Elektron Musical Instruments

The sweet voice of sanity rouses me from lurker slumber.

Well met.

On Thursday, August 21, 2003, at 02:11 am, Eric Jacobsen wrote:

>> sorta like the whole 'you're
>> not a musician if you sequence your music' arguments
>> i get into all my old
>> friends from metal bands.
>
> What I have found interesting about these recent
> threads is not just who, how, and with what skill
> people use or do not use keyboards, but the variety of
> approaches (often implied) that we all take to capture
> our music.
>
> The music is the end.  To be drawn into arguement as
> to the means used - traditional (keyboard, guitar,
> percussion, brass, violin, etc) or non-traditional
> (drum machines, sequencers, samplers, etc.) or both -
> is pointless.  To denigrate an artist’s choice as to
> the media used to achieve his art is a long string of
> bad words we can all fill in for ourselves and does
> nothing to change the outcome or initial opinion.
>
> Whether a “song” is produced by banging on oil cans
> and brake drums (as originated those beautiful
> Trinidad steel drums), a combination of strings in a
> wooden frame whose production is itself a piece of
> art, or mouse clicks in software to drive electrical
> circuits is immaterial.  What comes out stands on its
> own merits as Music, appealing to each of us in
> varying degree.
>
> For the record I “use” keyboards, but I’m not a
> keyboard player.  This lack of skill with keyboards
> influences both my technical ability to produce and
> the type of music I attempt when I do compose.  As
> does my complete inability to “play” guitar or
> traditional drums – surprise – which is why you find
> neither of these instruments in my compositions.  This
> does not mean I don’t enjoy music using these
> instruments nor that I couldn’t employ them in my own
> work.  But not “knowing” them or having a way to
> produce them equivalently in a composition with the
> nuance of a human player means that I don’t attempt to
> use them as a human player would or pursue those
> styles of musical expression where such techniques
> contribute.  This thereby reduces the potential for
> the “kind” of music I create – which is under no
> circumstance to be confused with the “quality” of
> musical expression as Music.
>
> I find the keyboard, regardless of skill to deliver
> the end result, an easy and intuitive tool to
> investigate patterns and sounds of potential.  That’s
> me, I don’t expect that to be everybody.  But I am
> equally prone to start from my sequencer and drive my
> sound modules that way to find a start that evokes a
> vision.  There is no logic to an approach I’ve been
> able to identify for myself, although I’ve found that
> my compositions that have more of a melodic nature in
> the end are usually those whose musical theme was
> begun from the kernel of a keyboard experiment and
> those where rhythm and beat dominate are those from a
> sequencer (most particularly my MD).  This does not
> mean that I don’t use melody with rhythm and vice
> versa, I do/can/might/not, just that the starting
> inspiration and dominate theme for me seems to follow
> this influence.
>
> I would go insane without music.  I think that
> everyone that is on this list falls into that grouping
> of humans for whom Music “does it” – the way painting
> or mathematics is sometimes for others.  I think that
> each of us have varying levels of skill with
> instrumental technique and composition that influence
> our ability to create; I know I do.  Thinking as I
> write this I would have to say that primary among
> those handful of reasons why I love electronic music
> (any kind) is that it opens wider avenues and
> techniques to me with which I can participate in my
> passion for music by creating, where before I’d felt
> my physical skill with an instrument limited just how
> far and what tonal themes I could attempt myself –
> regardless of what I heard in my head.  I could care
> less what you call the end result or how it’s done; my
> MD along with my computer, and keyboards, hardware and
> software modules, processors, samplers, sequencers…
> all combine to give me the exquisite pleasure of
> creating what I could not do with my corporate self.
> And when I’m done I’m equally as likely to CD some
> wicked blues and listen to that guitar scream.
>
>
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