Hi all,

Before to start my first post on Audiosex, please let me introduce myself briefly.

I make/compose music for more than 30 years, mostly electronic, all kind of, but I'm also a bass player in love with rock/classic rock/blues/etc. My first job as teenager was to make video games musics on 8-bit computers and since then, I sell my music regularly to different kind of projects, but it's not a full time job.

This said, as lot of members here I presume, I follow the evolution of the gears for years, especially the synths as you can guess.

And here comes my existential question.

Actualy, after all these years to listen and make music of all kind, I totally lost my faith in the hope to listen/compose some innovative music. I mean, really innovative, like something you never heard before.

Yes, you can find synths with a fantastic specific grain or talented people who make really good surprising music, but for me, the real innovation is dead because, if you listen with some distance, everybody sounds the same.

Even if you make experimental music, even if you create your own complex presets, even if you use 31 equal temperament, you will not sound like new because an electronic sound is an electronic sound, an electric sound is an electric sound, an acoustic sound is an acoustic sound.

And millions of people used and use the same gears everydays. No escape, whatever we try, we are stuck in this electronic/electric/acoustic paradigme.

My opinion is that everything was already done and as producers/composers we are stuck, unable to create something original. We eat, digest, defecate and recycle the same content again and again.

Maybe a new technology would open new horizons...

To end on a more positive way, please fell free to post some music that could contradict my sad observation. I lost the hope for innovation, not my love for music.

Thanks to all.

 

Last edited: Feb 5, 2017

Your's is a harsh reality to live in where there is nothing that tickles the armpit of your ear. I won't try to convince or prove you wrong because you have expressed what seems a protective zone of defeatism. You will snap out of it in your own time and I hope will be flooded by a plethera of music that can bring a smile to your soul.

 

Why has it got to be innovative? Shakespeare wasn't? He certainly isn't any longer.......

 

No...
But who cares as long as it is good music

 

I agree with him 90%.
10% is the stuff you need to dig out yourself.
Its generally about culture/art that has been downgraded to please 10 year old mcdonalds generation.
I dont mind recycled stuff if its done right and there is a good story teller behind it.

 

The most wonderful sounds are to be found in nature ... but if nobody goes to look for them, well.. then we are suck with what we now.

Playing "only" 2 instruments (bass and e-keys) ain`t enough to ecsape the prison I think...

I`d suggest taking a long break... a few months to a Year, and trading Your time spent in front of the monitor for some quality time in nature.
Than, when the time comes, trying to approach the composing thing with new and fresh ideas...

Good Luck

 

Composing has very little to do with sounds.

And, yes. There is innovation, though it's hard to find.

In fact, I have many obscure albums from the 90's, made with the limited technology of the time, that are still extremely unique and sound like no other band I know (though I've searched extensively).

 

@PopstarKiller
unique doesn`t mean that it is good or pleasant ?!?

I can have milions of unique and great sounds, but it all goes to shit if I do not have the ideas or knowledge on how to use them...
On the other side, I can use some classic sounds, used for centuries, and with a good idea and artistic vision, I can make them sound like the most avant guard composition ever made.

What I am saying is that Nature should be taken as a reference point for pleasant sounds... almost everything that is natural, sounds pleasant...
And than use Your Artistic freedom to build a composition out of it.

 

So you're saying you've heard all the music that has been ever composed. Interesting.

By the way, I believe there's even more new and innovative music waiting to be composed. Quite a bit is being composed right now. Good composers know how to do this and they're doing it all the time, no worries.

 

It's kind of predictable: The longer people will live, the longer people will create music. Technology will advance and eventually everything is already done. There are no hardware boundaries anymore. In the past our musical fantasies were mostly limited by the capabilities of our hardware. To get the required results we had to squeeze everything out of the hardware and/or were forced to get experimental with all sorts of weird connections.
Today, with all the power of computers in our hands we can literally make every sound our brain can think of. If you want to create something innovative today you always end up with something weird. Dupstep for example was something innovative. Al these distorted farting wobbling sounds in unpredictable rhythms was really something new. But weird in a way. That's why so many people disliked this new style.
Rock and pop music will stay mostly the same because of the nature and the sound of the instruments used (mostly acoustic).
Electronic music on the other hand will evolve a little bit further just for that very reason. There are no boundaries for creating weird and innovated sounds.
I think with all this advanced audio technology we will experience some more weird music styles in the future (mostly electronic music I'm afraid) if you like it or not.
I think creating and/or listening to music is like having sex: you will still like it, even when it's not innovative anymore.

