From Brian Gause Sent Mon, Jul 20th 1998, 20:04
From Brian Gause Sent Mon, Jul 20th 1998, 20:04
My take on this is that, at least to some extent, the gear doesn't matter. Your example is a good one because it points out the problem. No one ever asked Picasso about his brushes. Hemingway, I bet, got very few questions about the pencil and paper he used. I doubt Stephen King gets question about the word processor on his box. And, musically, I don't think Mozart or Beethoven often got questions about how they did what they did. If you look to Autechre as artists, what matters is not how they got the sounds or where they come from, but instead, what prompted this sort of view of sound in the first place? What sort of imagination imagines music like this? How do they see the sound they play? That sort of thing. It strikes me that one of the problems here is that some of this stuff is just so cool that you have to wonder 'how did they do that'. Fine...Okay, sure, but we tend to depersonalize some of this stuff and imagine them as two guys hunkered down in a studio somewhere. Somewhere along the way, we've lost the idea that musicians are artists...instead, they're just wacky guys in a basement somewhere. Maybe that's really the way it is, but if we're going to look at them as artists, and compare them to artists, let's go all the way. These aren't just sounds, but artistic representation that aren't to be analyzed in terms of HOW, but instead, why and wherefrom? As a writer, I consider myself an artist. As an artist, I find that what I consider most (and what I get asked most) is what has made me express myself in THIS way? Why writing? Why this style? Why did Joyce decide to use stream-of-consciousness? Why was Picasso driven to paint? Why do Sean and Rob create music in this way and, really, what are we to take from it? I can really find little value, and I think I would feel insulted in their shoes, in answering questions about the tools I use. It would strike me, instead, that the questioner is missing the point of it all. ---brian > Having said that, my question remains - why the secrecy? > > If, in the artistry of creating the tracks, the gear is > of *central* importance, I may have to re-assess my > feelings towards these artists. How would I feel about > a phenomenal painter who refused to tell anyone about > the spectacular brush he uses? My estimation of his > artistic skills would certainly get smaller. > > Perhaps electronic music still has a long way to mature. > It seems to me that the equipment secrecy is nothing but > selfishness and insecurity. It would be ridiculous for > Chick Corea to not tell anyone what synths he used on his > last album, or for him to not talk about his creative process > at all. If the gear list is of such importance, we can > only assume that the artists themselves believe their > sound can be easily reproduced. If that's the case, maybe > what they're doing isn't worthy of the respect we give it. > > Of course, as somebody else already said, who cares? We > know they're the original masters. > > So what don't they want us to know? > > > bbn