All of them are important, but only when the notes are understood correctly.

One interesting thing about this YouTuber (Rick Beato) is that this man himself cannot work with notes. Not only him, but most YouTubers who make claims about music are also unable to work with notes. The reason I emphasize working with notes is because these YouTubers became famous for their slogans about notes.

 

Mine not too. I'm not trying to be like anyone else and am not commercializing anything that I compose (much to my wife's chagrin). Even though I'm getting to be an old fucker this keeps it fresh in a way as I'm not trying to satisfy a fan base. I can get weird, be normal-ish and everything in between. I experiment, have fun and haven't the pressure to conform to anybody's idea of who I'm supposed to be.

About having common tools homogenizing releases, I don't buy it. 99 % of songs aren't defined by which software it's compressed with on a vocal track or which DAW one uses to mix on. It boils down to the artists and their creativity.

 

this is the true art. in its purest form

 

I like Beato, he has a great channel, though I can't listen to him playing lead guitar, especially when he's demonstrating various scales as he has a knack for making every scale sound exactly the same.

I was going to add the following quote but I'm not sure he deserves that tag, what do you think?

“Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.” - George Bernard Shaw

 

Be sure that he doesn't know how notes work either.

Those who know can. Those who do not know neither know nor can.

 

If only Foster were here to offer his learned opinion.

 

Last edited: Jun 26, 2024 at 8:23 PM

He's not wrong about music being reduced to a commodity, I said that 15 years ago. It might as well be soybeans, or orange juice futures. Streaming companies simply purchase music now by the metric ton and pump it out. Anything we try to produce now is just part of the general background noise and static. I continue to make music a little bit here and there just because I feel like it but what's the use of putting any of it out there? There is none really. I stick it on Bandcamp and every now and then a few copies sell for some reason, I don't know why because I don't bother to advertise or do social media at all.

 

The most difficult thing to take onboard is negativity for anyone.

However, if someone who has been doing something for decades says that there are reasons why something exists and it is not positive, the opinion is probably founded in experience as well and it is easy for someone who does not agree to say they are a grumpy whatever...

There was definitely a live earthiness in the 60s, 70s, 80s and early 90s in Popular music that is rarely present this century. There are good reasons for this - All reel-to-reel recordings and analog outboard gear, no DAW's and singers did one take of the entire tune. Multitrack gave them the facility to drop in more easily. It sounded different because it was not perfect. In that aspect he is correct.

This century, everything is perfect. That's great because a lot of the modern music is designed to drive a constant and even on the money pulse.
He doesn't say it directly but there is one point that is 100% valid. Human beings everywhere are NOT perfect. Machines are perfect some say. I think that's his main point.

Waste of time getting angry over something that is actually fact. Not taking what someone who has been doing the same thing for forty years onboard as having some logic, is like the dumbass Internet warrior buttmonkeys who never finished High School, saying they knew more than PhD's during COVID. It may not be all correct and it is opinionated and he's not happy, but there is HIS total truth in it. The music is NOT the same if you make something that feels good but not perfect into perfection. Many things do become machine-like, but not all.
Cheers


P.S. - No, I do not dig the guy by default, but I respect his experience.

 

This, by far, is the most likely method to create music that is entirely your own. The moment any artist attempts to please others, they lost sight of the art and headed for popularity instead.

 

Mmmmm...before multitrack recorders for sure, every song a captured live performance for all in the room, backup singers and all. As soon as 8 track came onto the scene that is when singers or separately recorded parts could be punched in and/or recorded separately...gone were the days (fot the most part) of a Sinatra or Patsy Cline killing it, although I've heard mention that David Bowie was a one take wonder.

 

Last edited: Jun 26, 2024 at 11:16 PM

Absolutely correct. I think we both know the history. I sincerely apologise for abbreviating it into a few sentences so poorly.

 

Of course. His knowledge and experience in the music business and skills as a YTber are great.

The thing I see with Beato is every time he makes a video I could learn of I get lost... and some on topics I know of... I also get lost.

I mean, I'm an old school metalhead, and he does a video "Why there're no guitar gods anymore (aka insanely complex solos)". WTF. Any metal lover over 30 years knows why.

Another one defending the ex-Nirvana saying "Billie Eilish is the Kurt Kobain of our generation". Ahem... poor girl, are you cursing her or what?

Edited:

Ooops, didn't see that. Sorry sry

 

Last edited: Jun 26, 2024 at 8:51 PM

Years ago my girlfriend who was fantastic painter in demand and who sold her work for very good money on Maui was asked to donate a piece to be sold at auction to benefit a Sea Animal rescue organization. Instead of the kind of painting that was what she was known for, created a work much different than the landscapes expected of her. It did not sell for even a dollar.

A lesson learned...
No money earned

 

Mark Twain is reputed to have said something like:

"My parents were really stupid in my teens and 20s. I could not believe how intelligent they became when I turned 40"

See the Zappa quote below

 

Last edited: Jun 26, 2024 at 8:51 PM

I don't think methods and tools are to blame. Great music has been made since before the dawn of recorded sound, and great records released in the '20s, '30s and every decade up until now, and including today. The problem is in the infrastructure that delivers music to us, and the way we now consume it. In some sense, music used to all be like a nice, sit down restaurant; an occasion. Then the restaurants began to co-exist with fast food but the fast food was still often really tasty. Now the good restaurants are closed and the music is all White Castle, unless you take the time to find a good off the beaten track place to go (but go quick because they'll have to close in a month).

 

So... hear me on this... orchestal ensembles homogeonized the sound of classical music on past centurys. Damn copycats composers everyone using the same tools and space disposition of them over and over again. And dont get me started about chamber music, the minified version of it.

 

The real reason is the proliferation of affordable broadband internet. There used to be a trickle of garbage music from the water fountain. Now it is like mainlining a big city municipal sewer pipe. It may not sell, but it permeates everything in its wake of excrement.

 

And the "back in the day they put it down live on the floor and that's why it was better" thing is specious. Using the studio specifically to NOT be live gave us Sgt. Pepper. "Getting back to basics!" gave us... well, Get Back.

 

Sure, but at that point you are not even really talking about a big collage of tape of all individually tracked instruments being assembled. It's still mostly overdubbing and edits done with a razor. Rubber bands on console faders, and one guy riding a fader manually and another one flipped over in the console upside down kinds of stuff. Everyone recording to a click track is more clean and accurate, etc; but it removes the aspect of musicians playing something together correctly without such rigid timing. Make a track using only Midi-based sources, and quantize every single instrument.

 

Sure, every technology can be abused, especially by laziness. I just don't think technology is to blame in and of itself. What it does is enables the mediocre (myself included for all I know, I hope not).