 

Last edited: Feb 5, 2017

Innovative is one thing. Great is another.

For example, this was innovative:

And this wasn't innovative at all:

Which of the two is great music?

 

Wait to mankind extinct because of some disaster (WW3, NIBIRU planet, mini ice age ...) when this happens it will start all over again, a new musical instruments made of stone, new producers and DJs in cave, new original music ... The future will be bright again do not worry be happy.

 

@FFF it sounds like its due time to ask yourself THAT question again. "why do i create/play music?"

also, to me, your question defeats its goal. The goal is to create innovative music. - but to "hope" for something happening, is beeing passive. with no acction taking. but mearly the notion that "i hope (for something)" but not doing anythng about it to get closer to the goal.

i used to hope for alot of stuff, and not doing anything about it. it only made me recentfull and fustrated in the long run.

 

There is so much "innovation" in the last century . I'm not sure why the OP is complaining.
From new techiques for playing instruments (all the modernist stuff in the orchestration books) to new electronic timbres that would be considered noise several hundred years ago.

 

Thanks for all your comments guys.

Just to clarify:

1. I still deeply love music, 100%. I sincerely enjoy to listen/play/compose music and install new synths to play with, with the joy of a kid receiving a new toy. My concern is about the impossibility to innovate at the very basic level, in the way I try to explain below (point 2).

2. Ok, you got me, I have to confess that I did not listen to "all the music that exists" in the world since the humanity started to make noise ;)

But what I'm sure of, is that all the music you can listen, is acoustic and/or electric and/or electronic. So in a way, all of us have already listened the "root kind" of sounds possible from 20 Hz to 20 Khz. Sure, we can be surprised by crazy new sounds or style of music, etc, but from a strict acoustic "point of view", we stay in a known territory (again : acoustic/electric/electronic).

Each time a new root kind of instrument is invented, yes, this open a new dimension of sounds to listen and play with. But now that we have the acoustic, electric and electronics ones (I know I repeat myself a lot), what next ? I think that only a new era of instruments will permit to really innovate at the root level... Maybe some telepathic gears would be great !

This is what I mean when I say that actually, we are stuck in a paradigm and we cannot innovate. Again, I don't talk about styles of music, I hope it's more clear.

3. Good point about the fact that maybe to innovate is not so important, as life is a eternal loop and music is life!

4. Yes, to wait that humanity disappear in order to start from scratch is a good tactic, I will think about it and make some backups, eh eh.

5. Sure, to connect with the nature is wonderful to feel good and find inspiration. In fact, I live in the middle of a national park, close to the sea, for a long time now. But even if the natural sounds are beautiful, they are still acoustics, so... ;)

 

Your theory is very naive and you have logical fallacies in your argumentation...

 

. . . nothin new under the sun.
But you can try and make shit that gets you high.
Compelling is key, regardles of it's original.

 

I would not have mentioned those albums if they weren't pleasant. They are very pleasant. And no, they don't use fart sounds, woob-woobs, or any kind of advanced effect. Just good composing and performance. And OP asked about composition, not instruments.

If you keep listening to MTV or Top 40 radio you won't find anything particularly innovative. Start digging around sub-genres and more obscure artists and I guarantee you'll find stuff that sounds like nothing you've ever heard before.

 

Can you imagine a color you have not seen before? For the sounds is the same. Anything that starts from knowledge can only be a recombination of the already known (heard). That's why you do not see anything new.
puedes imaginar un color que no hayas visto antes? Para los sonidos es lo mismo. Cualquier cosa que parta del conocimiento solo puede ser una recombinacion de lo ya conocido (oido). Por eso no ves nada nuevo.