"Play C-Major"

[vladnuke]

Alright people, Imma agree with Kyogurt here. Yes, traditional, non-midi supplemented music is harder to make than most edm. Now, you might not agree with that statement, but it's outright fact. Learning an instrument is harder than learning a program. Finger dexterity, posture and position, and just basic memorization and practice make it all the more difficult. The thing is, when you are making traditional instrument-specific music, it's just adding onto an electronic base of production. There are separate production techniques for audio tracks.

It's also really expensive, what with the cost of instruments, mics, and studio swag. Unless you're like me and have a big ass closet which you cover with thick blankets and a car which you can drag your compy and a mic to. Then you just got the mics and instruments.

And lessons.

But anything can be harder if you work harder at it.

We're not talking about the yoloswag420master who has just bought a squier combo pack at Guitar center and is putting his lame ass shit on youturds which he recorded with the webcam on his laptop.

Just saiyan.

Just like when we're not talking about the mlgproblackopsdubz who just found fl studio 5 seconds before and says he's the best skrillex there is.

And besides, eventually we're all going to have to deal with real instrumentation, or at least a mic for vocals. Because notin but synths and samples all the time is a bit too Eurotrance 2012 for my tastes.

Food for thought.

[colortwelve]

Playing soccer is way harder than origami, I should know I do both.

[vladnuke]

Playing soccer is way harder than origami, I should know I do both.

Yeah, this too. Shit's all apples and oranges up in here

[Thyrai]

As of playing acoustic instruments for most of my life, I found the transition to moving over to piano-like synthesizers (any electronic keyboard) to be laughably easy.

I rarely hear Keyboard players picking up the guitar and rattling away at it with ease, but I suppose a piano would be an apt and fair thing to assume they can play.... right...?

This is something that's baffled me for awhile. I really don't understand why the guitar is hailed as a god-like instrument. I picked up the guitar a few years ago, long before I even knew EDM was a thing -and I mean sure, there's incredible guitarists out there, but it's really not a difficult instrument to use at all once you get the hang of it. Most guitarists I see think they're pretty hot shit because they know how to play a few Metallica riffs and a Badd9 chord.

Even in the studio, you can just keep replaying a sequence until you get it right. I can't help but think it comes down to a pride thing; where one finds superiority in being able to play the instrument live.

To answer your question, though, Kyoga - the piano is much easier to get started on over the guitar if you have some musical knowledge. Reason being is the simpler layout.

EDIT: Also this is pretty fun http://youtu.be/eNwBwYXS3f8

[Symphon]

To be completely honest, comparing the two is just silly. Yes, they both do with music, but is drawing a wonderful sketch on paper harder than making a 3D sculpture out of clay? Many of my artist friends would say neither are harder. They're varying difficulties depending on the person.

Also, the big reason there are more electronic musicians is because of the cost. For acoustics, you need microphones, mixers (possibly), instruments, the works. For electronic, you just kinda... Torrent FL Studio 10. See, much easier?

And to kind of just prove my point, here's a little something: I have two friends. They both play bass guitar, guitar, and drums. One of them sings and plays trumpet. The other one plays a woodwind instrument (I can't remember what), the violin, and raps. They both got FL Studio 10. At that time, I was just getting the hang of it. I attempted to teach them the program.

After about a month of them messing around and me teaching them, they gave up. They personally consider electronic harder than acoustics. I thought vice versa up to that point. We came to the conclusion that they were just as hard, depending on the person.

P.S. I haven't met one band that mixes and masters themselves, and I know a lot of bands in person. They also have a techie.

[Makkon]

Back on topic, please. You're all doing a wonderful job of talking about other interesting things, just in the wrong thread. Feel free to start a new topic or take it to PM.

[Symphon]

Back on topic, please. You're all doing a wonderful job of talking about other interesting things, just in the wrong thread. Feel free to start a new topic or take it to PM.

Aye aye, sir.

One time, I had a heated discussion about whether or not DnB or Dubstep is the same thing. :I

[Thyrai]

EDIT

Back on topic, please. You're all doing a wonderful job of talking about other interesting things, just in the wrong thread. Feel free to start a new topic or take it to PM.

whoops, didn`t see that. Stopping now

It's not the guitar in particular that i'm talking about in that quote. I was referring to all of the acoustic instruments that I play personally whether it be Alto saxophone, Piano, Guitar, Trombone, Clarinet, violin or a typical drum kit.

