Ableton Forum

BoddAH wrote:

Stromkraft wrote:

BoddAH wrote:
Maybe it’s true that a sampler isn’t a real musical instrument.

A red herring. Who claims that a Sampler isn't a real musical instrument? No-one.

doesn’t require actual dexterity) to be instruments.

And given the fact that you don’t actually “play” them, I have to agree. They’re not strictly speaking musical instruments.

A producer using computers and samplers is much closer to a compositor than to a traditional musician but that’s alright. Composing is a legitimate art form as well.

What whoever thinks is irrelevant as a "music instrument" by widely adapted definitions are in short any sound emanating device or apparatus playable by humans. How the instruments are played is not the determining factor.

Samplers can be played and more often than not are. They can be played with MIDI controllers such as a
- Traditional Keyboard
- Other keyboards like the Push
- MIDI drum kit or natural drums with trig mikes and drum module
- Any object with trig mikes
- Laser beams, either directly affecting sounds or via MIDI

as well as in many other ways.
That they can also be programmed is irrelevant. A Yamaha Grand Piano with MIDI can be both played and programmed. To claim that a programmed Yamaha Grand Piano is not a musical instrument is ridiculous.

If you're a music producer or a musician is not determined by the type of instruments you use, but rather from how you work and what you do with them.

I am a music producer and one of my tools is musical performance and expressions on any type of instrument, acoustic or electronic.

yur2die4 wrote: The key qualities of specific instruments are, how one interfaces with them equating to affecting their output, and creating unique controllable sounds.

Exactly.

The views of some musician friends of BoddAH that he brought forward is akin to having the belief that there are real actors only in the theatre (live playing) and that actors in Cinema movies are just faking everything. Making music releases may these days more and more get closer to how Cinema features are produced, but the human performance or expression are still central aspects of this.

The fact that there are loads of crap releases is not relevant. It's always been like that since the birth of the recording industry.

^ based on that logic a cassette player, CD player, or an iPod is a musical instrument too.

i guess everyone is a musician.

"i got my first instrument and started playing music when i was 3"

H20nly wrote:^ based on that logic a cassette player, CD player, or an iPod is a musical instrument too.

i guess everyone is a musician.

If you're hell bent on understanding "playing" literally in its widest meaning, perhaps. I can't spell out every little nuance and deviation just to satisfy you.

I said earlier " If you're a music producer or a musician is not determined by the type of instruments you use, but rather from how you work and what you do with them". I can add "or neither of these". That's it. Misunderstand it all you will.

My take on the whole thing is "It's not what you do it with, it's how you do it."

Stromkraft wrote:Misunderstand it all you will

justify much?


ok. you sample.
you don't have to force us to believe that it's music by making the definition so damn vague that every time someone knocks on a door they just wrote a song.

H20nly wrote: you don't have to force us to believe that it's music by making the definition so damn vague that every time someone knocks on a door they just wrote a song.

That's your interpretation, and a poor one at that, and not what I said.

In addition I don't sample. At least not in the way you falsely and lazily assume. See what I wrote about performances.

meh. i like BoddAH's description better than yours. nuff said.

H20nly wrote:meh. i like BoddAH's description better than yours. nuff said.

yeah sure, and James Blake isn't a real musician if he plays a sampling synthesizer. Funny thing is if he plays an acoustic piano he is. Unless, it has MIDI. If so. he's a cheat!
Good luck with that!

Also, that's very uninteresting to know as that was obvious for all. Mentioning why might have been interesting. Or not.

There are a few too many users in these forums that seem to be 12 years old and are predetermined to interpret everything at face value. That's boring as this is not the case in numerous other music forums.

Everything is 'potentially' an instrument, including tape players, iPods, and doors. This includes entirely the skilled and the unskilled players of these instruments, but also excludes them. It really depends on how they interact with it and whether or not they intend to be musicing in One camp, or at the same time whether the person listening determines for it to be an audible performance, like the inadvertent rhythm of a person quickly folding laundry. Or the guy hearing you practice, waiting got you to play 'music', or when you're enjoying an extremely ambient work, when some other guy is talking loudly because he is trying to say something and there is background noise which he does not perceive as music, and therefore is not music.

Stromkraft wrote:that's very uninteresting to know as that was obvious for all. Mentioning why might have been interesting. Or not.

ok... how about this...

unlike you... i don't need to justify my samples and sampling by pretending that sampling takes anywhere near the skill it takes to play a piano, violin, guitar or even a harmonica ffs.

when i sample it goes like this... cut -> paste -> move on to the next part of the song.

i don't pontificate about it while typing on an Apple keyboard with one hand and simultaneously patting myself on the back with the other as i pretentiously berate and attempt to devalue other posters valid opinions about the effort it takes to play music vs. triggering recordings in new and varied ways.

is that interesting enough for you?

H20nly wrote:

Stromkraft wrote:that's very uninteresting to know as that was obvious for all. Mentioning why might have been interesting. Or not.

ok... how about this...



is that interesting enough for you?

You seem to have a very shallow understanding of sampling and samplers.
Sampling is recording a sound. Any sound that can be further refined and worked on. Playing a Sampler that contains samples, that may be a part of an instrument patch is something else than just triggering a sample.

All stages takes skill. But the interesting part here is the final instrument. That like any synth can be played as an instrument. Which is how I use samples.

Part of what makes skill a respectable manner is how so much of an effort can be brilliant and yet go unnoticed.

There is skmething very respectable about that. I can see how there can be days where it can be frustrating, and days where it can be rewarding.

On the other side, yes, there are people who do something with so little thought and bank on it for life.

It is up to each individual to perceive their value for each. Hopefully they'll realize to pay respect where it is due, but it does not entirely matter.

I don't know when this went from being about instruments, to being about skill. A very skilled and diverse instrumentalist can 'play' just about anything.

Choosing when, how, and what samples to record or play is akin to choosing the notes you play and their timbre on the context of the mood and key you are playing in