For those who appreciate how songs are made, you have to check these videos out

[Bandit]

I may be late to the party, but I ran across this guys series on Youtube the other day and I'm highly impressed. He breaks down rock tracks to individual parts/instruments and details how they contribute to the feeling of the overall track. It's very high level music theory, but as someone like me who can play several instruments but is nowhere even in the same universe as ttyymmnn I find it incredibly interesting. Here's a video over Boston's More than a Feeling which has been stuck in my head the last week.

[trivet]

@bandit
Well, there goes any chance of productivity today........

[BicycleBuck]

@bandit

Rick's videos are fantastic. He has a (controversial) video on the effects of quantization on the music industry and makes a solid argument against the practice. For those not in the know, quantization is similar to auto-tuning, but it's manipulating the sound from each instrument to ensure all of the notes are played exactly on the beat and that the tempo is constant throughout the song.

I've watched a fair number of his videos on the music industry. He always has interesting insights.

[ttyymmnn]

@bandit I look forward to watching this. I've watched some of Beato's videos before, particularly as it related to the Stairway to Heaven copyright infringement case (which Led Zeppelin won after many years). This guy's good.

[ttyymmnn]

@bicyclebuck I look forward to watching this as well. I haven't seen it, but I think I'm in agreement. Imagine if Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby sang every note on the beat. How boring would that be? Those guys made a career out of rubato.

The other day I was in the grocery store with my wife and they were playing something on the muzak. It featured heavy amounts of autotune. I commented that I remembered when Cher got in hot water for using autotune on Do You Believe. Back then, it was frowned upon as cheating by somebody who couldn't sing. Now it's regular compositional practice. If we're going to let the computers do all the work, we might has well just go ahead and fire me and hire Toyota's trumpet-playing robot instead.

[trivet]

@ttyymmnn said in For those who appreciate how songs are made, you have to check these videos out:

Toyota's trumpet-playing robot

I know nothing about music, but that was..........empty.

[ttyymmnn]

@trivet

@trivet said in For those who appreciate how songs are made, you have to check these videos out:

I know nothing about music, but that was..........empty.

You don't need to know anything about music to hear that. Anybody can make a machine that can make music, but without the human, it has no soul. Case in point:

[BicycleBuck]

@ttyymmnn
We have the technology....

[Just Jeepin']

For a completely different take on making music...

https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/

[ttyymmnn]

@bicyclebuck Just watched about half of that, will finish later.

I messed around just a little bit with ProTools back in the day. I used it to put together audition CDs for college applications. I never edited a note, though I certainly could have. I think the biggest problem with this sort of technology is that it sets up unreal expectations for the listeners. They think that this is what the music really sounds like. And they're wrong. It's why the band never sounds as good when they go to a live concert, assuming that everything the audience is hearing is really being played by the band. That's not always the case.

One of the most famous trumpet sonatas is the one written by German composer Paul Hindemith. It was written in 1939, the year he left Germany and came to America to escape the war. He knew what was happening in his country, and the piece reflects his concerns, perhaps for mankind, and mixes it with longing for simpler times. Anyway, the whole sonata ends with an extremely slow chorale based on the tune Alle Menschen mussen sterben, or All men must die. After performing the entire sonata, it is very difficult to play this chorale with any sort of control. Some surmise that Hindemith intended that. Anyway, the sonata was recorded by famous trumpeter Ray Mase, and his performance of the chorale is fantastic. Sounds great. Easy, controlled, all of that. My teacher commented to Mase on how good it sounded, and Mase said, "Oh, yeah, we recorded that four bars at a time."

It makes it difficult even to teach. Kids hear these impeccable performances by people like Wynton Marsalis and they think that such an absolutely perfect performance is possible. It's not. I've heard some of the world's greatest trumpet players (and other instruments) perform, and there's never a night when there aren't at least small issues. And the thing is, it doesn't matter. That's live music. But generations brought up on edited recordings don't understand that. Hell, even before the digital technology there were performances put together from different takes, but at least it was all done live at one point. The famous pianist Glen Gould gave up performing live because he couldn't match the perfection of his recordings (he was kind of a kook anyway).

As you can see, you struck a nerve. I look forward to watching the rest of this. Thanks for sharing.

[ttyymmnn]

@bicyclebuck

@bicyclebuck said in For those who appreciate how songs are made, you have to check these videos out:

@ttyymmnn
We have the technology....

My first thought after listening to just a few bars of that is that we don't even have the different attacks that any human would make. Every attack, every pluck of the string, is identical. It sounds like a computer because it is a computer. It's just a computer making a sound on an acoustic instrument.

[ttyymmnn]

@ttyymmnn One more thought. Beato talks about feel, and groove. He's old school, and I love it. The thing is, so much music today is meant to be heard and not listened to.

[nth256]

@bandit - I've been onto him for a short while already, and I love his breakdowns. I really appreciate how he gets the masters and is able to isolate the individual recording tracks. His level of appreciation for little things is infectious. I really liked his review of Just Like Heaven by The Cure.

[ttyymmnn]

@nth256 I don't know much about this guy, but I bet he's a big time producer. Folks don't realize that bands sound the way they do as much because of the producer as the band itself.

[BicycleBuck]

@ttyymmnn said in For those who appreciate how songs are made, you have to check these videos out:

@ttyymmnn One more thought. Beato talks about feel, and groove. He's old school, and I love it. The thing is, so much music today is meant to be heard and not listened to.

The word I would use is experienced. Modern music-making has opened the door to many people who don't have the talent to play an instrument, but do have the ability to compose. Unfortunately, that has led to a lot of music being technically precise, but devoid of emotion.

[nermal]

@bandit Even better, check out the Dragonforce channel. They've been bored and making ridiculous songs that are hilarious.

[john norris]

@bandit That was great. There is so much behind there that I took for granted as driving on down the road and hearing it. Most of the little parts in there I had heard and semi captured, but breaking it down that deep really gives you a sense of the complexity of the song and the creativity and talent they had.