Ah, the man who studies under PhDs and likes his music to be complex shows that he doesn't understand the complexity of human language.
The original reason why african-americans in the hip hop community started calling each other that name is because they were trying to take away the power that word had to hurt people. It's like having people call you a loser all the time, and instead of getting angry at them and letting the word have power, you do the opposite: you get your friends start to referring to you (and themselves) as losers and claim it as a badge of honour. Thus, the power that word had to hurt you (and others) is taken away.
Over time, that concept has been lost on some (especially the white people who use it), but that's the origin of its prolific use within the hip hop community. Once you open your mind and really see/understand the world, you'll find that people are often smarter than you give them credit for.
Well, they act dumb by their behavior. Smart? What's so smart about wearing your pants with your underwear hanging out? What's so smart about using terms like My Nigga to refer to someone you hang out with? That's not smart, that's DUMB. The culture is breeding more and more kids getting into smoking pot publicly, ripping people off, not going to school, not caring about anything or anyone and becoming a drain on society by clogging up the jails.
Take it elsewhere, our society is getting more and more screwed up because of this type of influences on our culture and some of the them just know how to capitalize on it, but to me that's not being smart, that's just being an opportunist and that's not what I would personally promote. Opportunists have a scam artist mentality because they just go with the flow and see how they can profit from it and they don't mind being part of promoting a disgusting part of society. Go ahead, enjoy your pathetic excuse of a musical art form that came from the streets, but perpetuates that street mentality to the point where it starts to destroy you world that you live in. Nothing good comes from the rap culture. NOTHING. Money isn't everything, integrity is much more important in terms of who you ware as a person. Wealth just makes it easier to pay the bills and buy more expensive things, but people can become wealthy and STILL have integrity on HOW they create that wealth.
Grow up. Rap culture is developed by uneducated people that's devoid of any heart and soul to it. It's almost impossible for even well known artists with lots of music education and experience in creating music to do anything with it on a long term basis. Any musician that's well respected that did ANYTHING with rap doesn't do it for very long as it's being used more as a marketing tool to gain popularity and nothing more than that. But you obviously can't tell the difference. Herbie Hancock and people like him that incorporated rap/hip hop only did it more for attracting a wider audience, but they did it only for a VERY short period of time, they got money and some more recognition, but they had to go BACK to what they normally did and kind of stayed away from that crowd because they know that that's not ultimately going to give them the type of success and respect within their normal following. Same goes with Aerosmith, the RUN DMC version didn't last long and Aerosmith doesn't get involved with that anymore, it was just a one time thing. Again, it didn't last. The real deal musicians that have any sanity stay away from commercialism when it comes to their ART FORM. There are some that sell out and become the Kenny G's of world, and then there are some that stick to their own way of doing things and it doesn't involve commercialistic crap like rap/hip hop. Those are the true artists of the world instead of the sell outs that try to change with these passing fads. How many well respected musicians/bands that have been around before rap/hip hop are successful and continue down that path? None that I'm aware of, any that did only did it as a one time marketing deal, that's what some of these record labels do. I've known people that have grown up and then became sellouts in the music industry. It's sad as hell when they do it and they know they are doing because they know that the true artists of the world don't all make millions and millions of dollars, so they have to "SELL OUT" and their original fan base then starts to reject them as SELL OUTS and that's how things work in the music industry. IF you want to become a sell out, that's your business, I don't like going down that road, it turns people into the biggest phonies. But maybe that's what you are or that's why you aspire to be. A sellout.
You talk about this not being open minded. Oh really? I defy you to find some blacks that have as big of a record collection in African music than I. I not only collect African based music, which I listen to on a fairly regular basis, but I also know how to play it well enough to have performed over a 2 year period with African musicians. Find any of your rap artists that are white or black that have done that. Open minded? I also collect music from India and have gotten to the point where I know some of the top classical indian musicians than even people that I run into from India might not even know. I run into people that think I actually know more about Indian music than they do and they are freaking born and raised in India. I don't know everything about the Classical Indian system because I only took lessons for a short period of time, so I kind of learn as I go, but at least I'm open minded enough to not get sucked into all of this pop music is reached a point of becoming too much BS.
So take your NOT OPEN MINDED BS and move along. You are full of it. I know better than to get involved with the rap culture because I already know it's a waste of time. I see it every day the results of that, and I'm not going to sell out just because you want me to prove that I'm open minded.
Seriously, I have a ton of music in my collection that you would not be OPEN MINDED about listening to and learning, so who's the hypocrite? I look for what's high quality and positive for me to study and learn and discard what isn't. That's just being intelligent about it and not letting the ignorant masses dictate what I listen to and what I don't.
Have a nice day. And should I refer to you as My Nigga because you're open minded about rap music? That's what they call each other in the rap community. If you go in, at least own up to and get ALL in to that community, otherwise you are a phony.
Obviously you missed the point completely. I don't get involved with that. The music industry has been trying to figure out what makes a hit single for years, some know what it takes and some don't and it's always changing.
If they dragged out an old recording from the 60's that was a major hit, but no one knew about it, it may not be a hit with today's group of listeners.
They always try to take a known hit and have it redone by some new artist to see if they can recapture why that song was a hit and sometimes they manage to get things right, but MOST of the time they don't. But, why do I need to have a "HIT".
