Yes lots of Kontakt libraries, etc. but are they enough?

Living with instruments, being deeply connected with the tradition, distancing from the hollow modernism are the things that no one would do so easily any longer.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Oct 19, 2018

Yeah if they got the bread. Lol you know how expensive it is to have an orchestra play for a score you haven't monetized yet?
Deep Pockets, but if you're talking just piano/guitar then yeah most self taught musicians got that.

 

Adrian Younge
Alfa Mist
Thelonius Monk
David Bowie
Prince
Kurt Cobain
Louie Armstrong
Dizzy Gilespie

Not so much the bottom part but the top 2 are the best i've heard in a long time.

 

simple answer is yes. a lot of people succeed from self teaching. although i highly recommend advice on forums like this, not technically self teaching, but somewhere in between

 

@WeRAllFosterChildren by note music I mean such thing (sorry for the sound quality):

https://clyp.it/kbuij1he

Please listen to it carefully at least one time before embarking on your extemporaneous word-play style.

 

"Can self-taught dudes make such music these days?"

The era doesn't make any difference to what people can conceive of, the main differences would be instrument and recording technology, and (more significantly) stylistic convention.

I think that there is an argument to be made against stylistic convention, in that it seeks redundancy. Why make music "such as" AGM.mp3 when AGM.mp3 already exists? If that music was needed, then "mission accomplished", it's already here. That's also why for most of my life, I have been part of a fringe who make computer music live and don't record anything. It is that moment, that experience, and doesn't need to happen again.

This is part of why computer-as-instrument troubles people who look to more classical paradigms. The ability to reproduce some musical figure has long been the basic benchmark of instrumental competence. It shows that the sonorities were intentional. And that conferred a status of skill and artistry to the musician. But, the ability to record and play back any sound challenge the importance of manual repetition for its own sake. And this shows how much more of "art" generally has to do with weird social status games than the resulting product, or the experience of the casual listener who is not interested in how the work was produced. The other conceptual challenge is the lack of a direct one-to-one correspondence between gesture and resulting sound. With acoustic and amplified instruments, it is plain to see how a given gesture has a specific relationship to the resulting sound. With computers, this is only apparent to anybody who understands how the work was made.

Also, I think that it would be unwise to overlook what musical and/or regional traditions you and your music represent. For instance, AGM.mp3 sounds to me very much like it is from the traditions of European music. But since I am in the Americas, this is kind of "exotic". I am always baffled how 99.99% of the music I hear in the US sounds like it is from everywhere else in the world except the indigenous culture that I would expect. I don't hear American music with an influence of Euro, or Asian, or African style - I hear music which more or less completely ignores our local musical heritage. I don't expect US music to sound European, I expect it to grow organically from the musical traditions that have unfolded here for thousands of years.

Despite living in a McLuhanesque "global village", where we have instant musical access to all times and places, some musics and cultures are still more or less accessible than others. So you are as free as anyone else to draw upon the influences you consider to be relevant. As people say in political/activist circles "become the change you want to see". Any reactionary attitudes can be addressed by examining one's first principles, why one has the baggage of expecting certain sounds, cultures, musics, relationships.

Happy New Ears!

 

Self-taught musicians have been the core of music innovation, at least to a certain degree. Musical education, any kind of education for that matter, serves a formative role, a discipline that serves as a basis for well-founded practices in any art or science. For the most part, I am self-taught myself, but in retrospective, seeing the amount of work and effort it takes me to move up the ladder, I wish I could have pursued proper education. For a lot of us, education is a barrier that can only be crossed with money. If we lack it, we are deemed to let the dream die or take the learn-as-you-do route. However, given the amount of work, man hours, sweat and tears, frustration, and dead ends faced along the way, proper education would have helped me achieve goals faster and more securely.

I know this isn't what the OP asked for, but for the younger ones out there, if you can, get some music schooling. If you are young and reading this, you're already way ahead of me when I started before the Internet age. At least, you can voice your concerns and be showed the way. I didn't even have that. On a different note, classically trained musicians tend to lack the balls to break their mold and think outside the box. They usually perform the way they are schooled. No matter how much education you get, leave room for your ears and rebellious ways to take chances. Just saying.

 

ICWC said: ↑
Yes lots of Kontakt libraries, etc. but are they enough?
Definitely not, the divide between the skillset of a real instrument/player vs sample based stuff is clear to anyone with ears, although I'm not sure if the musical sample you posted is helping your point in terms of NI's abilities. Conversely if a person practiced enough in kontakt and made something that sounded well crafted they might have something the live musician lacks digitally.

As far as self taught I guess it depends on what the individual is teaching themselves. Bruce Lee was self taught in many ways and I'd definitely learn from him before I enroll at my uncle Bill's self taught "Sitting Duck style" kung fu dojo.

ICWC said: ↑
Living with instruments, being deeply connected with the tradition, distancing from the hollow modernism are the things that no one would do so easily any longer.
This sounds like city folk talk to me. Folks in less urban areas tend to have a similar philosophy from what I've seen. Believe it or not there are a lot of places in every country that still don't have the internet.

Just saw this sample post, the reference is killing me.. Can't figure it out but have seen it a thousand times...

 

Last edited: Nov 8, 2018

What is this music for? it sounds very familiar. Is it a movie soundtrack?

 

awesome. classic vibes. damn. it felt like i was watching some movie and this soundtrack came

 

one word: Absolutely.
(Vangelis? Zimmer? ...self tought autodidacts.)

 

Got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues
And you know it don't come easy

Ringo Starr

 

Sure, one can take wing and soar without formal training, and there is overwhelming evidence admitted by previous posts. Seemingly in this most recent modern age there is a tendency to downplay formal education and anything associated with a strict adherence to hierarchical rule and to almost distain such an idea. However, foundations that are of solid and quality raw material are mandatory to build upon if any structure is to sustain the gravity and drag that time imposes on the longevity of it's frame and walls. We are borne not in a vacuum, and so all that we hear, that is all so fresh and new as well as the old and worn are influenced by certain rules of the game and cannot be divorced from them. So yes, one need not a formal education to craft a magnificent opus using just Kontakt libraries. but don't fool yourself in thinking that you are an island and have done it all on your own, the centuries are riddled through your bones.

 

Sorry I don't have any info about it.

 

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Last edited by a moderator: Dec 19, 2018