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Underground > Radio & Music >

They did it in an hour, with one mic and a headful of substances

16:12 / 12.12.01

Question: How does one's knowledge of the creative process and methods of production effect one's appreciation of a piece of music?

Answers:

17:16 / 12.12.01

Very little, if you ask me.

A lot of the time this crap is just hype anyway.

"They did it in an hour, with one mic and a headful of substances.

"Then their engineer spent ten hours overdubbing it.

"Then they sent it to Steve Leckie/ Dr Dre/ Nigel Godrich/ DJ Sneak, who tweaked it further. Then they remixed it...."

I know what you're getting at - the fact that 'There's A Riot Going On' was made by Sly Stallone in a party house full of drugs, or that Lee Perry's finest work was made just before he was seen walking backwards trhough Kingston hitting the ground with a hammer.

But I can honestly say that it's the music which matters to me, rather than the way it was made.

18:41 / 12.12.01

Huuuuuuge huuuge difference. If you regularly enter into this sort of creative process yourself, you end up having a different way of listening- your appreciation of the music as a collection of sonic frequencies is transformed by your understanding of it as a mechanism.

Then occasionally you find an album that totally transcends your understanding of what's possible in that creative process, and the top of your head blows off in shock and surprise.

not me again, i'm interested to know if you're a musician... because I wonder if we're talking about the same thing, this could be first versus second hand knowledge of creative process influencing/not influencing... the 'myth' of some tracks is important but for me there's a lot more goin' on in the nuts and bolts.

20:14 / 12.12.01

I wasn't really getting at anything. The thread title was just a bit of silliness.

I do think it's wrong to dismiss hype as the just the crap that gets in the way of an artistic experience. A hell of a lot of it is of more substance than the product these days. But that's a subject for another thread, before some loathsome threadrotter takes my artistic processes brainstormer away from me!

16:00 / 13.12.01

Oh, bugger. I realise I've gone and done something I hate on Barbelith, by not paying attention.

'I know whaht you're getting at' is such a horrible phrase, apologies all round.

OPB Flame On:

not me again, i'm interested to know if you're a musician...

Well, a little guitar and I've got a set of decks. But listening to me on either, you would hesitate to use the word 'skill' in any way.

I think we may be talking at cross purposes here, due in part to my taking the thread title as a cue when maybe I shouldn't have.

I was referring to these marvellous stories you hear, about (say) David Bowie strung out on coke in the recording studio. I was taking the question to mean the 'myth' of the track, which I still maintain is often bollocks.

But obviously, the actual knowledge of how tracks are produced affects your enjoyment of them.

It is part of the overall piece of music, and I'm always fascinated by bands who can pull teh technical stuff off well.

Although I'd hesitate to go as far as saying a CD or LP 'totally transcends' my understanding of what is possible - often I find myself angry at musicians for not trying hard enough with what everyone knows is possible already.

Good God, I'm not making any sense, am I?

16:46 / 13.12.01

I would absolutely say that every year I spend working on recording and engineering changes how ALL music sounds to me.

In youth I lacked the ability to separate instruments from the mix, after recording some I really saw how the pieces fit and the freq. sat with each other.

I would say that non engineers don't hear the same things in music.

< asbstos>
I am not saying anything about appreciation or other relative concepts, just the fact that you hear different things in the music. For instance if a bass line really sucks, I cant tune it out and just "listen to the overall song". This could lead to my not enjoying a song that is in all other respects a quality piece of music.
< /asbestos>

[ 13-12-2001: Message edited by: Steppin' Razer ]

17:37 / 13.12.01

I used to argue this with an old girlfriend. She said that a musician will appreciate music more that a non-musician. I disagreed. I still do, having been a musician for 10 years, but with a condition. I think knoledge of how a piece is either played or produced allows you to appreciate it differently than an "unskilled" listener. I wouldn't say more than, just differently. It has to do with being able to hear various things that a non-trained listener might hear, but would not recognize for what it is. I'm at a loss for an example at the moment, but as soon as I think of one, I'll post it.

Zoom.

19:42 / 13.12.01

quote:Originally posted by Captain Zoom:
She said that a musician will appreciate music more that a non-musician.Not "more."

Differently.

11:54 / 14.12.01

I had to spend about a year unlearning my musical prejudices built up through being a musician. I had just too many reservations, music had become to intellectual.

I realised I'd robbed myself of the passion I used to have when I bought Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada, Come on Die Young[I/] and [I]The Soft Bulletin in the same trip to the record store. Learning more about these bands (Godspeed You Black Emperor, Mogwai and The Flaming Lips respectively) and their creative methods and attitudes gave me my sense of wonder back.

12:22 / 14.12.01

Hmm, old hobby-horse of mine.

I think that, ideally, it should be possible to enjoy a piece of music on a visceral level without needing to be aware of what went on to produce that piece of music. Hence my opposition to the whole 'integrity/paying their dues' angle: I don't see that it's especially important or necessary to know how much 'work' did or didn't go into something to enjoy it.

That's maybe a slightly different point from the one you were making, Expressionless. I'm entirely untroubled by musical ability, so the concept of 'craftsmanship' passes me by. One of my flatmates at University, though, was a major muso (stacks of 'Q' and 'Mojo' lying around the communal living-room, was incredibly secretive about his own compositions) and used to take the piss endlessly out of my 'bubblegum' CD collection. His, as I recall, was almost entirely Van Morrison, Bert Janch, Bob Dylan, etc. - 'worthy' heavyweights, all. But not, IMHO, much fun...

13:10 / 14.12.01

<disclaimer> I know nothing about music, technically. The only thing I've taken any real in depth look at is dance music and from what I can tell its more maths than anything. So I have very limited experience of how to make music.</disclaimer>

The musicians I know, tend to be limited by their instrument and/or the genre of music they play/compose. For example, I have a friend who in my opinion (and a lot of others) was born to hold a guitar. He has that hard to find trait people call "natural ability". However, he cannot appreciate electronic music at all. No matter how much of it I give to him to listen to. He doesn't dislike it, but it just goes way over his head and all ends up as background music.

This is something I've noticed quite a bit, and tends to make for boring music listeners. They can ramble for hours about their specific genre, but take em out of their comfort zone and they're totally lost. Everything different is, at least initially, bad and takes forever for them to get a grip of.

I'm not saying this is always the case though....