What's funny is there was a jazz musician that became famous within the musician community with a band that was around for a couple of years and after that band broke up, he created in a matter of three days (including rehearsals), an album that was meant to be more of a "CALLING CARD" if you will to see if he could get more gigs. What he did was he was writing songs on the side, got some great musicians and did a variety of music to cover some of the styles he was doing. The album got released, he kind of forgot about thinking that it wasn't going to sell well. A few months later the record label calls him up to tell him to get a manager and put together an actual band to tour and cash on what was happening. He wasn't selling 10,000 units, he actually sold several HUNDRED thousand units and this was an instrumental album and this had pretty much NO promotion behind it. I think it was one of the best selling jazz related albums (not traditional jazz BTW) and it's actually reached Gold and possibly Platinum by now with all of the repressings over the past 40 years and people have sampled excerpts of the albums on other CDs as well as used in a video game soundtrack. But he wasn't TRYING to make a HIT album or have HIT songs. He was just playing what he likes playing, get great musicians and play what you feel without having to get some record label getting a producer with some handbook trying to get a hit single. For musicians, (drummers, guitar players, keyboard players and bass players) that are remotely serious about learning those instruments in a jazz influenced album that also incorporates rock and funk elements, it's a MUST HAVE in their record collection. But he had no handbook telling him anything. That's what the problem is. The top players don't need a handbook, if they do, then they only create something the masses might like, but it may not be what THEY want to do. The right musicians don't need a handbook to always become successful and sell lots of albums to the masses. For someone to put out an instrumental album and go Gold without that much in the way of advertising and they are selling mostly to musicians, that's not commonly done back in the 70's. It's flat out unheard of, even by today's standards to get that much sales for jazz related instrumental music unless you go commercial like Kenny G, which is specifically designed NOT for musicians, but for the masses that want jazz, but don't understand REAL jazz that Jazz musicians listen to. So again, I don't need the handbook. But nice try. Does it talk about how to create a rap song that's a hit single?
Obviously you missed the point completely. I don't get involved with that. The music industry has been trying to figure out what makes a hit single for years, some know what it takes and some don't and it's always changing.
...
Does it talk about how to create a rap song that's a hit single?
You missed the point too. It's basically taking the piss out of the popular music industry, but having a big laugh about it rather than getting all worked up. Very relevant to your thinking about rap hits.
You missed the point too. It's basically taking the piss out of the popular music industry, but having a big laugh about it rather than getting all worked up. Very relevant to your thinking about rap hits.
The problem is that this crap that you get a big laugh about it changing how the kids grow up. It's annoying to see kids growing talking like they came from the hood, when they didn't. I am seeing people that I know personally or are kids of parents that I know personally and I am seeing first hand how it's really messing these kids up. and to me, that's not something I laugh about. I've talked to certain parents trying to raise kids that went off into the Rap culture and it's REALLY screwing these kids up and the parents feel helpless. I think it's definitely worse than the bad influences I had growing up, that's for sure.
If I say, "It's a sunny day, but it's not a sunny day." Okay, I get it, that sounds contradictory and kinda weird. But if I say, "This isn't the BEST icecream in the world, but it totally is!" That actually means something and isn't contradictory. In order for language to work both parties have to try to understand the meaning behind the choice of each other's words.
"It's not huge factor, but it totally is." is a way of saying something true, with very few words, that is highly nuanced and not at all black and white. And I got it, and you didn't.
Anyway. At least one other person got it, because they quoted me and said "Exactly x2."
You missed the point too. It's basically taking the piss out of the popular music industry, but having a big laugh about it rather than getting all worked up. Very relevant to your thinking about rap hits.
Let me see if I can explain this.
Take rapping by itself with nothing else. You know, acapella rapping. They aren't singing any melody, so it's just talking or speaking poetry with has rhythm, but there is no melody.
Now, put to a drum machine or whatever "music" is commonly used in a rap song which is typically sequencing of the rhythm part. Again, there's no melody line. Now, if you took someone rapping and put it to jazz, then they STILL aren't singing, they are STILL rapping, which they are STILL not singing a melody line, but the music portion does have some forms of chord progressions and maybe some melodies behind the scenes, but that's not considered rap music, that's considered jazz music with rapping on top.
Now, if you go to a private music instructor or some formal music course they will tell you the elements in music. There is rhythm, melody and harmony. If rap music doesn't generally have melody and harmony, then it really isn't music from someone that teaches music. Now, there are other elements of music such as tempo, pitch, dynamics, key, texture, timbre. But rap MUSIC doesn't have all of these from a general standpoint. Rapping by itself isn't like an acappela singing group which DOES have all of these elements. Does this make sense?
So from a technical standpoint, rapping doesn't contain all of the elements of music and most of the music they rap to in a RAP SONG (not a jazz, rock, funk, etc. where they DO have these elements), then it really can't be considered MUSIC. It's close, but it just simply doesn't have all of these elements.
If you want a better explanation of these elements. Here's a link for you to actually LEARN something about MUSIC. God. forbid you actually learn something you didn't already know.
Doing what? Why don't you figure out what music is. Here's a link to a beginner's music theory course. Do you understand what is required to e considered music. Please don't take excerpts out of context, this form of sound biting is present with people that don't know how to present an argument. I don't use soundbites to create an argument.
People like you do. You took an excerpt out of context. Please stop doing this.
Well, there are rules with certain things. Obviously people bend the rules all of the time. But with regards to MUSIC, there is what is called MUSIC THEORY, which has what is considered to be man's way of describing the elements of MUSIC, which is an ART FORM. So, someone that has a background that understands music theory, they will view a piece of music and examine that piece of music differently than someone that isn't. Art has the same rules, kinda sorta. I think Art is just what you like or dislike but there are some scam artists in the art world from time to time. There are artists like Kinkaid, who creates the original piece and then he HIRES other artists that do the mass marketed VERSIONS and then he signs them making people THINK he actually painted it. That's a scam in the art world. But the masses don't know this. Some are reproductions, not originals, etc. etc.
There was another pop artist that would hire other painters to paint the art, he would just sign it and sell them for tons of money but he paid low wages to trained artists to give them a job and he never actually painted anything to my knowledge. If he did, it wasn't what he was selling. I forget his name, but he was exposed on 60 Minutes or something like that and I don't think people suck up to him and pay lots of money if he's still even doing it.
There are other art scams over the years with forgeries, etc.
What a painting is worth is what someone will pay for it. And the art world generally has expert appraisers that give guidance on what it's worth and it's usually based on recent works sold at auctions etc. etc.
But in every type of art form, you are going to have people that have been trained by what are SUPPOSED to be the finest schools, and they sometimes are seen as the experts, even though there are some exceptions. Some of best jazz musicians actually never finished college because some of them were told they were better than their instructors and they were good enough to go on their own and many of them had widely successful careers. Some didn't go because they didn't have the money, but they had a LOT of serious training by parents that were musicians or took private lessons, etc. but some of these people did the same studies they would have done in college, they just did it on their own and learned the same things they would have learned in a higher learning institution.
