thinks : is a good faker equivalent to a good performer?

[gjm]

I would argue that nothing is fake. I would also argue that out of the most pointless (empty hearted and souless) attempts to make art, people (the audience I mean) can find meaning. This constantly surprises me. They can be touched in a way you never intended. You may feel like you are going through the motions, but in actual fact have no idea of the inspiration you provide.

One way to test the ideas about what is fake and what is not is to place the argument into a different situation and see if it holds true. The idea that McDonalds food is fake food is a good example. Fake what? Fake white bread? Fake lettuce? Fake tomatoes? Fake potatoes? Is it fake cooking skills? Its possible to take all of the ingredients in a McDonald's eatery and put them togther in a way that does not resemble the original menu. Would the person who did this be considered brilliant? Skilled? Would the food still be fake? This is a loose way to describe Djaying, the use of fundamental ingredients repackaged. The results of such an endeavour usually depend on a persons previous learning and experience. (this is why its important to work at your own game). What would Gordon Ramsey or Jamie Oliver come up with if they rummaged around inside a McDonalds kitchen? It might make a great reality TV show!

Being fake is all about the meaning YOU put on the evidence. The trap comes when you think the other person must think the way you do. People often superimpose thier emotions onto others. The classic is when my wife imposes human emotions onto our dogs. Her concept of happiness therefore is the dogs concept. As performers, just because you feel shitty or uninspired does not automatically translate into a shitty and uninspiring performance. If you are aware of your feelings before hand, then you often find that the show was 'hard.' You really had to work at it. Sometimes though, the incredible happens and you find yourself at the end of a 'performance' thinking holy fuck, where did those majic moments come from? You lost track of time and you performed something that cannot be repeated. Personal growth happens when you can accept that both experiences are fundamental to being human, that they are present in all aspects of life, and that the only person to judge is yourself.

I think people who posess the basic 'artists mentality' are constantly on the look out for the 'magic moments.' The irony of life is that in the most unsuspecting times and places, you can choose or not choose your response, and eventually the result. Accepting that there will be a lifelong tension between striving for the magic moment and going through the motions is fundamental to sanity. Sometimes it might feel like you are living a double life. It is however the basic building blocks of self improvement.

Everyday I 'perform' the role of being a parent to 3 pre teen boys. Sometimes there are magic moments, most of the time it feels like a grind. Sometimes I put in a tonne of effort and other times I am on auto pilot. In this example my kids are the audience and they can be cruel. As the performer though, I do what I need to do to get the job done. Critical to this is the management of their PERCEPTION of my role in there lives. I use all means possible (according to my moral framework) to win their minds. Sometimes I feel I'm a fake, but as long as the 'audience' feels right, then the means justifies the end.

In Angstroms example, if the crowd walked away happer due to the 'fakers' performance, then simply put THIS WAS THE BEST PERFORMANCE for the situation. Bank the cheque. Book the next gig. Have fun.

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[Johnisfaster]

the problem with the scenario of the original poster is that he assumes the music is FOR the crowd. I make my music for myself and therefor I make it how I want to make it. If the crowd likes it thats awesome but it's for me to enjoy first and the crowd to enjoy second. AS IT SHOULD BE.

if you really really want to be the "I do everything live" guy but you cave and do everything prerecorded so the crowd likes it better then I have serious doubts about why you're making music in the first place.

[continuous]

some of the best stuff is vunerable and imperfect IMHO...

[doc holiday]

the problem with the scenario of the original poster is that he assumes the music is FOR the crowd. I make my music for myself and therefor I make it how I want to make it. If the crowd likes it thats awesome but it's for me to enjoy first and the crowd to enjoy second. AS IT SHOULD BE.

if you really really want to be the "I do everything live" guy but you cave and do everything prerecorded so the crowd likes it better then I have serious doubts about why you're making music in the first place.

nice


like i mentioned before, not everyone has soul, and not everyone can see soul, but when its there its HOT

[gjm]

Johnisfaster wrote:

the problem with the scenario of the original poster is that he assumes the music is FOR the crowd. I make my music for myself and therefor I make it how I want to make it. If the crowd likes it thats awesome but it's for me to enjoy first and the crowd to enjoy second. AS IT SHOULD BE.

