Ableton Forum

artpunk wrote:What exactly are you talking about? What instinct? The oldest instictints I know of are the 3 F's!

Ummm.... food fighting and fapping?

Anyway, I am inclined to leave Suburban thug to his annoyance, which he is perfectly entitled to. Life's little annoyances are like its pleasures: they are to be cherished and cosseted, and there's no accounting for taste.

I just don't see why people get self-concious about craftsmanship. It's not more or less than art. Actually, scratch that. It is more important than art. It's just less highfaluting. Some of us prefer having distinctions between things. It helps explain things to people who don't understand what the hell you mean.

If art is a good, is bad art art?

SuburbanThug wrote:I just don't see why people get self-concious about craftsmanship. It's not more or less than art. Actually, scratch that. It is more important than art. It's just less highfaluting. Some of us prefer having distinctions between things. It helps explain things to people who don't understand what the hell you mean.

Yes, I do understand where you are coming from, but I am a bit naughty sometimes and like to stir the pot, no disrespect meant. All of our language, categorisation, taxonomy, what-have-you is a way of filtering & interpreting our reality so we may more effectively understand and function within it. Sometimes we can fool ourselves though. The map is not the territory...

SuburbanThug wrote:It is more important than art.

it may be more 'useful' to humans, but craft is in no way more important than art.

SuburbanThug wrote: Some of us prefer having distinctions between things.

oh yes, of course, classification is a uniquely human obsession. But just because you prefer to maintain a distinction between two sides of a gradient does not make that distinction any more real. Classification is always a simplifying illusion.

Without craft you could not produce electronic music.

what a useless conversation..

the artist is usually a very skilled craftsman + visionary...

3dot... wrote:what a useless conversation..

the artist is usually a very skilled craftsman + visionary...

I know very few guitarists who make their own guitars, painters that make their own brushes, or electronic musicians who program their own DAWs.
Of course this thread is about a musician who made his own DAW but I only took issue with him being self conscious about building DAWs and plugins for other people to use. I don't see this as a lesser calling or any less visionary than what artists that use his products create. It's a disservice to craftsmen to consider their products less important or less visionary than what artists create.
Of course the line is more blurred with artists that create their own sounds from scratch. People who modify presets more often (like myself) I would relate more to a guitarist who uses effects and certain amps to attain his own sound rather than a craftsmen.

I didn't mean to be so controversial...

SuburbanThug wrote:If art is a good, is bad art art?

Now you're stirring the pot!

Is ART good or bad? How do we define those values in relation to art? Can the value judgements of good and bad and what 'they' mean be agreed upon by everyone when applied to art, artistic concepts and endeavors?

It seems obvious that good art is not always valued since it often takes a long time for it to be appreciated (sometimes never.) You'll find that "genuinely artistic" people are often ahead of the curve when it comes to recognizing these talents. Strangely though, those same people can be just as susceptible to appreciating "bad" or less complex artistic expression. I've also found that people who are very critical in their thinking towards what is good art are also prone to overlooking or dismissing things that I assert are important. I've found that many of those people have a very "traditional" background in art in as far as they are mostly informed by and critique by the accepted standards and theories that precede them. Though they tend to be the sharpest and most intelligent critics I also find that they are often behind the curve compared to people with less traditional backgrounds, people that are often susceptible to bad art as well as good super-modern art (see: hipsters.)

This conversation is really a scary one, once you get down to the nitty gritty. In the end we reveal that many definitions we rely on to get by in the world seem to come down to consensus. Whether that is the true reality or not may be hard to ascertain given the limitations of our intelligence.

In economics I'm pretty sure "good art" is anything that sells and maintains value.

SuburbanThug wrote:
I didn't mean to be so controversial...

it's not controversial..
and none is more "important" than the other.. (one would not exist without the other)
arguably..
a great saxophone player would probably find other means of expression if the saxophone was never invented...
just saying.. the course of this persons' life might be more important than the specific tool he eventually chose to use...

back to topic..
imo art cannot be defined.. (if tried to be defined the definition will be broken by a counter-movement... hehe)
it is the spirit / vision of a person manifested in real life..
it has no boundaries (except the physical ones)....
one person would say it is art.. another person agrees.. and that's it!
none of you can say otherwise.. it is acknowledged as art.

as a term ...the word "art" is often "borrowed" to describe something that excels beyond its "normal" boundaries..
much like the word "perfect" is often used to describe many things which are obviously not void of flaws..

3dot... wrote: one person would say it is art.. another person agrees.. and that's it!
none of you can say otherwise.. it is acknowledged as art.

This is one of the main theories that we have been forced to accept about art although I think it is incomplete. Those in the art world at this point must accept that anything that is submitted as art must be considered or critiqued as art.

Which brings me back to "If art is a good, is bad art art?"

this is exactly why art is such a broad term
what's good for you might not be good for me...
(truth is in the mind of the ponderer)

in my mind..
artist =
a person who dedicates his life to HIS art...
there is no middle-ground.. you either are or you're not..
you'll never hear anyone say: "well, I used to be an artist... but now I'm a lawyer"
artistry is another layer on-top the craft / life..
and doesn't necessarily mean you are making a living off of successfully...

...oh, come on....

it's all about the mission....the focus....and the obsession.

so you're obsessed with something?......you got to do it, no matter what...

you give birth to something.....?

you define a space and fill it with what so ever that was'nt there before....?

you got a fetish?

you got a focus?

and you need to comunicate this...?



well, then you're an artist.....

people who try to define a line between craft and art and need to judge what is and what is not....
well, they'll never get it.....simple as that.

and robert?

well, he got a mission, and a focus, a fetish and no doubt....he got an obsession.....AND MIND BECOMES MATTER....
so what's the fuzz....?

Along came a beatnik...

This reminds me of a discussion that we used to have on a trance music forum here in South Africa. (Bomelakiesie. Don't ask.)

It was about when (and whether) a performance by a DJ / music producer could be called a 'live set'.

Some felt that if you play your own music and play the lead lines etc etc etc it is live
Some felt that it ain't live unless you are up there tootling your acoustic krummhorn in real time, spittle raining on the audience

The debate went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

And on.

No one gave an inch. No-one conceded a point. No-one could leave it alone either. It just went on and on and on and on. For pages. On and on. For quite a few years.

Two pages. Early days. Go for it, guys.