I know that a lot of the POPULAR music isn't generally taught in colleges because it's not seen as pure forms of music, BUT if you have some of the basics of popular music because you know scales used in blues, jazz, chord progressions, etc. you can create simply pop songs without too much difficulty and that's what the masses generally consider music. But when you create something that doesn't contain all of the elements of music rhythm, pitch, melody, harmony, etc. etc. then someone that is trained in music won't consider it a great example or simply dismiss it as a childish or feeble attempt to create music when it really doesn't have all of the elements of music. I mean, I think the earliest forms of rapping I would consider those beatniks that would write poetry and had a bongo player playing abstract whatever while they vocalized their poetry. Yeah, that didn't last long. Rap has been trying over the years to become legitimate by people rapping on top of more formalized forms of popular music to market it, but they only have had limited success and now they put AutoTune pitch correction to make someone that doesn't how to sing to make it sound like they do. It's basically cheating, or whatever you want to call it and I think it's just dumb, stupid, childish, and is more of a fad, or a gimmick but I wouldn't take it as anything serious.
Street art? Sure, plenty of guys that have talent. Some don't from my point of view. And? You may like what I hate and I may like something you hate. And? If they spray paint a mural on a wall, how can they sell it and make any money? If they do it on private or public property without consent of the owner, then that's illegal. OOOPS. Some of them should maybe see if they can get scholarship to get a free ride at a college and hone their skills. OR they can simply get some canvas, do their thing and try to sell it. If it's good and people want to buy it then great. But I won't say it's not art, it's just something I like don't like would pay for or wouldn't pay for, etc. And? Art ultimately comes down to subjectivity. Plenty of people attend street fairs to sell art and make an honest living. Plenty of opportunity for people to do that.
But music, there are theories that have been established by what are considered experts or masters, just like Classical Indian music has their rules. If you go to Africa, they have their masters that establish what's good and accepted and what isn't and they have their own way of doing things. But it's the pop world that likes to bend/break rules as much as possible and since the computer came into the scene, what they do is record music in a manner that's just not as pure. It used to be where you got the musicians in a good room, put a microphone or two in the room and recorded the entire band or musicians at the same time and that was it and then it just got adjusted for volume levels and that was the extent of it. NO compression, no special effects, no processing to take a performance and turn it into something more artificial. Some like the purist sense of music production because if done properly it captures the essence of the PERFORMANCE of a piece of music, some like the FIX IT IN THE MIX and who cares if the singer can't sing, who cares if the musicians can't play, who cares if they aren't in tune. etc. and then they take what they have and manipulate it into something that's sellable. To a LOT of trained musicians THEY HATE THAT process because it's NOT pure, it's a more dishonest way of creating music and the more respected musicians HATE that process, but some musicians HAVE to because that's how some artists work. Stevie Wonder did most of the performing of all of the tracks, so he had to overdub, but he's a rare exception that's just freakin Genius. He can't help it if he's just freaking gifted. Even if he doesn't play one instrument perfectly. Instead of using a REAL band, they use drum machines, and sampled this, etc. Back in the old days they wouldn't allow anything sold that wasn't performed by REAL musicians. If it had a drum machine, that was just a demo and wasn't released as finished work. so from some people's perspective that came from the more traditional methods of recording music think there is a lot of crap sold on the market and they don't like it and they don't consider it worthy of being called a legitimate form of art that should be sold. You have to at least hear their opinion and respect it if they come from a place of higher knowledge of the art form. Everyone has their own level of what is called INTEGRITY to the art form. What do you think is legitimate and what do you think isn't? I know what levels I would consider legitimate and what isn't, but don't chastise someone that at least has some training and professional experience in the music industry because you lack that experience and knowledge and background. OK?
Now, do you like McDonald's hamburgers? They are made by kids that haven't gone to a culinary academy trained in the art of making food for the professional world. Yeah, anyone can make a hamburger I guess, but would you put a McDonald's hamburger equal to a high quality hamburger that is made from the finest quality beef using the highest quality buns, cooked to absolute perfection on a grill? Well, I think food critics will consider the McDonald's hamburger not even edible, yet they sell billions of them. Same thing happens in the music industry. Get used to it.. Yes culinary is an art form. The best way to judge a work of art is to get a background and education on what are the aspects to even know HOW to judge a piece of art. Can you tell if someone is not in tune? Uneven tempo? a cliche melody line? A gimmick? Do you know how to dissect a piece of music to figure out where the influences came from in terms of genres of music or maybe other musicians that originated a certain style of writing or playing? The list goes on once you start studying MUSIC. Or do you have the same mentality they had on American Bandstand when they had people rate the song and they usually came up with "It's easy to dance to and I can sing to it". and that's all they cared about. Oh OK, Mr/Mrs whomever doesn't know how to LISTEN to music and have any REAL ability to critique it other than the most basic method of judging a song. Welcome to the world of POP music. It's the I don't care method of listening to music. Oh OK. Whatever gets you through the day. Calling me a snob is the wrong word to use. Calling me more musically educated would be more appropriate. I'm not a world expert, but I do know a lot more than most.
I cannot see Beats being worth $3.2B. My guess is there will be no lump sum buyout or that that number is a figment of analysts' always fertile (and wrong) imaginations.
What could possibly be the reason for any purchase? I would have to guess is that Apple is not being successful in negotiations with content providers. Steve Jobs had some initial success but his take on the intelligence and business acumen of the entertainment industry, which he openly discussed, was decidedly negative.
Dre and Lovine may have value as industry insiders in moving negotiations along, and perhaps may be Apple's agents in advising them on which entertainment companies to buy.
Take rapping by itself with nothing else. You know, acapella rapping. They aren't singing any melody, so it's just talking or speaking poetry with has rhythm, but there is no melody.
Now, put to a drum machine or whatever "music" is commonly used in a rap song which is typically sequencing of the rhythm part. Again, there's no melody line. Now, if you took someone rapping and put it to jazz, then they STILL aren't singing, they are STILL rapping, which they are STILL not singing a melody line, but the music portion does have some forms of chord progressions and maybe some melodies behind the scenes, but that's not considered rap music, that's considered jazz music with rapping on top.
