It’ll always be here for him…
And I’m confident that he hasn’t forgotten the time we spent together on it.
Cheers!
1 Like
Because you play more than a track at a time?
We live in a time where everybody can play music without knowing music. Rhythm/tuning/scales, all is done for you so the challenge is somewhere else.
Also music is not art anymore but performance. You must have a video, do the work of what 20 persons would do in the past: composing, playing, gear maintenance, finding gigs, producing, recording, … and there’s is no money injected as it is mass produced/mass consumed.
Some decades ago, we had big bands, then came the rock bands, then the power trio and now the one person band. Where i live, even in a bar you won’t get a gig if you’re more than a duo/trio. Because it’s possible to make people dance by pressing a button which was not possible before. So even the step brother of your neighbor’s mechanic is ready to play a DJ set on Sunday for 3 beers, so who would pay for a live act of people who worked years on?
Fast & easy made, fast & easy consumed. Now it’s about quantity, not quality. You even have shows where one is producing a track in less than 10 mn. No time to produce a finished/polished track, better do another. Anyway, who cares? 10 sec attention span people?
2 Likes
This.
Play the long game.
3 Likes
Yeah, I guess I am just reminded about when I was a teenager and asked my professional guitarist dad to teach me to play bass. He took it way more seriously than I did, which took all the fun out of spending that time with my dad, and kinda turned me off making music for like 10 years.
I’m employed, if that counts for anything.
But I do empathize with your cynicism.
You know, we can take the power back…
People don’t have to care, but they could. So, maybe we should endeavor to give them something to care about. Music is a direct extension of our humanity, but only if humanity is what you choose to put in it.
Cheers!
4 Likes
That truly breaks my heart.
But you shouldn’t let it deter you.
There are good teachers, and there are bad ones.
Cheers!
2 Likes
I am a music teacher. Reading stories like the one you just shared makes me uneasy. What should your father have done? Realize your lack of seriousness, and spent the time with you doing something else? Slow down the pacing of his instruction? Spent more time jamming with you and less time lecturing you?
My mother was my greatest musical influence. She taught me, as a kid, some piano four-hand pieces. “Chopsticks”, “Heart and Soul” and another one (I never learned the name) in F# major, with a section where you roll over three black keys by making a fist. Anyone know the name? We had a lot of fun, there was no judgment, no wrong notes. Later, I came up with my own piano piece, and my mom was so proud, she called my grandma and had me play it into the phone.
As a result of my mom’s influence, I feel that the most beautiful manifestation of music is people enjoying themselves playing together. Just as you do. The other day I was at a Christmas party. There was a piano in the room, and I accompanied a bunch of old people (I call them old to pretend that I am young) who were singing along. One old lady knew the second and third verses to some of the carols. I was impressed.
All that said, I have to reject any suggestion that music must be exclusively about having fun. There is such a thing as delayed gratification.
7 Likes
He set specific goals for me to learn certain music in certain periods of time, and when I did not he basically said “if you want to take this seriously you need to practice an hour every day”. The implication is that I failed in some way by not wanting to be a professional musician. What he should have done is ask me what my goals were, and adapt his instruction to my goals. Instead he assumed that my goal was the same as his, which is maybe the most common source of miscommunication I think. Like sometimes it feels like people who have vastly different goals talk to each other and try to advise each other assuming that we all share the same goals.
3 Likes
“Down at Papa Joe’s”! I started with the same first three pieces…
2 Likes
Thank you!!!
1 Like
Maybe it was not one prompt and some post processing was done:, but lets say i couldnt distinguish this from any autotune music that runs currently in the radio. (Which i dont like, but its still consumed by the mass.)
Edit: i read the comments on the video, the beat was manually done, the voice was alterd by ai.
I only speak from my experience but using song mode is only making the process harder on yourself. It’s a lot faster and more spontaneous to perform your song live as you track it. Any daw will allow to edit after the recording process if you need it. Song mode is more of a crutch and a rigid way of producing. Practice your live jamming to the point where you don’t need song mode. That’s the beautiful thing about Elektron and overbridge, one usb cable and you can track each part separately on its own channel. It’s already served up to you an a silver platter. Dig in and Happy New Year!!!