There is No problem with the OP scenario. For all intent and purpose it is hypothetical. But you are being honest and true to YOUR conscience and your musical endeavour. You can do nothing more than that. But somebody else can be just as true and transparent to their conscience and reach a different conclusion. You both have a place.

if you really really want to be the "I do everything live" guy but you cave and do everything prerecorded so the crowd likes it better then I have serious doubts about why you're making music in the first place.

To pay the bills (assuming you are getting paid... if not , reputation is still a valid trading comodity). To buy some nice things in life. To pay the mortage. To pay for a holiday. Hell, some people spend all of their lives giving their best creative efforts to their employer . How sad is that.

[knotkranky]

It's all relative, so it's all the same imo. The only difference is "believability" But, if one gets busted, then all bets are off and they'll go down in flames. You don't have to worry about that too much if yer the realish deal.

Faking it? hmm. Is an overdub faking it? Is 48 tracks cheating? A drum "machine"? An orchestra stab on middle C? The trance button? Computers? I really don't know what's real anymore. Just entertain me.

[dj superflat]

actually, it's sad if you're not giving your best creative efforts to your employer, whoever that might be. almost by definition, your employment is what you do with most of your time. if it's not creative, or not worth your best effort, odds are good you've got the wrong gig and should maybe start looking for something else.

YMMV, but many people erroneously assume being a professional/signed/touring musician (or producer) is a creative/artistic endeavor. but there's very little of that for most people. how much time do you really need to come up with 10-12 good songs a year? most of what you do as a musician is sit in buses and/or planes, wait around for sound check, and then play whatever you've been playing for the past year. it can be great fun, some people build more creativity into live shows than others. but it's nowhere near pure artistry. there's lots of dealing with management, getting the tshirts made, giving the same tiresome interview for the 20th time, etc. same for production, cause unless you're very lucky and/or in demand, you work on a lot of crap.

not saying it's not better than being a barrista. but it's not all creativity/art/etc. (just about nothing is).

[gjm]

dj superflat wrote:

actually, it's sad if you're not giving your best creative efforts to your employer, whoever that might be. almost by definition, your employment is what you do with most of your time. if it's not creative, or not worth your best effort, odds are good you've got the wrong gig and should maybe start looking for something else.

Touche (pronounced Too-Shay. I can't find the little twiddly thing to go above the e)

[b0unce]

tooooooo looooooooong to read
I can't believe folks are trying so hard to put lazy ass performance on the same page as the real deal. You folks mustn't have been exposed to a quality live performance yet. Or, whatever gigs you folks manage to go to, the music is just background noise to ordering pints, talking shit, and trying to get laid. All your far-reaching theories make sense if that's all you want out of it. The rest of you are hacks who get paid to press play. congrats, beats working in McDonalds. When the crowd finally get bored of you pre-recorded generic drivel, might I suggest whoring yourself on the street to pay the bills. Sex is sex at the end of the day, who cares how people get it - so long as you get paaaaiiiiiidddd and your punters get laaaaaiiiiiiiiidddddd

[EgAD]

great thread Angstrom, you're one of the reasons I enjoy the forum and don't deem it a waste of time, In my opinion the point is that the audience in your example does not know it's not real, so i would have to say that which ever example the audience thinks is the most real wins hands down.

i don't know why people say it doesn't matter and that the audience doesn't care, in my experience there are times that the people don't care but 8 out of 10 times they do, and when these people are saying that they didn't care they just had a good time it's at those times when they thought it was most likely real even though it wasn't.

when you thought you saw somebody get killed it does something to you even if it turns out that it wasn't real and it's the same thing with music,

alot of people call rock music for posers and there is alot of posing going on but the thing is alot of rock music is about posing and when it all comes together it's perfectly real for the audience and they see a tangible connection between the posing rock musician and the poser rock he's playing.
I stand by the notion that us electronic musicians just think we are too good
we think the audience is stupid just cause they don't know what the fuck midi yoke is but I think it's us who are missing the point they might not know what the fuck bomes translator is but they know that they want to see us connect with what ever the fuck is coming out of that computer and they know they want to see that it's us making that shit happen and not motherfuckin 'intel inside'

[gjm]

Angstrom wrote: Original Post.