Now, if you go to a private music instructor or some formal music course they will tell you the elements in music. There is rhythm, melody and harmony. If rap music doesn't generally have melody and harmony, then it really isn't music from someone that teaches music. Now, there are other elements of music such as tempo, pitch, dynamics, key, texture, timbre. But rap MUSIC doesn't have all of these from a general standpoint. Rapping by itself isn't like an acappela singing group which DOES have all of these elements. Does this make sense?
So from a technical standpoint, rapping doesn't contain all of the elements of music and most of the music they rap to in a RAP SONG (not a jazz, rock, funk, etc. where they DO have these elements), then it really can't be considered MUSIC. It's close, but it just simply doesn't have all of these elements.
If you want a better explanation of these elements. Here's a link for you to actually LEARN something about MUSIC. God. forbid you actually learn something you didn't already know.
Sounds like you have a ethnocentric view of what music is. Yes, "white" music is based on European traditions, where all the evolution and efforts have been to create melody lines within a narrow range of tones. African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Pacific Islands have different traditions and have evolved incredible beauty and complexity within their musical traditions that cannot even be understood by the Western ear. The percussive lines within the African traditions, for example, contains tonality and color and complexity of the instrumentation and performance that is unmatchable in traditional Western music.
I don't listen to rap generally, and don't understand it. I'm in no position to compare it intelligently to other musical traditions. But, it is clearly music -- just not traditional "white" Western music.
Your comments on the need for chord progressions in rap to make it "real" music thus cannot be seen as anything but arrogance of someone with so limited a knowledge of musical traditions that he doesn't know what he doesn't know.
Sounds like you have a ethnocentric view of what music is. Yes, "white" music is based on European traditions, where all the evolution and efforts have been to create melody lines within a narrow range of tones. African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Pacific Islands have different traditions and have evolved incredible beauty and complexity within their musical traditions that cannot even be understood by the Western ear. The percussive lines within the African traditions, for example, contains tonality and color and complexity of the instrumentation and performance that is unmatchable in traditional Western music.
I don't listen to rap generally, and don't understand it. I'm in no position to compare it intelligently to other musical traditions. But, it is clearly music -- just not traditional "white" Western music.
Your comments on the need for chord progressions in rap to make it "real" music thus cannot be seen as anything but arrogance of someone with so limited a knowledge of musical traditions that he doesn't know what he doesn't know.
"I don't listen to rap generally, and don't understand it. I'm in no position to compare it intelligently to other musical traditions. But, it is clearly music."
?Sorry, but you aren't in a position to say if it is or not since you don't listen to it, understand it and aren't in a position to compare it intelligently other other musical traditions.
I've at least listened to over the years starting with the first rap song that I was exposed to which was White Lines or some Sugarhill song that was famous a LONG time ago, which actually has a LOT more elements of music than the crap they have now, but the problem is with rapping itself, it's talking not singing, what music they play behind it and whether or not it adheres to the elements of music is what also has to be considered or analyzing the "MUSIC" portion to figure out if it really is music. But rapping by itself is speaking poetry. In the early days, they used a bass player, a drummer, actual singers singing, go look up the song and listen to it, and compare to the crap that's on the market now. It predominately doesn't have those elements. But I would probably say that White Lines was more of a funk song with some rapping on top and they had some background singers, but the rapping is STILL poetry, and not song to a melody line. The style of music was either funk or dance music related, which could be easily related to one another. "Gotta have that funk" - George Clinton.
I think people have been brainwashed by the music recording industry (the people that are responsible for marketing and selling the product) have successful in convincing non-musician listeners out there that it's music. I just am NOT buying into it. I think it's safe to say it's borderline music at best and that's based on my knowledge of music that I've learned through attending college courses, private lessons, reading books, playing music, performing it and studying listening to music over the years. I can't go by, I think it's music just because the record labels that sell it say it is. They are making money from it, college professors aren't trying to make money from rap music, they make money by TEACHING it, so they are a lot more unbiased and come from a place of infinitely more knowledge about music that the masses of people that buy it.
?I think society should be listening more to academia for guidances and quit with this having heads up their asses because they don't study a subject matter they make money in or spend money in.
?Sorry, but you aren't in a position to say if it is or not since you don't listen to it, understand it and aren't in a position to compare it intelligently other other musical traditions.
Since when does one have to listen to all forms of music to recognize it as music? I don't listen to Mariachi but it's still music. But you know the difference, instead of acknowledging any of the examples you've been given that clearly show a vast arrangements of instrumental and vocal music accompanying rapping on rap songs you're defending your racially fueled position through straw man and other argumentative fallacies. If I point out the music that Dr. Dre produces you claim it's all electronic and therefore "not a real instrument since it uses a machine" even though all musical instruments are machines. If I then point that Daft Punk uses machines you then say, "Well, that's different." but you stop short of saying it's because they're not "the blacks" and state "it's not very good and barely classifies."
You're too afraid to even consider something outside your limited scope of knowledge as acceptable because it frightens you too much. You remind me of this mandolin player I unfortunately knew. He got kicked out of every band he was in. Not because he wasn't good at that one instrument but because he was too much of elitist ass to work with.
The only"Immature form of expression" here are your rants about an art form you know nothing about.
Let me start out to say that I am a performer and a composer with over 20 years of experience. I studied piano and composition with some of the top composers and performers of our day. When I was younger I competed in international piano competitions, playing Bach, Mozart, Bethoven Chopin, Scarlatti, Rachmaninoff, Liszt and others. I made my early living performing chamber music in Duets, Quintets etc. whenever and wherever I could. I made the most of my opportunities.
I have been composing for nearly as long, and am lucky enough now, to be in a position to lead my own groups who perform music that I have composed. Some of the that have performed my music are contemporary classical music. Other are more alt/rock/pop/electronic based. It is possible that you may have heard some of the music that I have composed, or not, as I protect my identity under several pseudonyms.
Either way, if any musician that I work with ever expressed to me the closed mindedness attitudes that you have displayed, I would kick them out of my group so quickly they wouldn't have time to react.
