Unrefined "Musician" Gains a Global Audience 325
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "An unskilled musician performed a catchy pop instrumental for more than one million YouTube users even though he can't play a lick of drums or piano. The 22-year-old Norwegian's tool was stop-motion video, WSJ.com reports. From the article: 'To make "Amateur," Mr. Gjertsen recorded each analog beat and note one by one on video. He transferred the sounds from each video clip into audio files, which he could rearrange with the Fruity Loops sound-editing program — the same software he's used to create his all-digital music in the past. After organizing the sound files into the right order, Mr. Gjertsen reconstructed the pattern with the original video files. In the final product, he insists, nothing about his performance was digitally enhanced. "You have the original sounds from the video," he says.'"
"Unskilled"? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd wager most modern music is made just like that, and involves a lot of people who would meet this definition of "unskilled" musician.
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Re:"Unskilled"? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Unskilled musician" no.
"Unskilled performer" yes. "Unskilled composer" I think not.
Re:"Unskilled"? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I disagree. I play a number of instruments and have fiddled with drums and keyboard. You'll note that when he's playing drums, he never has to prepare for the next hit. He's never thinking about what comes next. Same on the piano. He's just hunched over with two fingers outstretched. And that's what makes this 'unskilled' versus skilled. If you watch a skilled pian
Sampling is how pop music is made (Score:4, Insightful)
What the h*ck do you think MIDI [wikipedia.org] is? Or tracked music [wikipedia.org]? Or Mellotron [wikipedia.org]? Or Fairlight [wikipedia.org]?
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I'm dissing the entire recorded music market. The idea that you go on tour for years in shitty venues for peanuts trying to advertise your recordings as a product.
Recordings are the fucking advertisement, not the real value. Listening to an album is a poor substitute for the dynamic of creation or live appreciation of th
Re:"Unskilled"? (Score:4, Funny)
It's cymbal, not symbol. I'm not a musician and even I know that.
Re:"Unskilled"? C'mon... (Score:5, Funny)
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Aphex Twin is Music (Score:5, Insightful)
A few months and who knows?
The man is skilled. Skilled at sampling and editing. He's not, however, a skilled musician.
I'm sorry, you're mistaken.
The only things your argument establishes is that he is not a talented drummer or pianist. A musician is someone who makes music, and for the purposes of defining the term, I couldn't give a shit how it's made.
The Richard D. James Album [allmusic.com] by Aphex Twin contains, in my opinion, some of the most beautiful "music" made in the last decade using techniques very similar, in principle, to the ones this guy is using. I'm thrilled to see that new tools are allowing different people to become musicians in brand new ways.
Pompous much? (Score:5, Insightful)
No one, other than academics who over intellectualize most music, really cares whether there is a 12-tone row in a piece of music. Why would you expect one to show up in a song by Aphex Twin? Would it make it a better piece of music? Aperiodic rhythms? Who cares?
Music is judged by the vast majority of people in subjective, opinionated terms. Arguing that someone should justify the use of sampling in music by citing an unknown, and in most people's opinion unlistenable (though innovative), composer is ridiculous. I appreciate those on the vanguard like Stockhausen for pushing boundaries and bringing new ideas to the table, but that doesn't necessarily make what they do 'good' music in a conventional (i.e. layman's) sense.
You sound like a pompous asshole. I guess what bothers me most is the tone of superiority that is expressed through statements like yours and by most people who hold similar opinions, and the insinuation that if someone disagrees they are stupid and wrong. It does nothing to encourage communication and exchange of ideas, and everything to turn people off of the fringe completely.
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Re:Pompous much? (Score:5, Interesting)
My Imitation Pompous (Score:3, Interesting)
You've reminded me of a story.
About a dozen years ago, I went to New York with my then-girlfriend. We decided to go to the Met.
At the time I had long fuzzy hair, was only halfway bald, and wore fairly eccentric collegey clothes. A denim jacket, ripped jeans, loud shirts, etc. In short, I looked moderately freaky.