Just knowing how music works in general makes moving over to something like a piano a very easy task.
At least it was for me.

and vladnuke, I don't discount all the hard years that someone spends practicing and mastering an instrument, I consider that to be one of the things that makes acoustic music more difficult to play.

There's a reason that there are so many EDM bronies and so many fewer Acoustic bronies (pardon the name) and at the basis of it, it is still a fact that going out and learning a new instrument (or even your first instrument) is really hard.

I think in large that it has to do with accessibility, because it's super easy to download a copy of FL studio and get to work. With acoustic instruments, you have to have buy the instrument, microphones, interfaces to even get the sound on your computer.

Picking up a DAW and dicking around with synthesizers is hard for, like, two weeks...
I know this because I did both of these things. :3
And pretty much all of the brony music community remember how easy it was to pick up digital sound production and start making their own little tunes. Hell, you still have members of both halves of the music community making music that completely and entirely obeys standard music theory.

Either way, my argument is that learning the DAW is just as difficult whether you're an EDM artist or an Acoustic musician, but acoustic musicians need to go the step further of learning an instrument and being able to play it. They're just as in charge of the mixing, mastering, sound design, etc. as EDM artists, but they ALSO have to learn an instrument.
They have to actually be able to play what they write, and that's the main reason I consider it more difficult.

I agree to an extent, but at the same time, acoustic musicians don't deal with sound design. They don't have to worry about constructing dozens of synth patches and layering them up for unique(ish) results. The structure and design of typical rock (for example) music is quite simple - 2-3 guitars, a bass, some drums and perhaps a piano or some strings. EDM encompasses a massive variety of sounds - and even rhythms when you get into more breakbeat and glitch hop sort of stuff.

I just find that most acoustic musicians play a simple I-IV chord progression with a little melody on top, which isn't exactly too difficult. Then again, so does a lot of EDM.

It is really apples to oranges-y but I have yet to meet someone whose proficient in both EDM and acoustic music to definitively say one takes more skill than the other. Personally, I think it just comes down to compositional skill as to what's most important in a song.

[topitmunkeydog]

Maybe someone should start that topic because it seems there is a large amount of insight on the topic.
In response to the original argument posted by TunerSyphon, I feel like if someone told me to "Play C Major" I would not know what to do. Should I play a scale, a cadance, some random chords, a song in C major, a tonicwhatever chord thing? I'm just sayin' it seems like you were not very specific.

[Magnitude Zero]

I for one would love to see this continue in another thread. It's an interesting discussion.

OT: I get slightly irritated when people mix up obviously different genres ("all electronic music is techno", "everything with prominent bass and/or a 'drop' is dubstep"). As far as pet peeves go, it's one of my milder ones - I got some really big ones, lol. everypony

[the4thImpulse]

Maybe someone should start that topic because it seems there is a large amount of insight on the topic.
In response to the original argument posted by TunerSyphon, I feel like if someone told me to "Play C Major" I would not know what to do. Should I play a scale, a cadance, some random chords, a song in C major, a tonicwhatever chord thing? I'm just sayin' it seems like you were not very specific.

I'll start a thread for it. Started

As a DJ I have heard all that 'everything is dubstep' and my favorite 'every dubstep song is skrillex'. I wish people could be more 'in-tune' with what they are hearing to be able to hear those differences in genres.

[Symphon]

Maybe someone should start that topic because it seems there is a large amount of insight on the topic.
In response to the original argument posted by TunerSyphon, I feel like if someone told me to "Play C Major" I would not know what to do. Should I play a scale, a cadance, some random chords, a song in C major, a tonicwhatever chord thing? I'm just sayin' it seems like you were not very specific.

I could see where you're coming from, and I didn't specify when I explained it, but I said to her a C-Major chord. She pretty much admitted that she had no idea what a key was when she told me she didn't know what I was talking about.

[XXDarkShadow79XX]

Apparently this isn't glitch hop.