"Real" musicians simply do no carry those sort of attitude. Jazz music, for example, was considered to be 'degenerate' music of whorehouses and dance halls. Now it is taught in Universities. Rock music such as the Rolling Stones or Velvet Underground were associated with the drug counterculture. Perhaps they all were. So what? Its all part of the human experience and has some value either way.
The reason that Hip-Hop has become so dominant in our culture is because it is so open. There is not one genre of music that Hip-Hop does not borrow from or gain influence; whether its jazz, classical rock, country, anything... It's all there.. Because it is so transmutable and universal in it's appeal, there is not one country in the world that doesn't have it's own brand of hip-hop. It embraces modern technology. It is a truly global phenomenon.
I can see why you don't like it, because it's values of openness and technological progress are diametrically opposed to everything that that you have said you stand for
Well, as I can plainly see, YOU FORGOT THE BASIC ELEMENTS OF MUSIC.
As much as you appear to know, YOU FORGOT to mention the basic elements of music.
Have you tested rap music to see if it adhere to these basic elements of music? Obvioulsy, you forgot to include MELODY.
Rapping isn't singing. If they aren't singing, they aren't creating music. Let me know when a reputable higher learning institution teaches kids how to create rap lyrics and rap music. When they do, then MAYBE I'll listen to you.
All the music industry is doing is trying to capitalize and legitimize illiteracy and musical ignorance and applying the word RAP to it. It's low grade music. And i use the term lightly.
Glad I don't work with you, I wouldn't want to damage my reputation in this world by pandering to the lowest common demoninator.
You must think Justin Blieber is an excellent songwriter singer too!!
Open? No. It's becoming popular because it gives the kids a way/excuse to not study Englsih, not study Music, and to walk around with their underwear hanging out, while they smoke pot, drink alcohol, do drugs, steal, degrade women and each other, get involved with guns, go in/out of the jail system and then blame society.
Miles Davis and others during the age when they were creating music that was combining REAL musical art forms that actually have and adhere to music and then pursuing forms of improvisation is OPEN. RAP is closed. You have to act like them, talk like them, look like them otherwise you don't fit their mold and they reject you, so THEY are the racists ones just trying to manipulate educated musicians into thinking it's special.
So, when does the London Symphony Orchestra ready to combine classical music and rap and put on a concert? That will NEVER happen.
You are a disgrace to the music industry by promoting rap IMO.
Obviously, the top jazz musicians that even hinted of using rap with Jazz all failed at it because they don't do anything with it. They might have experimented with it, but it didn't fit them moving forward. Yeah, like Herbie Hancock is going to bring a rapper to destroy his band's music when he performs with one of his V.S.O.P. groups. That'll never happen.
You are a SELL OUT. Plenty of those around.
It would be interesting to see how one would chart out a rap song. It's pretty hard to chart out a melody when they aren't singing a melody unless they through Auto Tune on the vocals to force it to a musical note. Freaking BS music. There, I classified as music, but I also put the letters BS in front of it to describe what TYPE of music it is. Happy Now? My, Nigga... (Nigga is being used to mean the word "friend")
I can only imagine what albums you have.
Motzart
Copeland
Miles Davis
Dr. Dre
Justin Bieber
Vanilla Ice
Strauss
Devo
Anthrax
N.W.A.
So, when you perform your next rap concert? Have you ever performed at one? Just curious. Do you have any rap albums I can listen to that you composed and performed? I'm open minded enough to listen to it to see if I like it.
Oh and your definition of "REAL" musicians is the ONLY definition? Well, the "REAL" musicians that I've played with and studied from won't touch rap music with a 10 foot pole. They hate.it. They see no value in it.
Have you tested rap music to see if it adhere to these basic elements of music? Obvioulsy, you forgot to include MELODY.
So you're still saying that anything placed in the rap genre isn't music? You're saying that the music that rappers are rapping with isn't music despite the harmonies and melodies that are an innate part of the rap song? How exactly does the rap portion of a song cancel out the instrumental music and/or sung chorus or hook?
Again, and about the 50th example, you can't discern a melody from this rap song?
[VIDEO]
This sure sounds like music that could have been made by a violin, piano and various woodwinds and percussion instruments to me and that sure sounds like Rhianna singing but because Kanye West is a black rapper you can't classify this a music. :no:
You are a SELL OUT.
Now you're calling people sell outs. Your comments on music are fucking ridiculous. Do you play the mandolin? If you do I probably know who you are.
Are you a musician? I am, and in book, I don't consider rap to be music. It's talking or yelling or whatever they are doing. But it isn't music. It certainly anything enjoyable to listen to unless you are some kid that's pissed off at the world and this your way of showing it by listening to it or creating it. That's all it is. Immature form of expression being marketed as music.
God, the music industry has done a number on society.
Would you want your computer to start up with a musical passage or chime or some as swipe saying "You whore nigga bitch" instead. don't tell me, let me guess.
Dr. Blank, Benjamin Frost, others...
The only"Immature form of expression" here are your rants about an art form you know nothing about.
Let me start out to say that I am a performer and a composer with over 20 years of experience. I studied piano and composition with some of the top composers and performers of our day. When I was younger I competed in international piano competitions, playing Bach, Mozart, Bethoven Chopin, Scarlatti, Rachmaninoff, Liszt and others. I made my early living performing chamber music in Duets, Quintets etc. whenever and wherever I could. I made the most of my opportunities.
I have been composing for nearly as long, and am lucky enough now, to be in a position to lead my own groups who perform music that I have composed. Some of the that have performed my music are contemporary classical music. Other are more alt/rock/pop/electronic based. It is possible that you may have heard some of the music that I have composed, or not, as I protect my identity under several pseudonyms.
Either way, if any musician that I work with ever expressed to me the closed mindedness attitudes that you have displayed, I would kick them out of my group so quickly they wouldn't have time to react.
"Real" musicians simply do no carry those sort of attitude. Jazz music, for example, was considered to be 'degenerate' music of whorehouses and dance halls. Now it is taught in Universities. Rock music such as the Rolling Stones or Velvet Underground were associated with the drug counterculture. Perhaps they all were. So what? Its all part of the human experience and has some value either way.
