From Che Sent Sun, Oct 18th 1998, 23:02
From Che Sent Sun, Oct 18th 1998, 23:02
At 03:24 PM 10/17/98 -0400, Dave Walker wrote: > >Ouch -- in this case I apologize. I imagine this must be pretty bad, >as I imagine a great deal of "popular" (I'm using this in >it's broadest sense, to refer to pop, rock, electronic music, hippo, >jazz, etc.) is being made by people (like myself) without >any sort of formal knowledge of the rules of >pitch, harmony, etc. I certainly don't envy you this sensitivity. Thanks for understanding that I'm not some academic asshole or a snotty muso type. :) Pop music tends not to suffer from this because pop musicians have producers, and one of the producer's main tasks is to make sure everything is in tune and in key. When someone says something is "well produced", they should make sure the music's not out of tune or dissonant (unless dissnonance is desired). I heard a great story from a Nile Rogers radio interview about one day when he was producing a Duran Duran album, and he came into the studio and the two guitarists were jamming & asked him why it sounded so bad. It took him just a few seconds to figure out that even though the guitars were in tune, they were tuned to different keys. Doh! Their knowledge of music consisted of knowing the fingering for chords and how to work a guitar tuner. That wasn't enough to guarantee good results. I think most non-tone-deaf people can tell when something is badly out of tune or key, as long as it's not the bass (most musicians I know have trouble tuning a bass - I've heard out of tune bass on 4Hero, Amon Tobin, Seefeel, and lots of others). It factors into whether or not something sounds good or bad, even if there's no formal knowledge of the rules. Luckily most digital synths are always in tune, and most techno boffins quickly learn how to work the "tune" knob on their analogue kit, so it's usually not a problem. However, samples aren't always in tune, especially when transposed to fit a tempo. That's where I tend to have problems. I think the worst case I've ever heard was an Ultramarine track that sampled the Beagle's "One Of These Nights" (Saratoga, I think. Left a bad taste in my mouth, but my friend Cam insists that I give them another shot.). I think it's great when non-musicians make music - to me that's a key to the freshness of the "Techno Revolution". I'm mostly self-taught as far as music goes, and used to feel a bit insecure when jamming w/ "real musicians". Then I checked out a book on 20th century harmony, and learned that anything goes, as long as it sounds good to you. Me, I tend to prefer 8 notes per key (out of 12) and no "non-integer" notes. Your mileage may vary, and that's cool. Just warn me in a review, ok? Che