Ableton Forum

The Leveller wrote: Good point Killingtime, as long as its personal thats where the originality comes from I guess.
I've completely lost the point of my thread in the first place...

No you did not lost the point! Point is that relationship with music is personal and different for everyone.
To expand on Killingtime's concept which I agree upon, when you sit in front of your computer and you say 'I have to compose something' you will turn out with something that it's less original than when it happens by magic.
IMHO original music is what comes from that universe of magic moments in which creation is left free.
Everyone is influenced. We live submerged in noise, music, random atonal backgrounds... all day.. all night.
When the mind picks all this up and shakes it into something new who cares where it comes from?
That's original, that's from you.

- Best
- Pasha

Well it really depends on what you class as original doesn't it?

The worst thing I did when I started out was to try to make my music not sound like anyone else's. Mainly in pursuit of creating a new genre/sub genre, something which you may consider to be original.

I think striving to sound not like anyone else's music has the most negatively limiting affect you can possibly have on creativity . This is because the music influences that you have and the songs you think of as you make the music actually work against you. You constantly watching over your creation like a mean school master smacking your fingers with a cane every time you make a part that sounds too obvious or 'been done before'. This kills creativity and makes it very had to come up with anything you're happy with, or that some others will relate to.

When I finally starting thinking about how other musicians and artists worked that I liked and that I thought were original in their time. I soon realised that they all purposely drew from others and stole the best bits. I realised that when all successful artists I liked (and I would say it's true for at 95% or more artists) created something it is just a combination of all their favourite influences that have chosen to put together.

So my point is when I started to intentionally choose various elements as a starting point from other artists, my creativity and quality rose dramatically and instantly. I think the key however is to not take everything from just the one artist. You may take the beats from one, the sounds from another, the arrangement from someone else etc.

I curse myself for not realising this a lot earlier and consider how idiotic I was when not in this frame of mind. Give yourself a break, free yourself from not trying to sound like others then, choose the bits you like from others.

Your combination of the various parts of peoples music will be original.

If you are very original it doesn't translate into a general success. Being "ahead of your time" is pretty bad, and usually just means very little positive response and/or derision. Usually a new genre is broken by the followers, ten or twenty years after the originator dies in poverty/madness. If you are lucky they'll make a tv program about you and pronounce your name half-right.

Angstrom wrote:If you are very original it doesn't translate into a general success. Being "ahead of your time" is pretty bad, and usually just means very little positive response and/or derision. Usually a new genre is broken by the followers, ten or twenty years after the originator dies in poverty/madness. If you are lucky they'll make a tv program about you and pronounce your name half-right.

Sounds a bit pessimistic but I guess it's true.

Angstrom wrote:If you are very original it doesn't translate into a general success. Being "ahead of your time" is pretty bad, and usually just means very little positive response and/or derision. Usually a new genre is broken by the followers, ten or twenty years after the originator dies in poverty/madness. If you are lucky they'll make a tv program about you and pronounce your name half-right.

that is utterly utterly wrong and shite.

I think there's a lot of merit in refining ideas that were badly received at the time of inception.
Fresh ideas are often raw, and like a painting - you have to stand back a distance to see what needs doing. Often at the time the originator had to labour so hard to just give birth to the thing they couldn't contextualise it , they couldn't step back enough to "finish it off".
We have the benefit of hindsight, and ought to use it to refine these germ ideas to something tasty.
Most people who are proclaimed as geniuses, in any field, were refining the work of little known progenitors. Standing on the shoulders of giants, is the way to do it. Attempting to be a sole creator is pure fruitless egotism. Mainly because: Music Jesus gets killed by the Romans.

Angstrom wrote:I think there's a lot of merit in refining ideas that were badly received at the time of inception.
Fresh ideas are often raw, and like a painting - you have to stand back a distance to see what needs doing. Often at the time the originator had to labour so hard to just give birth to the thing they couldn't contextualise it , they couldn't step back enough to "finish it off".
We have the benefit of hindsight, and ought to use it to refine these germ ideas to something tasty.
Most people who are proclaimed as geniuses, in any field, were refining the work of little known progenitors. Standing on the shoulders of giants, is the way to do it.

i think u might take music, art and yourself just a little too seriously sir.

jtdj wrote:

Angstrom wrote:I think there's a lot of merit in refining ideas that were badly received at the time of inception.
Fresh ideas are often raw, and like a painting - you have to stand back a distance to see what needs doing. Often at the time the originator had to labour so hard to just give birth to the thing they couldn't contextualise it , they couldn't step back enough to "finish it off".
We have the benefit of hindsight, and ought to use it to refine these germ ideas to something tasty.
Most people who are proclaimed as geniuses, in any field, were refining the work of little known progenitors. Standing on the shoulders of giants, is the way to do it.

i think u might take music, art and yourself just a little too seriously sir.

well that's nice, I'm sure!