The reason that Hip-Hop has become so dominant in our culture is because it is so open. There is not one genre of music that Hip-Hop does not borrow from or gain influence; whether its jazz, classical rock, country, anything... It's all there.. Because it is so transmutable and universal in it's appeal, there is not one country in the world that doesn't have it's own brand of hip-hop. It embraces modern technology. It is a truly global phenomenon.
I can see why you don't like it, because it's values of openness and technological progress are diametrically opposed to everything that that you have said you stand for.
If you're so blinkered as to kick people out of your group for expressing views contrary to yours, you must be a bundle of joy to work with. I can see why you strive to protect your identity so earnestly.
Since when does one have to listen to all forms of music to recognize it as music? I don't listen to Mariachi but it's still music. But you know the difference, instead of acknowledging any of the examples you've been given that clearly show a vast arrangements of instrumental and vocal music accompanying rapping on rap songs you're defending your racially fueled position through straw man and other argumentative fallacies. If I point out the music that Dr. Dre produces you claim it's all electronic and therefore "not a real instrument since it uses a machine" even though all musical instruments are machines. If I then point that Daft Punk uses machines you then say, "Well, that's different." but you stop short of saying it's because they're not "the blacks" and state "it's not very good and barely classifies."
You're too afraid to even consider something outside your limited scope of knowledge as acceptable because it frightens you too much. You remind me of this mandolin player I unfortunately knew. He got kicked out of every band he was in. Not because he wasn't good at that one instrument but because he was too much of elitist ass to work with.
I'm just looking at it from the aspect of does it fulfill the basic requirements for the term "MUSIC". I just think that's important. So I should be chastised for using some of the education I have had to apply it to a form of popular music that I really don't like listening to. It doesn't make me feel happy, it doesn't relax me, it doesn't move me to want to dance to it, so to me, it's useless and i just see first hand what the RAP CULTURE is doing to the kids growing up and they are ending up not wanting to go to school or college and they would rather smoke pot, drink alcohol and call eat other niggas, bitches and ho's. And I just don't think that's acceptable. And you think I'm WRONG to think this way? Really?
Here's a link to the list and their definitions to explain each one.
What these rap artists haven't done is become accepted in the poetry world for their poetry. If they got a college to teach how to develop a rap poetry as a legitimate form of training, then it becomes LEGITIMATE. Poets that become famous usually have some serious education in poetry, the rules and guidelines in the different styles of poetry throughout the years. Good lyricists usually have spent time reading the works of the great poets of the world so they have an understanding of how to use words to create emotions and images, etc. POP culture throws a lot of stuff out the window because the record labels and artists in the pop put MONEY and FAME above art when they shouldn't. They didn't use to do this, but it's becoming obvious that money and fame is more important than the quality. Some good has come of it, but a lot of trash has also, it's trying to sift through the trash to find the nuggets of gold and every day, there is less golden nuggets of REAL music to be had. It's sad too.
And while they're at it, they should give those street musicians that play on a plastic bucket a recording contract to see how rich and famous they can make him for playing solely on a plastic bucket. I know the Blue Man group has had success using PVC and other objects not normally considered musical instruments. but the thing is,, those guys are and HAVE to be SERIOUSLY SKILLED AND TRAINED DRUMMERS and I mean SERIOUS Drum Corp chops and background, so those guys ARE TRAINED musicians. They are performing more percussion assemble work. It's more of a performance art because I don't know of too many people that will buy a CD and listen to it, because it's more visual. I can handle them a couple of times, but I don'thave the desire to play with them or learn how to do what they are doing, but I can certainly appreciate and respect their level of abilities. They do certainly warrant getting an audience.
Let me start out to say that I am a performer and a composer with over 20 years of experience. I studied piano and composition with some of the top composers and performers of our day. When I was younger I competed in international piano competitions, playing Bach, Mozart, Bethoven Chopin, Scarlatti, Rachmaninoff, Liszt and others. I made my early living performing chamber music in Duets, Quintets etc. whenever and wherever I could. I made the most of my opportunities.
I have 3 years of violin and 12 years of piano under my belt. As a youth my parents (read: mother) felt I should I study these instruments and learn to play classical. I have done some composition on my own and taken plenty of classes but certainly not to the level in which you describe. For me, I ultimately consider it a waste when I am more geared toward scientific pursuits (which I know can be done within music) but I would much prefer to listen than to compose or play. I would have preferred to have had a personal computer in the house instead of using my first one when I was in my early 20's. I went from never using Windows back when NT 3.51 was transitioning to Windows 4.0. It was a toss up between Novell and Windows for some multi-week crash courses. Didn't take me long to realize how much I love the communication side of computing and moved into Cisco networking. I have no idea what synaptic pathways all that music created but I still feel that time could have been better spent as I struggle now to grasp both the Objective-C and Spanish languages.
Comments
Ah, the man who studies under PhDs and likes his music to be complex shows that he doesn't understand the complexity of human language.
The original reason why african-americans in the hip hop community started calling each other that name is because they were trying to take away the power that word had to hurt people. It's like having people call you a loser all the time, and instead of getting angry at them and letting the word have power, you do the opposite: you get your friends start to referring to you (and themselves) as losers and claim it as a badge of honour. Thus, the power that word had to hurt you (and others) is taken away.
Over time, that concept has been lost on some (especially the white people who use it), but that's the origin of its prolific use within the hip hop community. Once you open your mind and really see/understand the world, you'll find that people are often smarter than you give them credit for.
Well, they act dumb by their behavior. Smart? What's so smart about wearing your pants with your underwear hanging out? What's so smart about using terms like My Nigga to refer to someone you hang out with? That's not smart, that's DUMB. The culture is breeding more and more kids getting into smoking pot publicly, ripping people off, not going to school, not caring about anything or anyone and becoming a drain on society by clogging up the jails.
Take it elsewhere, our society is getting more and more screwed up because of this type of influences on our culture and some of the them just know how to capitalize on it, but to me that's not being smart, that's just being an opportunist and that's not what I would personally promote. Opportunists have a scam artist mentality because they just go with the flow and see how they can profit from it and they don't mind being part of promoting a disgusting part of society. Go ahead, enjoy your pathetic excuse of a musical art form that came from the streets, but perpetuates that street mentality to the point where it starts to destroy you world that you live in. Nothing good comes from the rap culture. NOTHING. Money isn't everything, integrity is much more important in terms of who you ware as a person. Wealth just makes it easier to pay the bills and buy more expensive things, but people can become wealthy and STILL have integrity on HOW they create that wealth.