So this is what I have been pondering:
it's not what is actually happening, it is what appears to be happening which counts to an audience

you might argue that 'really' making music is somehow morally or somehow perceptually different from 'faking' playing music. But as I said - we are not talking about the reality - we are talking about perception, and the concensus perception is equivalent to reality.
In this example the audience cannot tell, and it is the audience who count here, they are the ones that the music is directed at. They are the democracy who vote on the consensus reality.

This summary works not only for the many but also for the individual. Being 'fake' implies that the recipient of the sensory data has been somehow duped or conned into believing that what occured actually played out in time and space. The audience or the individual believed that something happened that never did. In Angstrom's example there was a positive outcome for the Audience. The 'Fake' performer was judged by the audience as the better. Technically, it was the Audience that chose the positive result. The performer simply 'presented the goods.' It was the imagination of the Audience that created the positive result.

We find similar events taking place everyday and no one questions it. Take for example sports psychology. The individual athlete is both the performer and the audience. The results of visualisation for human performance gains are simply not questioned any more. There is a good book by an English prof (Cambridge or Oxford) called 'The Mind's Eye.' It is a summary of the scientific research into the part that imagination plays in everything from playing music to phobias. Simply put, using the process of visualization, you can think your way to measurable improved results. These results are basicly the same results gained by the control group that actually threw the ball or swung the club or played the instrument. What you have is a self created perception, that did not happen in time or space, that actually created measurable results! This is the ultimate in self delusion. It is also completely socially acceptable as well. Everyone from the Tiger Woods' of the world to the budding high school athlete participates, once informed of the benefits.

Back to the performer and his/her audience. If technically speaking the audience is responsible for making up their individual minds based on what you presented them, then technically as the performer you are not responsible for that result. You can take the credit, but you are not responsible for the way someone else chose to PERCIEVE their reality. In the end, if you are progressivly working on your artistic game, and can accept that you are always in the process of development, then its not a big deal that you influence the perception of others by your chosen means. This is how break throughs is art occur. It dosen't matter that you don't live up to what someone elses version of what 'live' or 'authentic' is. If YOU are getting YOUR desired results as a performer and artist (clearly two different things), then guess what, there will ALWAYS be some smart mouthed hack who will call you down. They usually don't understand the big picture.

[EgAD]

also like hambone said i think, I think there is no need to lie to them, I think they are way more forgiving when we don't. what I do myself is show them... i do vocals too so I show them early on that I'm playing some stuff live and playing stuff sequenced or recorded audio, but whenever i'm playing something recorded i'm doing something live over it, if its vocals then they forgive, if it's some beats then maybe i'm cutting records over it or playing synth parts or whatever or maybe i'm playing the drum hits under something sequenced with a click to keep me steady whatever it is they forgive if they know they're hearing something that they know only one person couldn't play and they feel that i'm doing what I can.

[b0unce]

It dosen't matter that you don't live up to what someone elses version of what 'live' or 'authentic' is. If YOU are getting YOUR desired results as a performer and artist (clearly two different things), then guess what, there will ALWAYS be some smart mouthed hack who will call you down. They usually don't understand the big picture.

what audacious bullshit.
you ladies can gloss this up all day and night with the most existential drivel your vocab can facilitate.

'they usually don't understand the big picture' ....LOL
You been to art school ? Hands up who's been to art school
This is the only place they teach you to espouse this kind of turgid muck

[gjm]

b0unce wrote:

You been to art school ?

Nope.

Your issue is with advertising. And you are right. If someone says they are 'live' then rightfully they should be. No problems there. But your version of live and someone elses don't have to be the same. End of story. You don't need to go to school to learn that.

The timing of my reply is quite funny. I used the word 'Hack.' I see you used it too. I had no intention of turning this back on you. No need to get hostile, if that is what I am to read into your response.

what audacious bullshit.

Thank you. I work hard at being the PERCIEVED bull shitter that I am. I keep my family fed, I pay my bills, and have found my happy place.

I should not have been so bold as to infer that I understand the big picture. Clearly wrong of me. I was lost in a moment of percieved reality. Thankyou for shaking me out of that