How Many Of Us Hip Hop Producers Play Classical Instruments?

TagYourBeats said:
I don't think playing a classical instrument (or any instrument, really) is a necessity these days.

But I will say that whenever a producer knows how to play a piano, or guitar, or violin, and adds that instrument to their music, it becomes something of a "signature" for them, which definitely helps to build their brand. I know one set of relatively famous internet producers have a guitarist who puts fantastic acoustic guitars over their beats and whenever anyone asks me for a beat with acoustic guitars I just point them in that direction.

Mike Shinoda (of Linkin Park) can play a wide range of instruments and I thoroughly enjoyed his production. His grasp of different instruments was evident and it really helped the final product.
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Interesting thoughts...but, playing a classical instrument isn't a necessity for what exactly?
 
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wildinout8 said:
Interesting thoughts...but, playing a classical instrument isn't a necessity for what exactly?
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To be considered a "musician" or to make music.

I think it is an incredible skill and can definitely improve your music if you can live-record your own music from source, but it is no longer necessary to be able to read and play music - some music producers get by with a piano roll and a pair of headphones.

Whether that is a positive evolution of music is another matter all together though..
 
It's not necessary only because of one crucial fact, the mouse and digital instruments and synths.
But it is IDEAL to know some theory. Plus it makes stuff easier. Sheet music is actually a replacement for actually playing piano ironically lol, because of digitals and the mouse and step sequencers/piano rolls.

But the mouse does not replace the feel of drumpads and pianos though. While I see the importance of scales, sheet music, knowing a universal formula for chords that was explained by a few veterans here I think sheet music and the mouse has replaced the NEED to actually play the piano as well as a mouse.

But it'd definitely be nice if it was possible to just play even an intermediate part in realtime, that would shave so much time off it's hilarious.
 
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KonKossKang said:
It's not necessary only because of one crucial fact, the mouse and digital instruments and synths.
But it is IDEAL to know some theory. Plus it makes stuff easier. Sheet music is actually a replacement for actually playing piano ironically lol, because of digitals and the mouse and step sequencers/piano rolls.

But the mouse does not replace the feel of drumpads and pianos though. While I see the importance of scales, sheet music, knowing a universal formula for chords that was explained by a few veterans here I think sheet music and the mouse has replaced the NEED to actually play the piano as well as a mouse.

But it'd definitely be nice if it was possible to just play even an intermediate part in realtime, that would shave so much time off it's hilarious.
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Not sure I agree with the whole idea of sheet music being a replacement for actually playing piano - that's like saying books are a replacement for actual talking with your voice.

You mention drum machines - isn't the whole idea of not quantizing at 100% done to make instruments sound live? Wouldn't it be easier to just play the instrument live in one take over 3 minutes instead of spending hours piano rolling, stretching notes, key switching for articulations, etc?

It would be interesting to hear a poll of what 100 of the TOP producers in the world would prefer - mouse and digital instruments or live musicians playing.
 
Quantizing doesn't sound natural, and drumpads are faster for laying out drums imo.


But that's drums man, that's the easy part.


The hard part is melodies, since there's differing pitches instead of pitchless [for the most part] sounds and actually having to think while playing one versus tappin some pads lol.


There's stuff about piano that involves memorizing scales, chords sheet music etc.
 
KonKossKang said:
Quantizing doesn't sound natural, and drumpads are faster for laying out drums imo.


But that's drums man, that's the easy part.


The hard part is melodies, since there's differing pitches instead of pitchless [for the most part] sounds and actually having to think while playing one versus tappin some pads lol.


There's stuff about piano that involves memorizing scales, chords sheet music etc.
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Do you think that learning how to play piano would help you with creating melodies, harmonies and ****GASP**** chord progressions?
 
Well, yes and no.
Sheet music yes plus a piano roll or a mouse yes.
Actually playing a piano beyond a basic 3-8 note riff then probably no lol.


Actually learning the instrument inside and out would obviously be the faster method, in the same way a drumpad is helllllla fast in comparison to a step sequencer but I trying to say that it take more time and patience to get to that point on a pitched instrument than a pitchless device.

Long story short, I don't think I can handle the task of fully learning a piano mentally or physically :/ I don't mean a bunch of short riffs adn scales I mean fully like know one inside and out to the point of "oh look classical music in realtime" level, although that'd be awesome.
 
KonKossKang said:
Well, yes and no.
Sheet music yes plus a piano roll or a mouse yes.
Actually playing a piano beyond a basic 3-8 note riff then probably no lol.


Actually learning the instrument inside and out would obviously be the faster method, in the same way a drumpad is helllllla fast in comparison to a step sequencer but I trying to say that it take more time and patience to get to that point on a pitched instrument than a pitchless device.

Long story short, I don't think I can handle the task of fully learning a piano mentally or physically :/ I don't mean a bunch of short riffs adn scales I mean fully like know one inside and out to the point of "oh look classical music in realtime" level, although that'd be awesome.
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Don't doubt your talent! You'd be surprised what you can do if you just devoted 20% of your daily music production time to practicing learning classical piano. Even just 10 mins a day.
 
But I like the lazy but slower way better tho :O
Musescore would probably be fast if I learned how to sight read now that is probably possible but playing an instrument at the level of a mouse, yeah no not gonna put myself through that :O Different strokes fellas, different strokes.

At the same time I also said that it's not entirely unnecessary, in fact it is VERY beneficial to know some theory at the least if you want to do stuff besides the usual sampling sometimes. And there is no "talent" in what I do, just a lazy dude who looked in every nook and cranny for any possible shortcuts he could find and take advantage of it lol.