7 Likes
My grandfather taught me this! It was probably the first piece of music I ever learned, and I had almost completely forgotten about it until I read this sentence.
Thank you for unearthing this memory!
2 Likes
That’s your opinion and it’s fine. But, my opinion is that it should do more, and perhaps if you read clearly, I bought knowing it doesn’t come with Arrangements and hope it will one day. What’s wrong with that? If we stay stuck to lower expectations, I don’t think much progress will be made with the advancement of any tech. If Avid’s Sketch can do that for an app, I’m not letting Ableton think they’re done with the “Standalone” as is. As an instrument, that’s also marketed can be upgraded over time, you can read what you want out of that, and I read it my way. Cheers.
it took me a whole year working with novation circuit tracks but I finally got it worked how out to arrange a song using a combination of scenes and multiple profiles. first song is about 7 1/2 mins. typical verse chorus outro structure. each profile was multiple scenes. it’s not totally automated but it’s doable in a live situation
3 Likes
Are you sure about that? because-
and-
…both statements seem to suggest that you feel Ableton owe you something simply because you bought a product… So I’ll just double down on the adage that one should buy something for what it does now, not what one thinks it could/should do in the future. But whatever- you do you. It’s an otherwise interesting thread and I don’t wish to derail it any further with this circular argument.
I think being stuck in a 4 bar loop or endlessly noodling interactively around variations on that 1-4 bar loop, is not down to groovebox design but to human behaviour.
There are enough grooveboxes that offer options to build arrangements on.
I use MC-707 and it is good at it. I’ve read many posts about how the MPC’s make people finish more songs.
Maschine+ offers enough.
Just to name 3 well known ones.
There used to be a saying that making good music is 10% inspiration and 90% transpiration.
It is a valid choice to only wanting to have fun. Accept the outcome as such.
Making a decent song is the hard part and always will be.
No mashine is going to do that for you.
There is only one person in my house that may work out those riffs. My imagination is the clue.
First take time for imagination. And then put in time to turn it into something real (in this case audio that is nice enough to listen to).
Every little spark of inspiration comes with the need for a bigger chunk of time to lay it down.
8 Likes
Without reading the the thread, the title made me wonder why there are no dedicated arrangement machines. No groovebox or anything with sounds, but a machine that has a sequencer dedicated to pattern changes and things related to song structuring…
If you’re interested, read the thread, this topic been discussed. The gist: capable hardware sequencers do exist, and they can do what you want, and a lot more on top.
2 Likes
I may have a slight advantage on you there, as I was a Circuit OG user for many years and now a Circuit Tracks (and Rhythm user). So compared to the OG, the newer devices are a breeze comparatively to put a “song” together.
I use a combination of patterns (possibly chained) and scenes (with mutes enabled) in the mixer page and then also relying sometimes on project switching (for fills or possibly a synth patch swap).
I jam around for a bit messing with mutes and then start saving them to be able to jump from one part to another, which I then arrange via the duplicate button to the logical step. I don’t then really chain the scenes as I usually jam around with those and utilise the grid FX on the Rhythm for DJ style fills.
I wrote a track on the Circuit Rhythm yesterday, using the new Techno sound pack from Novation ( techno isn’t normally my thing). I spent an hour or so in the afternoon, putting the patterns together. Making variations is key to getting out of being stuck in the 1,2,4 bar loop thing and recording the p lock type stuff in the steps. Then when everyone had gone to bed I just used my headphones to sketch out the “song” arrangement. Using exactly the method I’ve described above.
To finally finish that off I could jam out a stereo mix, or use my Ableton Circuit template to record 4 or 8 bar loops of individual track stems into session view. Which I then copy over to arrangement view (or even jam it out using Push 2) to polish it off.
1 Like