So we go to the met. Oh yeah, did I mention we had been drinking?
I decide to have a little fun with my girlfriend. As I would approach a work of art, I would make a comment as a joke.
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Please show me where this brilliant insanity has ever been done before.
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-an actual musician.
He certainly is a musician. (Score:5, Insightful)
Although new instruments have had a history of being rejected by more conventional instrument players whenever they're introduced, I would have hoped that we'd moved beyond that now. (Did you know what harpsicord players thought of the piano when it was first introduced? It wasn't flattering, I'll bet.) Keyboards, synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, and other electronic devices are all valid tools for a musician to use. For that matter, so are 55-gallon drums and PVC pipe, at the other end of the spectrum.
This guy made music; therefore he is a musician. The fact that you think that 'anybody' could do this is irrelevant; everybody isn't doing this, or it wouldn't be notable and other people wouldn't be listening to it. Acting haughty because he doesn't have conventional instrumental skills is ridiculous.
Re:"Unskilled"? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Just because you don't understand how classical musicians work (and I'm sure this is what you're referring to), please don't make an outright arrogant statement such as this. By your line of pathetic reasoning, Ben Kingsley doesn't have a creative bone in his body because he does nothing but "read other people's scripts all day". Ben Kingsley interprets sc
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What about the unoriginal "painting" process used by so many artists? Or the unoriginal "film" process used by all those movie producers and directors? Or that unoriginal "acting" process used in the theatre? I guess there's not much to be excited about in the art world, since it's all unoriginal...
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Re:"Unskilled"? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"Unskilled"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Translation:
"As a clueless amateur who has managed to lay my hands on a few instruments, I now prepare to deliver my infallible wisdom. First of all, he's not actually playing those instruments. He just recorded video clips and rearranged them. So you see, he didn't actually have to play the notes in order or at any particular time. Real instrumentalists *do* have to play notes in sequence. Ergo, he is a terrible musician.
Even though I'm a musician in the loftiest, most pure sense of the word, I am not rich and famous. I now mention a current band to show that I am 'with it'. I also hate them for their success. I've never been part of a real recording session, but I know just how it works, and quite frankly, this guy does not meet my own personal standards of musicianship.
So while this guy may be skilled at making music, he is not a skilled musician. This is so obvious that I can't be bothered to explain my logic."
Starting from the top:
Thank you for you explanation of the nuances of playing an instrument. Because we all missed the part where he didn't actually play them. The way he just plunked a few notes then assembled them into a piece was kind of like the point, you know? At the beginning he showed us that.
Now your knowledge of modern music is somewhat lacking, both in the areas everyone should know (current groups) and in the areas you propose to explain (recording). Certainly the amount of editing any particular group needs varies, but speaking as someone with actual knowledge of the field, modern music is very heavily edited, and has been for a number of years. When he says that modern music is made "just like that" he's right on the money. A sample is generally longer than his, but there is a phenomenal amount of cut'n'paste work in every single song you hear on the radio (unless you're listening to oldies or acoustic music).
Nice attempt to make yourself look moderate here. "The man is skilled. Skilled at sampling and editing." These sound like words that would leave George Bush's mouth, by the way. You've managed to develop a strange definition of "musician" which doesn't seem to line up with whether a person makes music. I suggest syncing with reality at your earliest convenience!
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The man is skilled. Skilled at sampling and editing. He's not, however, a skilled musician.
This is kind of arguing the semantics of whether the word "musician" includes composers who create music but can't actually play that music. There's also the point that due to the invention of devices that can record sounds and play them back, and with it the genre of music concrete, you can be able to play instruments such as audiotape and digital samplers without having to play them in real time. I think we can
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Hair (Score:5, Funny)
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The hair? You must've missed the pink-shorts and black tights combo.
