Hi, I'm Dave from boyinaband.com
This week I want to address the
Accusation made by far too many people that, "electronic music requires no talent or skill".
Being someone that writes and performs
electronic music, this pops up time and again in comments like this and this and this and this.
You know so a track with heavy vocal processing comes on and... "What happened to people who could actually sing?"
Or the bass will drop in a more intense track and...
"These are just noises made on a computer anyone could slap that together in 10 minutes".
But sit them in front of a studio computer and they come up with this...
And then you realize you had Plants VS. Zombies installed in that computer
and no one could be expected to produce with that kind of immediate temptation
so, you would uninstall it and give them another 10 minutes, and then they come out with this...
[Wow! Master piece...]
So! To enlighten those people, I've come up with another thought
experiment which, for the sake of internet attention spans, once again involves my cat Quistis.
I call it "Davestein's Theory of Relativity".
So we have two dudes, a cat and a dog.
The two dudes are looking at the dog. One throws a ball and says "fetch!".
When the dog does so, the other guy concludes that it's pretty cool that when you throw the ball the dog brings it back for you.
The same two dudes proceeded to look at the cat. The first dude is like...
"Aw! That cat looks cute! I might post a picture of it to reddit"
But the second dude throws a ball,
notices that the cat is not about to go get it back for him and gets horrendously angry saying:
"This animal can't do anything! What a waste of space! Why would anyone want to even get a cat?"
Completely ignoring the fact that, the cuteness of the cat is already pleasing millions all over the internet and in clubs the world over.
The reason dude number two feels it involves no talent is because he's comparing these with these.
Or rather these with these.
There are talents involved, he just doesn't understand what they are yet
So, for the benefit of people like dude number 2, let me take the liberty of roughly outlining those talents with some of the most
commonly contrasted composers that these arguments are leveled between.
So we've got our guitarist and our computer musician, so argument number 1:
"Mr. Guitarist to has spent years developing his skill in the guitar so we can write a song,
Mr. Computer Musician could knock up a song in 10 minutes!"
And as we've established, he sure can if he wants it to sound like a Casio Keyboard Preset.
It can take freaking years of study and practice to make a professional sounding track!
Argument number 2:
"Mr. Computer Musician music is too processed. There's no imperfections.
There's no talent involved because it doesn't feel human anymore".
For sure! A lot of electronic music is quantized and auto-tune to be precise, but there are still talents involved.
So everything for instance.
Not just anyone can write a catchy riff or make a clean and powerful mix, or think of a memorable sample to put before a drop.
Argument number 3:
"But they're not even playing anything"
No matter how annoyed you get, that cat is not going to catch that ball
It's really narrow-minded to suggest that, they are not artists because nobody can play the guitar.
Anyway! Some electronic musicians do play instruments, just look at Em PCS or Chaos pads or...
Argument number 4:
"Those aren't instruments! Anyone can press a sequence of buttons!"
"There's no technique involved! They may as well be playing a video game!"
First of all! As the millions of people who watch the world's Top Gamers will tell you:
"Someone who can press a complicated sequence of buttons in a specific order, can be massively entertaining"
And as they probably go on to explain, there's more to it than that. Take a look at a piano.
It's essentially pressing things in a sequence at different intensities.
Same with drums and a plethora of other instruments that many people making this argument would suggest are legitimate...
Argument number 5:
And when all these run out, a common retaliated argument I hear is that, it doesn't have any "soul" or "heart" in it.
Which is another way of saying:
"I can't think of a word that actually has a meaning to express why I don't like this".
Perhaps, we should give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they're talking about how emotional the music sounds...
In which case, I could easily say that some of the chord progressions and synth sounds
in trance music give me chills.
Whereas a performance from insert well-respected guitarists, would probably leave me cold,
or I could argue that some of the screamers in Metal bands,
show so much raw emotion with their voice that, they can't even control it!
Meaning, they're more emotional in that respect than a soul singer who is capable of a perfect vibrato for instance.
And it's not that these people don't have talent,
it's just that it's a very different talent and I just don't enjoy it as much.
I feel that in order to respect the effort they've put into cultivating that talent, that's an important distinction to make.
If you stop expecting the talents from different genres to match up,
then you'll save yourself a considerable amount of time that you would have spent getting angry at people.
Maybe you can take up a hobby in that time.
Tennis, for example.
So, those are my thoughts.
What do you think on the "electronic music talent thing"?
From both sides of the fence, I'd love to hear opinions.
So let's have a discussion in the comments!
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Cheers for watching and have a nice day