[LAU] Bitwig: what we can learn from it

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Mon, 2014-03-31 at 07:55 -0400, Dave Phillips wrote:
> On 03/31/2014 07:26 AM, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
> > Your 'musician' seems to be one for whom everything
> > has to be prepared before and easy, so the only thing
> > that remains to be done is some clicking on a screen.
> > And then think him/herself a musician just as the
> > kids wasting their time with shoot-and-kill games
> > imagine they are soldiers.
> 
> I'm not so sure it's that simple. Even well-trained classical and jazz 
> musicians display evident prejudice towards certain kinds of music 
> within their own genres. One "jazz" fan loves his Dixieland, another 
> can't do without Sun Ra. The Beethoven freak down the street absolutely 
> despises Schoenberg, while my modernist buddy can't stand to hear Mozart.
> 
> > Your 'musician' is in fact just cannon fodder for
> > an industry that is about making fast money and little
> > else.
> 
> Again, I think it's a little more complicated. I respect skill and 
> enthusiasm where-ever I can find it these days. I hear great efforts 
> from pop/rock musicians, film score composers, game sound designers, and 
> so forth. Musically it's not often my preferred listening choices but I 
> can set aside prejudice long enough to try to get into the music per se. 
> I'm always learning, and lessons can be found everywhere.

Music has less to do with the skills to use a computer or the skills
about music theory and skills to play an instrument. Creativity is
independent of those skills. A lot of genius painters try to paint as
naive as unskilled children do. They have the skills to paint what ever
they want and they know all about the theory, but the intellectual
aspiration often kills the fantasy. Musicians more often than painters
tend to ignore that fact, likely because they feel the need to
demonstrate that they are skilled musicians. Skills are not always good
for creative work. A basic craftsmanship is needed, but it's not all
that is needed to make good music. What is the message of music? I'm
better than you? I learned to use computers, music theory and how to
handle my musical instruments? Or do I want to send a message, like
love, rage, jealousy etc.? Emotions have less to do with know-how.

For some kinds of music I need to be able to compose and to play my
instruments, then I only need a button to start the audio recording, for
other kinds of music I need a good work-flow to edit MIDI data, to piece
together the music. In both cases most important is the fantasy.

A lot of people who are able to compose and to play instruments did
edited tape compositions that had less to do with the music theory they
learned and the ability to play instruments they are able to play.

There are different kinds and motivations to make art by using "noise".