i’ve noticed in the past few years a trend that bothers the hell out of me as a musician. it’s all these kids buying software that lets them “create” “music”. mainly, they’re putting together samples of actual musicians and looping bits of prerecorded riffs. and they’re getting recognized as “musicians”. the whole instant DJ thing. i don’t entirely discount the things that actual turntablists do… in fact, i’ve seen people do things that were truly phenomenal and astounding; things i’d have no objection whatsoever with calling “music”. but those people are few and far in between (i’m saying: less than one in a thousand).
take it down a notch, and you’ve got some lame-brain with a computer, a few CDs, and some loop-based software, who throws a bunch of stuff together and then has the audacity to say that s/he “created” it, and you’ve got one pissed-off moffra. i took a few years of piano lessons, studied music theory in high school. i taught myself how to play the guitar, and i play it pretty well. same with the blues harp. never had one lesson on the guitar or harmonica, and i don’t feel that i ever really need to take a lesson again on any instrument (unless i pick up something that takes a technique i just can’t quite get a handle on), because god dammit, i know how music works. in fact, i know music well enough to be able to break the rules intentionally and still come out unscathed. i even know how to play a wrong note! believe it or not, there’s a trick to doing that as well, just as in skateboarding there’s a trick to bailing without getting separated from your limbs. (for those who need to know: play that fucker over and over like you meant to play the wrong note to begin with… it’ll end up sounding like you’re actually a sophisticated jazz cat, or at worst, a punk-assed meathead who’s actually heard John Coltrane.) and i can learn to play just about any song i hear, even if i’ve only heard it once. damn straight. here’s another cool thing this real musician can do: play me a note, any note. set your watch. in ten minutes, tell me to tune my whole axe to that note. ten bucks says i pull it off without having to hear the initial note again, and probably i’ll have my axe tuned up to the proper pitch within two minutes or less. and if i’m sharp or flat, it’ll be barely so.
anyway, if anybody asks… i do like electronic music, but i’m ten times more likely to dig it if i know it came from cats actually playing instruments, rather than looping a bunch of wanky samples and maybe processing it afterwards. Tangerine Dream and Meat Beat Manifesto beats DJ so-and-so any fucking day. anybody who may disagree with me on this can stuff it up their ass, because i WORK at music.
