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Real Music?
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In my early teens music was always real instruments because we didn’t have sequencers and drum machines. The electronic thing – Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, Soft Cell and the like – was a welcome late teens thing because it was very different and so obviously electronic.
Then came the late 80s and, suddenly, electronic music became something else. The technology improved to the extent that, sometimes, it was hard to work out if you were listening to real drums, real bass etc etc. Listening back to it now, it’s awful (to me anyway). When Mamya runs her Night Night Song threads I sometimes go onto YouTube and call up songs which I thought were great at the time, and I find myself hating them. Even a great musician like George Benson has his wonderful guitar and vocal over instrumentation which is all programmed and sequenced.
So I’m wondering. Musicians can easily discern the fake stuff, but as a casual non-musician listener can you tell what’s real and what’s programmed, and does it matter to you? Is the end product more important?
Then came the late 80s and, suddenly, electronic music became something else. The technology improved to the extent that, sometimes, it was hard to work out if you were listening to real drums, real bass etc etc. Listening back to it now, it’s awful (to me anyway). When Mamya runs her Night Night Song threads I sometimes go onto YouTube and call up songs which I thought were great at the time, and I find myself hating them. Even a great musician like George Benson has his wonderful guitar and vocal over instrumentation which is all programmed and sequenced.
So I’m wondering. Musicians can easily discern the fake stuff, but as a casual non-musician listener can you tell what’s real and what’s programmed, and does it matter to you? Is the end product more important?
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No mention of drums, bass or keyboards. And the problem was that the advent of MIDI sound banks (plus good engineering of course) made it very difficult to tell if what we heard was real.
Remember a song called Ya Mo B There by James Ingram? I remember music mag articles singing the praises of the bassline. It was done on keyboard!
Remember a song called Ya Mo B There by James Ingram? I remember music mag articles singing the praises of the bassline. It was done on keyboard!
But isn’t that the point Zacs? Yes, it was, because at the time the new technology was amazing. But I listen back to it now and it’s like comparing an early brick-like mobile phone – phenomenal piece of kit at the time – to a modern smartphone. It actually sounds worse than early 80s electronica because that old stuff sounded electronic. It started to go wrong when we tried to make the fake sound real. It worked back then, but sounds very dated now.
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I recently interviewed Glen Sobel who plays drums in Alice Cooper's band, and is also a music lecturer on drums in an American university.
Glen told me that he can tell which of his students have grown up listening to 'live' drums, and which have listened to music with drums recorded using programmes such as Pro-Tools - it actually influences the way young drummers play.
As a long-time music fan and music journalist, I can usually, but not always, spot a programmed sound from a 'real' one, although I tend to notice in passing, and not make an effort to work it out.
As advised by others, I think the end product is the point - I am far less interested in the quality of the equipment that plays music to me, than the quality of the music I am hearing.
That approach extends to the way the music has been produced - if it moves and entertains me, I don't really care too much how it is created.
Glen told me that he can tell which of his students have grown up listening to 'live' drums, and which have listened to music with drums recorded using programmes such as Pro-Tools - it actually influences the way young drummers play.
As a long-time music fan and music journalist, I can usually, but not always, spot a programmed sound from a 'real' one, although I tend to notice in passing, and not make an effort to work it out.
As advised by others, I think the end product is the point - I am far less interested in the quality of the equipment that plays music to me, than the quality of the music I am hearing.
That approach extends to the way the music has been produced - if it moves and entertains me, I don't really care too much how it is created.