Grow up. Rap culture is developed by uneducated people that's devoid of any heart and soul to it. It's almost impossible for even well known artists with lots of music education and experience in creating music to do anything with it on a long term basis. Any musician that's well respected that did ANYTHING with rap doesn't do it for very long as it's being used more as a marketing tool to gain popularity and nothing more than that. But you obviously can't tell the difference. Herbie Hancock and people like him that incorporated rap/hip hop only did it more for attracting a wider audience, but they did it only for a VERY short period of time, they got money and some more recognition, but they had to go BACK to what they normally did and kind of stayed away from that crowd because they know that that's not ultimately going to give them the type of success and respect within their normal following. Same goes with Aerosmith, the RUN DMC version didn't last long and Aerosmith doesn't get involved with that anymore, it was just a one time thing. Again, it didn't last. The real deal musicians that have any sanity stay away from commercialism when it comes to their ART FORM. There are some that sell out and become the Kenny G's of world, and then there are some that stick to their own way of doing things and it doesn't involve commercialistic crap like rap/hip hop. Those are the true artists of the world instead of the sell outs that try to change with these passing fads. How many well respected musicians/bands that have been around before rap/hip hop are successful and continue down that path? None that I'm aware of, any that did only did it as a one time marketing deal, that's what some of these record labels do. I've known people that have grown up and then became sellouts in the music industry. It's sad as hell when they do it and they know they are doing because they know that the true artists of the world don't all make millions and millions of dollars, so they have to "SELL OUT" and their original fan base then starts to reject them as SELL OUTS and that's how things work in the music industry. IF you want to become a sell out, that's your business, I don't like going down that road, it turns people into the biggest phonies. But maybe that's what you are or that's why you aspire to be. A sellout.
You talk about this not being open minded. Oh really? I defy you to find some blacks that have as big of a record collection in African music than I. I not only collect African based music, which I listen to on a fairly regular basis, but I also know how to play it well enough to have performed over a 2 year period with African musicians. Find any of your rap artists that are white or black that have done that. Open minded? I also collect music from India and have gotten to the point where I know some of the top classical indian musicians than even people that I run into from India might not even know. I run into people that think I actually know more about Indian music than they do and they are freaking born and raised in India. I don't know everything about the Classical Indian system because I only took lessons for a short period of time, so I kind of learn as I go, but at least I'm open minded enough to not get sucked into all of this pop music is reached a point of becoming too much BS.
So take your NOT OPEN MINDED BS and move along. You are full of it. I know better than to get involved with the rap culture because I already know it's a waste of time. I see it every day the results of that, and I'm not going to sell out just because you want me to prove that I'm open minded.
Seriously, I have a ton of music in my collection that you would not be OPEN MINDED about listening to and learning, so who's the hypocrite? I look for what's high quality and positive for me to study and learn and discard what isn't. That's just being intelligent about it and not letting the ignorant masses dictate what I listen to and what I don't.
Have a nice day. And should I refer to you as My Nigga because you're open minded about rap music? That's what they call each other in the rap community. If you go in, at least own up to and get ALL in to that community, otherwise you are a phony.
The real deal musicians that have any sanity stay away from commercialism when it comes to their ART FORM.
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I don't like going down that road, it turns people into the biggest phonies. But maybe that's what you are or that's why you aspire to be. A sellout.
Bill Drummond (KLF) just keeps giving today... I think you'd like his book on how to manufacture a number one hit.
Bill Drummond (KLF) just keeps giving today... I think you'd like his book on how to manufacture a number one hit.
Obviously you missed the point completely. I don't get involved with that. The music industry has been trying to figure out what makes a hit single for years, some know what it takes and some don't and it's always changing.
If they dragged out an old recording from the 60's that was a major hit, but no one knew about it, it may not be a hit with today's group of listeners.
They always try to take a known hit and have it redone by some new artist to see if they can recapture why that song was a hit and sometimes they manage to get things right, but MOST of the time they don't. But, why do I need to have a "HIT".
What's funny is there was a jazz musician that became famous within the musician community with a band that was around for a couple of years and after that band broke up, he created in a matter of three days (including rehearsals), an album that was meant to be more of a "CALLING CARD" if you will to see if he could get more gigs. What he did was he was writing songs on the side, got some great musicians and did a variety of music to cover some of the styles he was doing. The album got released, he kind of forgot about thinking that it wasn't going to sell well. A few months later the record label calls him up to tell him to get a manager and put together an actual band to tour and cash on what was happening. He wasn't selling 10,000 units, he actually sold several HUNDRED thousand units and this was an instrumental album and this had pretty much NO promotion behind it. I think it was one of the best selling jazz related albums (not traditional jazz BTW) and it's actually reached Gold and possibly Platinum by now with all of the repressings over the past 40 years and people have sampled excerpts of the albums on other CDs as well as used in a video game soundtrack. But he wasn't TRYING to make a HIT album or have HIT songs. He was just playing what he likes playing, get great musicians and play what you feel without having to get some record label getting a producer with some handbook trying to get a hit single. For musicians, (drummers, guitar players, keyboard players and bass players) that are remotely serious about learning those instruments in a jazz influenced album that also incorporates rock and funk elements, it's a MUST HAVE in their record collection. But he had no handbook telling him anything. That's what the problem is. The top players don't need a handbook, if they do, then they only create something the masses might like, but it may not be what THEY want to do. The right musicians don't need a handbook to always become successful and sell lots of albums to the masses. For someone to put out an instrumental album and go Gold without that much in the way of advertising and they are selling mostly to musicians, that's not commonly done back in the 70's. It's flat out unheard of, even by today's standards to get that much sales for jazz related instrumental music unless you go commercial like Kenny G, which is specifically designed NOT for musicians, but for the masses that want jazz, but don't understand REAL jazz that Jazz musicians listen to. So again, I don't need the handbook. But nice try. Does it talk about how to create a rap song that's a hit single?