There's nothing in this which is about me specifically, I've no idea why make a petty ad-hominem attack on me.
In a thread about the merits of the originality of music, do I not have the right to think about the social & psychological implications behind the drive to "be original", and the publics rejection of originality.
You dislike that I think about it, or what?
weirdo

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/ahe ... time.shtml

Angstrom wrote:

jtdj wrote:

Angstrom wrote:I think there's a lot of merit in refining ideas that were badly received at the time of inception.
Fresh ideas are often raw, and like a painting - you have to stand back a distance to see what needs doing. Often at the time the originator had to labour so hard to just give birth to the thing they couldn't contextualise it , they couldn't step back enough to "finish it off".
We have the benefit of hindsight, and ought to use it to refine these germ ideas to something tasty.
Most people who are proclaimed as geniuses, in any field, were refining the work of little known progenitors. Standing on the shoulders of giants, is the way to do it.

i think u might take music, art and yourself just a little too seriously sir.

well that's nice, I'm sure!

There's nothing in this which is about me specifically, I've no idea why make a petty ad-hominem attack on me.
In a thread about the merits of the originality of music, do I not have the right to think about the social & psychological implications behind the drive to "be original", and the publics rejection of originality.
You dislike that I think about it, or what?
weirdo

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/ahe ... time.shtml

im just not into pretentious bullshit. its pisses me off when you get knobheads goin about talking shit and acting all pretenious about their 'experimental' ambient music. i say fuck off to it.

above answer speaks for itself

Angstrom wrote:

jtdj wrote:

Angstrom wrote:I think there's a lot of merit in refining ideas that were badly received at the time of inception.
Fresh ideas are often raw, and like a painting - you have to stand back a distance to see what needs doing. Often at the time the originator had to labour so hard to just give birth to the thing they couldn't contextualise it , they couldn't step back enough to "finish it off".
We have the benefit of hindsight, and ought to use it to refine these germ ideas to something tasty.
Most people who are proclaimed as geniuses, in any field, were refining the work of little known progenitors. Standing on the shoulders of giants, is the way to do it.

i think u might take music, art and yourself just a little too seriously sir.

well that's nice, I'm sure!

There's nothing in this which is about me specifically, I've no idea why make a petty ad-hominem attack on me.
In a thread about the merits of the originality of music, do I not have the right to think about the social & psychological implications behind the drive to "be original", and the publics rejection of originality.
You dislike that I think about it, or what?
weirdo

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/ahe ... time.shtml

Thanks for the link Angstrom:

...The historical example of Alfred Wegener, who first suggested that continents moved around on the surface of the planet in 1915. His ideas were dismissed as fantasy. His claim was largely based on the fact that the landmass of the Earth looked like a huge jigsaw: Africa and South America appear to fit together. It was only years later that other evidence emerged to support his theory and the new science of plate tectonics was born.

It seems far from 'originality' in music but it's closer than it appears.
Moreover I think that with music you can add the pleasantness for the listeners.
Music, differently from science has not to be proved right or wrong.
Music is something that people enjoy listening or not for one reason or the other
and in this case those listeners are the ones belonging to your time.

- Best
- Pasha

@jtdj Yeah where's the originality?! Ha ha - actually your stuff is quite original isn't it? I like it. Could be a hit at the next Notting Hill carnival, get it on mate.
However...
With my 'work' the isolation of a recognisable figure increases and the narrative character decreases (contrary to what one might initially assume that this lack of illustrative information would bring about), the interpretative effects are inflamed. The titles re-direct the work, however, they do not eradicate the inherent ambiguity, I like to visualise subconscious sensation and capture the reflective pauses within thought as a disquieting stillness.


http://soundcloud.com/coat-hanger

I think we've covered all the angles today...

jimmynitcher wrote:@jtdj Yeah where's the originality?! Ha ha - actually your stuff is quite original isn't it? I like it. Could be a hit at the next Notting Hill carnival, get it on mate.
However...
With my 'work' the isolation of a recognisable figure increases and the narrative character decreases (contrary to what one might initially assume that this lack of illustrative information would bring about), the interpretative effects are inflamed. The titles re-direct the work, however, they do not eradicate the inherent ambiguity, I like to visualise subconscious sensation and capture the reflective pauses within thought as a disquieting stillness.


http://soundcloud.com/coat-hanger

this raises an interesting dichotomy relating to a subliminal duality which infuses so much of "culture" replicated by an innate symbolism of ambient dystopian obfuscation, many dirigibles are found latent in cross-cultural (of as Heidegger called it "booty") symbolism. Hairpieces often, or never (as the case may be) are bilaterally synergistic ontologically speaking, or to put it another way: pmsl at the u mad bro dude