I can relate to that more than I'd like to acknowledge. From the loss of my appartment, to the severe depression lasting many years, down to my passionate love of the guitar. I even considered using a string to do what I felt was my only way out. I am glad that your love of life and music prevailed over the cold abyss that is utter hopelessness.

 

I would describe an Artist like this:
– A person who perceives reality on multiple levels, yet feels that it is only the visible small part
- A sort of ± intellectual Alchemist who wants to render visible the invisible
- A researcher who's constantly moving, collecting, reading, composing, re-arranging
- A kind of "nerd" who needs much time for his own projects (difficulties with 9 to 5 life limitations!)
- A personality in "development" interested in change, openness, surpassing of imposed limitations
- A human kind of "Island", living in its own "archipelago" yet searching for connections to other people
- A more or less uncompromising person with own ethics and critical eyes
- A person with multifaceted spirit who wants to express all their "spirits"
- A person who doesn't easily fit in politics, doesn't follow the herd of sheep to obtain a consensus
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

I'd define artist more like: Take thousends of people doing a certain thing... take a few of the most skilled of those... Then maybe every few decades among these there is one who not just makes them look like beginners, but brings the whole thing do to a next level.

 

Well I dabble in oils, pastels and canvases a bit as well as knocking out the odd semi-musical tune now and then..... so am I an artist ?

Maybe when I learn to do both things at once I will be !

 

Artist is more verb than noun, and when one becomes attached to the latter, the prior tends to loose momentum, stutter and fails. Except if your name is Prince Rodgers Nelson, the exception to the former.

 

This, along with @superliquidsunshine 's post, is the most effective answer for me. I love everything you have said here and you have expressed your opinion effectively and quite artistically. What you have said is exactly how I feel and what I'm thinking... I completely agree with every point you have mentioned, especially about the difference between the 'money maker' and the true serious artist who cares to deliver something unique and valuable.

Thank you for clearing this thought in my mind

 

artisan is more true

 

The first half of the nineteenth century saw, paradoxically, the permanent fixture of the First Viennese School in the classical repertory and the Romantic development of existing genres by the period's leading composers. Music-making was becoming an activity, profession, and entertainment of the middle class, and less an art form restricted only to the noble and wealthy.

Open Ended ...

 

@foster911 you still sound like a professor or something... have you found your "voice" yet?

it's somewhere inside of you..and this cataloguing stuff.. maybe good and informative....
but the artistic impulse comes more from things that "inspire" you...
vague to be sure, and there is no formula for it, more about what moves ya m8....

 

The older music of the First Viennese School was here to stay, and this posed a major conundrum for composers in the mid-1800s: what path should they follow? Should they continue composing in the established idioms of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, while adding their own innovations and flare to the recognizable precedents as Johannes Brahms did? Or should they guide their music in a different direction, creating new genres and styles as Wagner and Liszt did? The late nineteenth century was filled with polarizing dichotomies such as absolute versus program music, convention versus novelty, and classical forms and genres versus new ones.

​

Do you like Pluralism in music?

These questions seem to be common among all musicians. Better for me not to ask a question anymore and try to do something. Please, just one question: Produce what?

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jul 7, 2016

@foster911 .. Produce what is in your heart, what you feel important to share, what sooths your soul.

 

I sometimes wonder whether you want to produce anything at all, or be a historian. I really do.

If you want to produce something, download the vst I told you to in the other thread, get to work on that cinematic track that you really want to do, and stop making excuses from 1800's conundrums for not doing what you want in the 21st century. Now, you've got 53 days to get that track completed, so you best make a start. If you need help then go to the thread and ask, as people there have already offered it.

Sorry for the slight thread hijack, but it needed to be said. I swear one of these days I'm going to beat him about the head with a blunt "musical" instrument, until he gets the message.

 

I express myself through music, as expressing myself is fairly limited when it comes to words (anxiety, and confidence in public).
What I express is what I see, experience, experienced and together with almost fantasy in my mind, i create something that can express a moment when I can't express that moment any way else.

 

From now on, I'm gonna color code my comments by quality of staying on topic. I've tried positive reenforcement of stickers of planes and rocket ships, but that hasn't been working..."normal" black is on topic, various forms of grey are less, as it goes to white are less relevant to the specific topic, though freakin relevant to my FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) Mommy smoker wired brain (that's why the small nose I assume).

This subject came up in a CGI forum, and one with ppl who made mods for Triple AAA games, and the final answer converged to:

• Others may call you and artist, but declaring one such, is as Anachronox says* except for the pride part. Pride is weakness.
• Art is not paint or pics or sound or touch or smell (I like smell) or any combination, but a deeper understanding of the universe and human condition, that the "ordinary" person can not detect, let alone put into sensory experience.
• An artist is someone who can put into sensory experience things that the ordinary person cannot, and through that Art the average person can vicariously experience too.