Man I Dig That Crazy Beat! (Score:5, Funny)
IDM (Score:4, Insightful)
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Career path (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Career path (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that's his point. That the 'musician' in much of today's recorded music is actually the producer/editor and not the person you hear singing/playing the notes that make up the music. The music is the editing, the editing is the music.
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Retro! (Score:4, Informative)
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Free software for making music (Score:3, Informative)
The modern incarnation of the tracker concept would be Renoise. It has VST support and other things that electronic musicians would expect from a studio application, with the efficient interface only a tracker provides. It's also only $60, which is trivial compared to FL Studio, which is something like $300 for the fully functional version. [/ad]
The open-source incarnation of the tracker concept would be Modplug Tracker combined with Audacity. It has VST support and other things that electronic musicians would expect from a studio application, with the efficient interface only a tracker provides. It's also only $0 and under a free software license, which is trivial compared to Renoise, which is something like $60 for the fully functional version. [/ad]
Youtube's impact on the music scene (Score:3, Informative)
umm (Score:5, Funny)
Now this is cutting edge stuff here - simply by dictating what pitch, how long, and when notes should be played, he was able to "perform" an entire song!!
Can you imagine the potential of this? Why, you could be an entire orchestra by yourself! In fact, you could even perform this kind of trick LIVE - simply substitute musicians skilled in their instruments for the samples, and in order to "control" them, you could provide them with the musical instructions somehow on paper. Of course you'd have to implement some kind of global timer to keep them all together, but it seems very doable!
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I am sure it is doble and there are probably a few dozen
Re:umm (Score:4, Informative)
The real success of the video is, like you said, the work that went into it, the actual composition. There are thousands of people making MODs and MIDI files; this guy just added the video. So: premise stupid, execution excellent. Kind of the opposite of modern art.
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is the sound the joke made as it soared over your head and out of the auditorium.
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Funny (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone submitted the link to this video a month ago when it first appeared on blogs and Digg etc it wouldn't have been accepted as a story on Slashdot. Funny how the Wall Street Journal's description of the video, spare interview, and short backstory showcasing their world-class investigative journalism (the same that doggedly followed the Enron debacle) makes this YouTube clip a legitimate story to post on Slashdot's front page.
I'm not complaining about it being here, or complaining that the Wall Street Journal submits its own stuff. Just funny how a random link becomes legitimate, that's all.
Back in the day, we had .mod files (Score:2, Interesting)
Nice to see what the little man in the synthesizer actually looks like, though.
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Re:Back in the day, we had .mod files (Score:4, Informative)
Try OpenMPT (MODPlug Tracker), which is now free software. I used it to arrange the Russian music for LOCKJAW [pineight.com].
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Of course. The format is still in widespread use, although typically more than 4 channels are employed these days (and they aren't hard-coded to left and right channels, as with the Amiga). There are many Pocket PC, Gameboy and Cellphone games that use tracker style playback (most completely MOD compatible) to save storage space.
MikMod [raphnet.net], fmod [fmod.org] and Hekkus [shlzero.com] are three different libraries currently used by game developers for mod playback
Bring on the remixes ... (Score:2, Funny)
MySpace (Score:5, Insightful)
This kid really is awesome. His editing skills are unreal.
Check out his MySpace [myspace.com] page. He has other material apparently.
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I'm with you on awesome. You never know, a talent like we see in Florian Schneider might come around more than once, in a lifetime.
Kraftwerk has been such a fantastic influence on techno music, and popular music in general. To me, the influence is obvious - but he is certainly doing his own thing!
genius (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah... (Score:2)
Another of his videos (Score:4, Informative)
life is just a sequence of ..... (Score:2)
I'd buy that for a dollar! (Score:2)
look at all the h8rs here (Score:2, Insightful)
jealous much ? everybody going "all he did was blah blah blah"
iam sure you can compile a Kernel or put a new skin on KDE but can you do what he did ? and if its so easy lets see your version iam sure you have loads of music and creative videos you edited right ?
is that crickets i hear or the sound of tumbleweed ?
to some people hardcore ASM code is an art to others its mindnumbing shite, Art takes many forms how many can you master ?
