Where are the live musicians?

J

jinkazama

Guest
Why aren't more producers using live musicians? I know that can be kinda expensive with the fees and all, and I love synth sounds. But I am sick of hearing nursery rhyme melodies and tracks made completely of synth sounds. I love sampling records, because in the ancient days of real music, people actually played guitars,organs, and horns. With this incredible array of technology at our disposal, imagine what cats like Hendrix, Issac Hayes, and Roger Waters would be doing if they produced hip-hop.
I don't know if cats nowadays don't know how to compose or just don't give a damn. But a lot of traks made now by popular producers just sound to simple harmonically.
 
I have a huge array of instruments in my studio, from upright basses, to mount sitar, but to each his own. I'm not exclusively a hip hop head though, but I've used the electric basses in about 40 percent of my composition in that genre.

I don't know. I think complex and interesting compositions can still be made without traditional instruments. In the end, all non acoustic instruments have an electronically altered signal, and at times even further processing of the timbre and tone itself (fx boxes)....making them, themselves, a lot like the idea behind synths. I feel like as long as it comes from an entity interacting with a surface, in a musical context, it's good for me. Think apesong. Tribal music is so of the most complex music, yet unorthodox in tools (bones, etc).

I definitely know what you mean though, but I think it's the producers, more than anything, that aren't complex.
 
jinkazama, I think you are right to a point.

But just because some of us use virtual instuments and sit in our studios that the music is "simple harmonically" Again this is a misinterpretation of bad musicianship. wither you play live or not, you still need good musician ship, I honestly don't believe that because someone play 'live' that their musianship will improve. More often than not it will accentutate their bad musicianship, it will encourage improvisation, but that does not nessearily fit with some music.

Afterall, if it was good for Mozart, Beethoven and the rest of us classical composers, I think it is well good enough for those without formal classical training.

Music is not about 'playing', if you are a producer/composer, your job is to write or produce the music. There is little point in limiting your writing abilities if your playing does not meet the same standard. Perhaps theese 'simple harmonies' that your talking about are simply the products of good writers but not good players and where this player is playing 'live', the writing suffers and subsequently comes out simple and doesn't screem out pro.

Truely, tho, complicated songs are just simple things arranged in a unique order or superimposed on top of each other.
 
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Thanks Hel and James. I agree with both of you, but maybe I should elaborate on my original point.
When I say "live", I don't mean that all music should be done purely by improvising. I'm only suggesting that good music is like a fascinating conversation where different individuals have varying interpretations and opinions of a shared topic. The way a song is written is the conversations topic, and each musician's "opinion" is the way in which they choose to interpret the composition.


For example, let's take Issaac Hayes. A lot of his best albmums contained songs written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David ( Walk On By, The Look of Love, etc). When Ike flipped these songs, he completely changed the arrangements, tempos, and instruments that were used, but the chordal structure--the essence of the song itself--remained relatively the same.



I guess I'm just frustrated because a lot of the popular stuff that I'm hearin' today just sounds like cats just threw some ish together in 30 sec. and said "#$#* it!! That's a wrap!!" I don't expect every song to be riddled with diminished and augmented chords, or to change time signatures every 8 bars, but damn... add just a tiny bit of spice to the game.
 
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jinkazama said:
For example, let's take Issaac Hayes. A lot of his best albmums contained songs written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David ( Walk On By, The Look of Love, etc). When Ike flipped these songs, he completely changed the arrangements, tempos, and instruments that were used, but the chordal structure--the essence of the song itself--remained relatively the same.
Click to expand...

yes, agreed, but this is something completely different.

ur talking about the arranging or adaption of a song. The songs in question, in their orignally composed form has not been 'over written' by these subjectively improved version. Indeed they are not nessesarily better versions, just taken from a different view point. ur Issac Hayes scenario is bang on but on the wrong topic, it's not about 'live' it's about musicianship, this is what it comes back to. Issac Hayes is a legend and it's his musicianship and producing skills that made his version different (not 'better', there's no such thing in music :) )

Like I said before I agree with what you're saying but in all honesty, no longer holds in this day in age, since a lot of modern tech music is based on machine-driven effects like arrpeggiators. These are not machine equivalents or cheets for playing arrpeggios, it givens a totally different unique sound with variable accents, etc.

wither you 'play' your parts in live or not is not the point, it used to be, tho. Like I said, the majority of people are far better (potential) writer rather than players.

Personally, I blame the 60's and 70's, they started all this 'u have to play it or else it isn't real' malarky, blindly thinking that they were the start of the new breed, but they neglected to think about the composers and writers that preceeded them - highly talented romantic composers who never really played their music, they wrote it, gave it to an orchestra from them to play it, all the while the itegrity of the composer stood proud.

:) Just my own thoughts from my own training and experience.
 
:D Hey, thanks James, you're right on point and I totally agree with you. By the way, I didn't say that Ike's versions are better than the originals, because the Bacharach and David team is one of my favorite writing duos. But you are correct: "live" isn't the appropriate term to describe what I'm talking about.

Regardless what you record with and how you do it, it's all about the quality of the musicianship.
:cheers:
P.S. I'm new to futureproducers.com, and I'm elated to finally find a website where musical ideas covering a variety of different genres are discussed freely and intelligently. Congrats, fellas on puttin' together something really innovative
 
yea, the Bacharach/Hal David team is emmense isn't it! :) :)
 
I think in the states especially more emphasis is placed on the production aspect (the sound) and the time it takes than the composition aspect...

Things like the London Sinfonietta have a chance of changing what audiences WANT to hear. Once the audience knows something new is out-- there will be space for good composers
 
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