It's an existential thing. Even the average^ person is looking for the transcendent, and even if they can glimpse it for but a second, and only vicariously, it is pleasing to note their existence is not just bloody continuous suffering.

Sorry to say @Pinky, but the last 15 years have shown, now that we can study the living brain with PET and rtfMRI scans, we are not even "I", but an unconscious that moment by moment lies to "I" that "I" made the decision. The person that lies most to ourselves is ourselves. There now is a pretty strong argument, that if you don't have herculean will (even I can't do it for long stretches of time, let alone continuously), and overrule moment by moment (say by attaining a high level of meditation skill) the lies your conscious is told, you are a fk'ing wet robot. Talk about being played @Pinky? Let's take over the world!

http://www.lifetrainings.com/Your-unconscious-mind-is-running-you-life.html

I can get as detailed and as peer reviewy as you need to believe it but, I've been a lazy bum since 2 weeks ago or so, when my wife admitted to being a felon in court and the court just did nothing...but if you need any more evidence, there's 15 years worth of studies.


-----------------------------------------------------------
*I've told women I have a superior wanker, and physical performance characteristics but, the only ones that believed me, were the ones that experienced it, and then feared me. You will be taken a braggart, even if what you say is true, or worse envied and destroyed, if it produces fear, IF most ppl can't do the same thing. That's human nature. Never underestimate how low human nature can go. I have yet to find it's lower limit of insufferable animal.)
^Condescending and patronizing to call some ppl "average?" Well, idc. For example, does the Artist bring out the transcendent in the ppl they are with? I think so. To me, every woman I got to know was unique and transcendent. Was that her, or just her being with me? Most ran like rabbits when I showed them what they were capable of...so all that I share nowadays, is a "cloud" record, that my sons may read now or someday, and if others learn from it, that's an added benefit. As I've said before, I stand by what I say, if there is evidence that makes me change an inference, I have np with doing so, experience and empirical data, trumps expectations. This is still my only way to comprehensively communicate with my sons (though I found where both are now, and they're together! my attorney is working on me getting my 2x/wk now and has made the greatest admission: if my wife hadn't self destructed, I could have done nothing in Family Court because it's a rigged system. Men only win, if the women: sign away their rights, or self destruct.

 

Last edited: Jul 12, 2016

For me it's relative, as everything else is. Technically I may be an artist, but then I think of my musical inspirations and the artists I admire - truly greatly talented people ever born to this world, and I ask myself: "Am I worthy to be called an artist, a musician, a composer, a painter, as much as they are?". I mean, in the full sense of this word or definition - "an artist", if you like. Fuck no, I'm not. I mean, Pink Floyd - musicians and me - musician? No. Rachmaninoff - composer and me - composer? No. Dali - painter and me - painter? No. Not really. Technically.

I don't mean it's popularity and fame that define you as a "great artist", though nowadays it seems to be so, but it's definitely a great quality of your work, amount of your talent and dedication to your talent. And the big problem is, these days, in the art industry in general, there are more talentless hacks sold as "great artists" than ever. Just in these two starting decades of XXI alone, we've got more talentless hacks falsely proclaimed and sold by the industry as "the greatest ever at whatever they do" than in the whole XX century, let alone past centuries. There is no quality control. It seems these days everyone is overly confident, arrogant, ignorant, to call themselves artists, musicians, painters, actors, etc etc. Technically it may be correct, but once again, not in a genuine sense of things. Today we have cinema actors, who are not really actors, in fact, they are terrible actors, but they are so overrated by the press/social media, I mean, they keep selling me Jennifer Lawrence as a great actress, a big fucking deal, who rivals Meryl Streep. Nope. Just NO. GTFO. Meryl is the actress, Jennifer is a "popular media face", period. I mean, there must be a great divide between "social media stars" and real artists. Because there is quite a difference and that difference is getting lost. That great divide, that quality control, which sorted the wheat from the chaff, is getting lost in this mess. We don't have quality artists as we used to have in the past, and it's not me being melancholic and nostalgic or overly modest, it's just true. We're stuck in the age of mediocrity. It's sad to tell these words and it bums me out, but I can't help it. I think we've reached the point.

I now look at the poll. 77% of Audioz members proclaim themselves as artists? Really? 77%? Artists here? Well, well! I feel like I was right about things I've written, but it's the kind of a situation when it sucks to be right. Meh.

 

So to your conclusion if an artist creates something that you would deem better than your self (which is 100% subjective), then you arent an artist...

Nobody is right or wrong about an opinion... We arent proclaiming anything.

What do you define as an artist? Im pretty sure everyone is gonna have their own opinion, but the qualities are going to range for everybody. Nobody talked about the quality of the media created or anything, the poll was literally "do you consider yourself an artist."

The "good" part is where it gets subjective. I could go more into the point but then its purely just discussing what people can consider to be good or bad and people conflating ideas between objectivity and subjectivity which is just a can of worms.