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PS: And yes, I do compose/produce music, reverse engineer and splice music videos together in my spare time.
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So now that I've argued against the parent post
congratulations! (Score:2)
Remember the .mod file? (Score:2)
Lasse Gjertsen is a genius (Score:5, Interesting)
It's obvious from some of the comments that posters haven't seen his work. He's one of the most creative artists I've seen on YouTube. From the pointless and bizarre Den Lille Valpen [youtube.com], to the simple humor of US [youtube.com], to the amazing production values on Jeg går en Tur [youtube.com]. And the guy is only 22.
Personally, I can't wait to see what he comes up with next.
cLive ;-)
ps - oh, and the "Your mother is a" Slutt joke is quite funny too...
not that new (Score:2)
http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/multimedia/xpose [dooyoo.co.uk]
Project idea: MIDI video samples (Score:3, Interesting)
If nothing else, it'd be a cool thing to have on display at parties.
Cool... but not original... (Score:2)
So what? (Score:2)
switch about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Synclavier (Score:2)
As for the "musician" question, I hold that "analog" instruments are just one skill set you can use to make music, and that technology opens up many new ones. These all intersect at the place called "music" but can be vastly different in execution. In the end, it's all about getting what you heard in your head into everyone else's heads. How you do it ultimately
Could someone please make this like wavetable... (Score:2)
I think Animusic does something similar.
Many words to say few things... (Score:4, Funny)
Revised news summary:
Redundant (Score:5, Funny)
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The software designers thought it was unlikely that anyone would confuse their sequencing software with a breakfast cereal, but apparently Sanitarium had in mind a situation in which they might want to give away CDs with cereal.
Also, they discovered that IT executives tended to fall about laughing when they told them the name of the software.
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2. They didn't also have the video sample as well - only audio.
3. They didn't post it on YouTube.
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there were no "high skilled" sequencer technicians at the time. It was an emerging technology. Most of these guys in the krautrock genre were doing experimental music, a lot of them probably had little real music training.
As for the rest? Yeah, the video wasn't there. Is this what really makes it newsworthy?
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have always relied on the definition of music as it was taught to me by my first college music professor: "Music is sounds and silence organised in time".
As far as I'm concerned this guy is very skilled at organising sounds and silence in time. Ergo, he's a skilled musician. He's just not a skilled instrumentalist.
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Ahh, what a question. In my day we would have put it this way:
But is it art?
After all, the same could be said of Beethoven:
All he did was imagine sounds, write them in the right sequence on paper and create a pattern appealing to the ear.
...just another kraut doing this 200 years ago!
And, yes, you are missing something!
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Ok, mr insightful, you care to elaborate on this? My experience is that when people leave thigns this open ended they're normally talking out of their ass.
After all, the same could be said of Beethoven
Actually, not in the same context. Beethoven actually had the dexterity and skills to play this in real time. We're talking more about sampling and creating a pattern that is programmed into a machine and played back by a machine. The closest you'll get to that prior t
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Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah. A bunch of 'krauts and one o' them Frog-Eaters [jeanmicheljarre.com].
Re:Moo (Score:5, Informative)
Then use VLC http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ [videolan.org] to play the resulting file.
Re:Moo (Score:4, Funny)
if that does not work, grab a live cd and burn it on yout back up machine (you had one right?) boot up your machine from the live cd then mount the hdd and modify grub to load the old kernel. its as simple as that.
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Thanks!
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Oh, that's all, eh? It must be pretty easy for someone with no musical training to track. And that is what he's doing - IDM with a video channel. It's not trivial; it's not easy, but it is neat to see someone extend the tracking concept. Of course, most tracks have many samples playing simultaneously which makes associating a video sample with each audio sample problematic. You could alpha blend the many video samples, but it would be hard to
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It's kind of like praising people for trying to speak a few phrases of a foreign language, but once they can speak it fluently it's not that big of a deal anymore.