Drumpads, the best shortcut ever. Sheet music, the cleanest alternative to a cluttered looking piano roll where looking for notes is hell :p
 
I beg to differ. Have you heard KontaKt libraries such as Alicia Keys/Grandeur or Session strings. When in an arrangement it's hard to tell they are just VST's. There's also plenty of Reason Refills which are very close. There's plenty of accurate VST's, the problem being when they are too accurate thus sound fake. I have that problem with the piano patches on the JD-XI. The kontakt equivalent sound more natural and varied as opposed to the SUPERnatural engine from Roland
 
Why learn how to write if you can type?
Why bother learning how to solve a math problem if you can have a calculator solve it?

Writing on the piano is like using a pencil and piece of paper. It's slow and outdated. It's becoming obsolete when you think about it. There are kids being born that would never have to actually touch
or play with an acoustic instrument that could write whole songs, produce full albums, and even conduct symphonies without ever even having to know what a piano actually looks like. Midi keyboards
are a luxury, but you could essentially do everything you'd ever want, without ever using an actual physical musical instrument. Technology and its trade offs.
 
tReHoLLa said:
Why learn how to write if you can type?
Why bother learning how to solve a math problem if you can have a calculator solve it?

Writing on the piano is like using a pencil and piece of paper. It's slow and outdated. It's becoming obsolete when you think about it. There are kids being born that would never have to actually touch
or play with an acoustic instrument that could write whole songs, produce full albums, and even conduct symphonies without ever even having to know what a piano actually looks like. Midi keyboards
are a luxury, but you could essentially do everything you'd ever want, without ever using an actual physical musical instrument. Technology and its trade offs.
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there is so much wrong with what you present as self-evident truths

a conductor may not seem to play but in most cases they have served/spent a lot of time as a performer prior to taking up the challenges of conducting

learning to write is a necessity as you cannot sign contracts with your typewriter/computer keyboard - unless you want to revert to the "his/her mark" type of signing that we saw in days past. In fact I was surprised you did not go the next step and say why bother using a keyboard when you can use speech recognition software to translate your spoken words to written words? - this of course fails because even the best software makes errors and when it doesn't misinterpret the spoken word, it may not have chosen the correct homophone (same sound different spelling - e.g. "which witch is which?" or "I don't know whether the wether will survive this weather!" (a wether is a a neutered ram or goat). In my experience most errors come from the way in which different accents and local dialects are structured - long term training eliminates most errors but they will occasionally arise simply due to variation in the speakers voice due to stress or illness.

a calculator cannot solve a problem if you do not understand the order of operations. It most certainly cannot give a "correct" answer unless the operator knows that the functions (sin, cos, tan, etc) have returned the expected answers. The derived functions (sinh, cosh, tanh, sec, cosec, cot, etc) don't enter themselves and unless you know how the derived function relates to the originating function (sin, cos, tan) the calculator will not be able to return the result expected. Doing integral or differential calculus cannot be done with most hand-held calculators and, in any case, unless the format is known in advance, entering it is not a simple process. Higher order mathematics is obviously an order of difficulty harder as well.

as for writing using the piano/keyboard you are forgetting that the keyboard is the interface not the medium. It is akin to the type-keyboard used in computer interfaces. Learning to use the interface efficiently is important to inputting your ideas effectively

I could go on for days on this but these are main concerns about your self-evident truths
 
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If I can somehow persuade by giving young composers, young musicians, tools that will make them sound fabulous I hope that somewhere along the way from their demo that’s gotten them some crazy fantastic job and a decent budget they’re gonna go, “Oh, you know something – I should go and hire some real musicians to play on this”. – Hans Zimmer speaking about Spitfire Audio and Orchestras
 
When I first started producing I didn't have a clue on how to play an instrument, but with time and effort I learned by myself how to play piano and learned how to play chords and make melodies. I don't think its necessary if you have a good ear for music but it will definitely be an advantage at the starting stages of producing.
 
kaygw said:
When I first started producing I didn't have a clue on how to play an instrument, but with time and effort I learned by myself how to play piano and learned how to play chords and make melodies. I don't think its necessary if you have a good ear for music but it will definitely be an advantage at the starting stages of producing.
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Do you think it's possible to develop a "good ear" without knowing the engineering behind music and sounds? It's kind of like having a good ear for different languages, yet you don't know how to speak them yourself.
 
I can't imagine telling everyone I know that I'm a music producer...then the minute I'm out with them and there is a piano or guitar around and I'm like, "Nah I can't play them"...but I'm a music producer. I would be laughed out the room.

I'm a chef because I ordered pizzas for the party.

I'm military because I played Call of Duty.

How do those of you go about not actually being able to play an instrument around your friends, family and colleagues yet your're telling people you're a musician? It's the 21st century and musicians don't need acoustic instruments?
 
wildinout8 said:
I can't imagine telling everyone I know that I'm a music producer...then the minute I'm out with them and there is a piano or guitar around and I'm like, "Nah I can't play them"...but I'm a music producer. I would be laughed out the room.

I'm a chef because I ordered pizzas for the party.

I'm military because I played Call of Duty.

How do those of you go about not actually being able to play an instrument around your friends, family and colleagues yet your're telling people you're a musician? It's the 21st century and musicians don't need acoustic instruments?
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So Skrillex and the hundreds/thousands of successful electronic musicians and hip hop producers aren't music producers? lmao please, stop. It's not the 1950s anymore.
 
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