 

I said, it's relative. Technically you might be, but not genuinely. In every art form there are high standards set by someone else before you and if you don't meet these standards or else, you don't set your own high standard, which makes you break through and stand out, then what kind of an artist you are? Mediocre, mundane, redundant, an artist of no true value. And that's what I witness when I look at today's overrated "great artists". They are as much great artists as pimples on the asses of the true greats. I won't name names, it'd be redundant, everyone pretty much knows the names of truly gifted artists and musicians themselves. And I don't care who you are, you are not equal to them. You pale in comparison.

Yes, if you're asking me this, I think these 77% are arrogant and ignorant enough to call themselves artists in a genuine sense of this word. If they ever understand what it takes to be an artist, a true great artist. And I don't think they do. I'd love to hear the music of these "artists". Or maybe not. Rather not. There's high probability it's a mediocre, redundant garbage as pretty much anything else right now.

 

Last edited: Jul 12, 2016

Thats what im saying with high standards. Surely you youself would be cookie cuttering then if you arent trying to break the mold and "improve" and trying to achieve this arbitrary high standard which i dont even know how you could characterize, apart from your own personal enjoyment, and then if that is the case where is the creativity? how is the metric of high standard observed or calculated. Lets take this case,two differing genres (DNB & Orchestral music). The characteristics of one genre would be horrible in another, does that mean that one or the other doesnt have high standards? These standards are different and simply cant be applied within this man made notation of genres or even music for that matter. From a mixing perspective for example DNB utilizes a shit ton of compression where as Classic Orchestral music has minimal compression. Apples and Oranges. Thats why im not gonna let taste dictate this conversation.

As said before in previous posts with convos about music; all of these musical structures are man made. Doesnt mean anything to deviate or break these rules. Im not even gonna take pop music as a serious medium for comparison, its a joke from a musical perspective. Im pretty sure you know that the majority of it is all just money controlled puppets in pop music by big corps. The big artists are never usually noted anyway in the first place, most of the times, their ideas are iterated upon and that 2nd person usually gains the fame.

And what is talent as well. Surely its all learned.. If anything like you said initially its mostly about the amount of time invested playing around, concentrating on improving and gaining knowledge on your toolsets whatever they might be and the resultant of each of those informed decisions as well as characteristic choices that could notify somebody that that piece of art was made by you and nobody else. A unique inprint. That is personally what i strive for as an artist.

 

Standards in art have nothing to do with personal enjoyment. There are certain rules and demands in each art form. If you are, say, an ambitious painter of sea-scapes, your work will be judged by the standards set in this particular art form by the finest painters - representatives of the genre. It's a book of law. You cannot just paint a ship in a sea on some piece of paper and present it "as is" and proclaim it a genuine piece of art. There will be judgement, considerations and comparisons whether it's truly a remarkable piece of work or it's just a pretentious garbage. Same if you are a progressive rock musician, you can't just write a 17 minute piece of music full of odd time signature changes, and proclaim yourself the next Floyd, Genesis, Yes, etc. This is the great divide I'm talking about, which would separate real artists from pretentious mediocrities, real talents from hacks who want to get away with murder. What I mean is these high standards and demands, which existed in previous generations of artists, have mellowed over the years. There is no more great divide, no quality control. You write or sing a catchy hook or two? You are already a musician, a composer, a music star. Pffft. Your face is popular with people, social media loves you, you have a gazillion fans on FB/Twitter? You are suddenly a great actor. Hey, wait a minute man! How about NO? How about it's all fake and artificially created environment we are dealing with here?

I don't think you can learn "talent". It's something that you have or don't have. Sure you take from there, learn things and improve, but if you're not born talented, you won't be. Also, your genes may have something to do with it. Yet, you may be very talented but lazy, doing nothing to grow as an artist, and your talent will most likely die. That's another story.

 

I agree with you about the artifically created environment, i dont refute that point at all. All im saying is if everyone follows these "laws or constructs" then the majority of works would simply be clones, and its evident that they arent. I havent seen anyone proclaim themselves as the next anyone, its pretty much impossible to follow someones shoes considering the change in demographic appeal, environment, genre appeal, technological change, consumption of music/creation of music. There is also a lot of right place right time with this kind of stuff. Real talent still shines, you just have to look in the right places. I couldnt give two fucks about those people reaching the charts, the charts is just a money making scheme like i said before. I don't ever see anyone trying to fill the steps of the artists before us and actually succeding, unless they have their own sound or have made some distinction to their sound.

You try and make art sound like some sort of ticklist with stict adherence to rules and peer review being the passing point for art. Thats the main point i disagree with. Genres do provide structure for this, but should not be rock solid rules, guidelines at a maximum. Have you not heard of any deviation from a specific genre and thought, wow that actually sounds cool and is innovative? According to you this wouldnt pass the "book of law" or "standards" because it pocesses a quality that isnt on the list.