[Symphon]

I could see where you're coming from, and I didn't specify when I explained it, but I said to her a C-Major chord. She pretty much admitted that she had no idea what a key was when she told me she didn't know what I was talking about.[/quote]


To be honest, I find it unfair that if she didn't know anything about music that she was talking down to you about making EDM.

I figure also that your reaction was vindicated by her being a jerk. :p[/quote]
She's attempted to kill me twice and has never treated me very nicely except for the really really really rare occasions. Yeah, not the best person.

[SticktheFigure]

Does you sister have any involvement in music beyond that of a listener?

[v.lossity]

I get in arguments all the time with people who say or imply some variation of "bass players have so skill"

Makes me so mad. As a bassist and guitarist that can play Van Halen solos, Steve Harris bass gallops, sweep picking lines, and some crazy fast blues and prog bass lines, I have seen both sides of it and I just boil over when people who only play one instrument (usually the guitarist xD) try to put bassists down. Essentially, if you can play a cool riff on guitar, fine. That same riff is 5 times harder on bass, so dont go hating on a bassist that cant keep up.

*side note* I think acoustic vs electronic is a matter of different skillsets and goals. Many amazing "acoustic musicians" would be hopeless making EDM tracks simply because for many many acoustic musicians, their entire focus is on performance, so they are only honing their skills, working on how they play. Electronic musicians, IMO have to focus on many other things (mixing, composition, arranging, etc etc)

Comparing the two is like comparing a guy who writes movie scores to a violin player. Different roles to play.

Anyone know how to get a guitarist to stop playing?

[Applejinx]

Anyone know how to get a guitarist to stop playing?

Place sheet music in front of them, of course

[v.lossity]

xD

[Symphon]

Does you sister have any involvement in music beyond that of a listener?

She's been in choir for a long time and "can play keyboard and guitar." She doesn't really know how to play them, she just knows how to play certain songs, which I feel is a bit different. Her doing all of this and STILL not knowing what to do is kind of just sad.

[ghelded_kultz]

Going back to the original prompt, but with a twist. Most of the posts here seem to have the poster clearly in the right. While I stick to my statements, I am sure that those involved found my assertion (with evidence to back me up) that the Velvet Underground are more musically influential on modern music (especially rock) than the Beatles to be the most ridiculous musical argument they were ever in. It gets even better since I am pretty sure I was the only musician involved, while the rest are just listeners.

Edit: I just remembered the most ridiculous part of the argument. The opposition had so much fodder to use against me yet the four or so of them couldn't make a good case against the two members of Ghelded Kultz, instead resorting to ad hominen attacks, misunderstanding of the idea of Social Darwinism, and non sequiters.

[MixolydianPony]

Someone once vehemently argued that E major only had two sharps.

That someone was me.

/)__(\ DON'T LOOK AT ME, I'M A MORON

[ghelded_kultz]

Someone once vehemently argued that E major only had two sharps.

That someone was me.

/)__(\ DON'T LOOK AT ME, I'M A MORON

Is it bad that after reading this I practically needed to go over to piano to remember how many sharps were in E?

[Symphon]

Someone once vehemently argued that E major only had two sharps.

That someone was me.

/)__(\ DON'T LOOK AT ME, I'M A MORON

Is it bad that after reading this I practically needed to go over to piano to remember how many sharps were in E?

Nah, I had to as well. I don't just memorize keys, I formulate them, so I always have to look a keyboard to figure it out.

[Mondogreen]

"Picking up a DAW and dicking around with synthesizers is hard for, like, two weeks..."

Lemmie call bullshit on that. Right now.

But anyway, the most one-sided argument I've ever had about music was trying to convince someone that 808 wasn't just a sine wave

[Mondogreen]

I think learning sound design is just as much a discipline as learning guitar. Sure, playing "real" instruments requires reflexes, memorization..... and whatever else you guys are saying, but if you have a strong musical background, you can pretty much pick up and play anything within a couple weeks. However, there's a big difference between being able to play something, and mastering every aspect of it. If synthesizers are no big deal to you, then how about helping the rest of us out with some of the more complex sounds? I'm not saying spoon-feed us, just back up what you're saying.