If you make music on your computer does this. ...........

[STASIS]

If you make music, you are a musician. Notice I said 'make'. This word means 'create'. If you create music, you are then a musician. If you don't create music, you aren't. Pretty simple eh? Seriously though- there are computer music makers who don't really 'create'. They manipulate, and if they manipulate in the right ways, and 'create' something new, then they are musicians. There are some who just arrange and manipulate, and don't create, and some who create every last sound, and arrange, and fully create. There is a wide spectrum, just as there is in conventional music.
What about people who play instruments but only play cover songs of other people's work? Are these people musicians just because they are playing an instrument? Oh and what is an instrument? Isn't it a device used to create music? So just because there are devices we have used in the past, that people are more 'used' to, they are the only ones regarded as instruments? And the people playing them are the only real musicians? I don't think so.....
Anything can be an instrument, a ****ing shoe could be an instrument. Anything and everything is an instrument? So why not play an instrument that is capable of producing unlimited sounds? Like synths, samplers, and computers as opposed to one instrument used to make a very limited range of sounds.

My point is there are always people who imitate and re-arrange, in all aspects. Just because 'conventional' music is more well known and comfortable, doesn't by any means make non-conventional music makers non-musicians. Its all about the creativity and inventiveness of the creator, and nothing about the medium that he brings it us with. After all of it, forget EVERYTHING but this: WHAT IS COMING OUT OF THE SPEAKERS. Whats coming out of your speakers. If your 'creating' something damn good coming out of them, guess what? YOU'RE A MUSICIAN! The music always speaks for itself, and that is all that matters. **** the sense of the 'tru' conventional musician, its time to leave that behind and plunge into the future.Doesn't anyone agree? Whos with me?

[RobinH]

What STASIS says is exactly right !

As an addition there is a book by John Blacking , called "How Musical is Man?". In it he studies the Venda tibes people of South Africa , renowned for their intricate polyrythms. He put this very question to them and their reply was if it involves a human mind in the process of creation then it is music. No matter what it is created on.

In Irish folk music there are musicians who think that the guitar is not a folk instrument , but these people are lying to themselves , as the only true origional Irish instruments are the voice and the flute. ( The bodhran was a tool for sifting the wheat from the chaff in farming and only came into use in the 19th centuary.)

The bottom line is if you create sound you are a musician. This is part of being human , an the computer is only the latest instrument at our disposal.

And for those who don't feel like musicians , you are merely suffering from the stultification of your creative imagination by centuaries of western culture. Release yourself from these chains and seize your birthright . As you create you will enjoy , as you enjoy you will create. Be beautifull ... it is all within you.

[PopD]

-despite how I hate following the knowledgable Robin and his literature citations. . ..

-I'm with you Stas-dogg !!

-Let's keep in mind that, like almost every other word, 'Musician' is a relative term, i.e. there is not one universally accepted definition of 'Musician'. Look it up in a dictionary, and you may find "One who makes music". Each person has their own respective version, and if you do not fit inside your own definition of a musician, then you are not a musician, no matter how many shoes you play and bodhrans you sample.

-BUT . . . .

if you are feeling bad about not being labelled a musician because all you do is rearrange samples, then the solution is simple: change your personal definition of 'musician'.

if you attack another, for claiming to be a musician and you feel they aren't, realize that they do not fit your definition of a 'musician'

oh, and thadon. . . I busted you on this before, but the word "should" is the most worthless word in the english language. Un-learn it ! !

[DJ Taos]

I've played several diffrent instraments throught the years....I think I got my first guitar lesson at 7 years old. I have done so many things since then , including study jazz then, Sound as art and then as sound major.

Weather a computer is an instrament is irrelivent, its just a tool like a trumpet, its just more complicated to play.

I tell people I am a producer on a prfessional levle but, I think of Producers as a speciel musician, after all I"m not just programming samples for britney Speares, I creat the music for the T.A.Z. Therefor I am a musician and an artist.

Telling yourself you are not a musician is like selling yourself short, you could be a great musician but instead you can be a producer....but who is playing your synth, you or your computer?


Taos

[sonic::bionic]

Quote from the Future Sound Of London--"We were never musicians, just collage artists". I guess if all you do is manipulate samples, that's what you'd be. But if you use a computer to actually make your own samples, then you're a musician. This isn't actually my opinion, this is just what I think most other people think about it. I think anybody who uses anything to make music is a musician. Haven't you ever seen someone play a 5-gallon bucket?

[DJ Taos]

I agree...




Taos

[RobinH]

Quote from the Future Sound Of London--"We were never musicians, just collage artists".

I know Gary Cobain quite well actually , he has a studio upstairs from me. I will ask him about this quote and see what he has to say ( without being quoted by a journalist ).

I'll let you know.

[DJ MistaMeena]

But Bobby McFerrin can do a musical impersonation of Jim Carrey's bathroom episode in "Liar Liar", record the sounds produced thusly, and sing corny lyric over it... and he's a superstar? The body as instrument? I think all of us play the most versatile instrument ever created... the human imagination. Regardless of what method we use to get it to the masses. I like steak, and I don't care if the waitress is blonde or bald... it's the steak that counts. If people hear the end result and call it music, you are a musician... IMHO.