though consensus would agree on the former, mostly.

[AudioPhile2]

Bump

[AudioPhile2]

Your example brings up many of the concept problems that pretty much f**ck these things:

1. First - assembling a bunch of loops in Ableton is NOT electronic music. Actually, it will likely ending not being anything worthing AT ALL.

What are you even talking about? I slapped together a song that can stand on it's own within a few hours just last night - whether it's good or not is up for discussion, but that's not the point we're making here.

As for your definition of art, again: what are you even talking about?
So, video games have been recognized as an art form. They are meant to be played and the player is welcome to explore their options within the bounds of the game, but regardless the game is meant for enjoyment and to be played. That is it's job, so by your logical is is utilitarian and therefore no longer an art form?
I'm pretty certain any piece of media cannot only play a role, but be art at the same time.

First: About your song stand up. I'll have to listen previously, of course, but a) you need to have some sense of musical organization first, and know what to do and where to go, and b) it is just half your work, anyway. My POV, which worths what it worths.

Second: I told you that "utilitarian" music can also be "art" music. I never said that is impossible, I just said that, in the majority of times, when people make music to an utilitarian function, they concentrate in other matters than music in and as itself, therefore, it's unlikely they can come up with an art work. But some very talented musicians have been able to do both at the same time along history. They are the exceptions, though, not the rule.

AND, I maintain what I said: Electronic music is NOT assembling loops, or building SONGS. A song is a musical form, and usually is meant to be sung (therefore... a song). It's not compatible with electronic music. You may have a song made with electronic instruments, or electronic sounds, but it is NOT electronic music. In the 80s, a bunch of kids appeared making songs with synthesizers. That movement was called electro-pop, which means pop music made with electronic instruments. It's different from electronic music. EDM is Electronic DANCE Music, which means dance music made with electronic means. Again, different from electronic music.

Thank God we have you, fmr. Otherwise we'd have to make up our own minds about whether a piece of music was art.

I get the strong feeling you took a theory class, learned the word "utilitarian," and now think you're some kind of authority on the aesthetics of music.