Obviously you missed the point completely. I don't get involved with that. The music industry has been trying to figure out what makes a hit single for years, some know what it takes and some don't and it's always changing.
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Does it talk about how to create a rap song that's a hit single?
You missed the point too. It's basically taking the piss out of the popular music industry, but having a big laugh about it rather than getting all worked up. Very relevant to your thinking about rap hits.
You missed the point too. It's basically taking the piss out of the popular music industry, but having a big laugh about it rather than getting all worked up. Very relevant to your thinking about rap hits.
The problem is that this crap that you get a big laugh about it changing how the kids grow up. It's annoying to see kids growing talking like they came from the hood, when they didn't. I am seeing people that I know personally or are kids of parents that I know personally and I am seeing first hand how it's really messing these kids up. and to me, that's not something I laugh about. I've talked to certain parents trying to raise kids that went off into the Rap culture and it's REALLY screwing these kids up and the parents feel helpless. I think it's definitely worse than the bad influences I had growing up, that's for sure.
So it is a huge factor, not both. Thanks for clarifying.
First this: http://xkcd.com/386/ To lighten our mood.
If I say, "It's a sunny day, but it's not a sunny day." Okay, I get it, that sounds contradictory and kinda weird. But if I say, "This isn't the BEST icecream in the world, but it totally is!" That actually means something and isn't contradictory. In order for language to work both parties have to try to understand the meaning behind the choice of each other's words.
"It's not huge factor, but it totally is." is a way of saying something true, with very few words, that is highly nuanced and not at all black and white. And I got it, and you didn't.
Anyway. At least one other person got it, because they quoted me and said "Exactly x2."
Your logic has disappeared in a sea of emotion.
You missed the point too. It's basically taking the piss out of the popular music industry, but having a big laugh about it rather than getting all worked up. Very relevant to your thinking about rap hits.
Let me see if I can explain this.
Take rapping by itself with nothing else. You know, acapella rapping. They aren't singing any melody, so it's just talking or speaking poetry with has rhythm, but there is no melody.
Now, put to a drum machine or whatever "music" is commonly used in a rap song which is typically sequencing of the rhythm part. Again, there's no melody line. Now, if you took someone rapping and put it to jazz, then they STILL aren't singing, they are STILL rapping, which they are STILL not singing a melody line, but the music portion does have some forms of chord progressions and maybe some melodies behind the scenes, but that's not considered rap music, that's considered jazz music with rapping on top.
Now, if you go to a private music instructor or some formal music course they will tell you the elements in music. There is rhythm, melody and harmony. If rap music doesn't generally have melody and harmony, then it really isn't music from someone that teaches music. Now, there are other elements of music such as tempo, pitch, dynamics, key, texture, timbre. But rap MUSIC doesn't have all of these from a general standpoint. Rapping by itself isn't like an acappela singing group which DOES have all of these elements. Does this make sense?
So from a technical standpoint, rapping doesn't contain all of the elements of music and most of the music they rap to in a RAP SONG (not a jazz, rock, funk, etc. where they DO have these elements), then it really can't be considered MUSIC. It's close, but it just simply doesn't have all of these elements.
If you want a better explanation of these elements. Here's a link for you to actually LEARN something about MUSIC. God. forbid you actually learn something you didn't already know.
http://musiced.about.com/od/beginnerstheory/a/musicelements.htm
Have a nice day.
*trying to turn an art into a science with strict rules/definitions
Please stop doing this.
Please stop doing this.
Doing what? Why don't you figure out what music is. Here's a link to a beginner's music theory course. Do you understand what is required to e considered music. Please don't take excerpts out of context, this form of sound biting is present with people that don't know how to present an argument. I don't use soundbites to create an argument.
People like you do. You took an excerpt out of context. Please stop doing this.
http://musiced.about.com/od/beginnerstheory/a/musicelements.htmp
Doing what?
Trying to turn an art into a science.
Trying to turn an art into a science.
Well, there are rules with certain things. Obviously people bend the rules all of the time. But with regards to MUSIC, there is what is called MUSIC THEORY, which has what is considered to be man's way of describing the elements of MUSIC, which is an ART FORM. So, someone that has a background that understands music theory, they will view a piece of music and examine that piece of music differently than someone that isn't. Art has the same rules, kinda sorta. I think Art is just what you like or dislike but there are some scam artists in the art world from time to time. There are artists like Kinkaid, who creates the original piece and then he HIRES other artists that do the mass marketed VERSIONS and then he signs them making people THINK he actually painted it. That's a scam in the art world. But the masses don't know this. Some are reproductions, not originals, etc. etc.
There was another pop artist that would hire other painters to paint the art, he would just sign it and sell them for tons of money but he paid low wages to trained artists to give them a job and he never actually painted anything to my knowledge. If he did, it wasn't what he was selling. I forget his name, but he was exposed on 60 Minutes or something like that and I don't think people suck up to him and pay lots of money if he's still even doing it.
There are other art scams over the years with forgeries, etc.
What a painting is worth is what someone will pay for it. And the art world generally has expert appraisers that give guidance on what it's worth and it's usually based on recent works sold at auctions etc. etc.
But in every type of art form, you are going to have people that have been trained by what are SUPPOSED to be the finest schools, and they sometimes are seen as the experts, even though there are some exceptions. Some of best jazz musicians actually never finished college because some of them were told they were better than their instructors and they were good enough to go on their own and many of them had widely successful careers. Some didn't go because they didn't have the money, but they had a LOT of serious training by parents that were musicians or took private lessons, etc. but some of these people did the same studies they would have done in college, they just did it on their own and learned the same things they would have learned in a higher learning institution.
I know that a lot of the POPULAR music isn't generally taught in colleges because it's not seen as pure forms of music, BUT if you have some of the basics of popular music because you know scales used in blues, jazz, chord progressions, etc. you can create simply pop songs without too much difficulty and that's what the masses generally consider music. But when you create something that doesn't contain all of the elements of music rhythm, pitch, melody, harmony, etc. etc. then someone that is trained in music won't consider it a great example or simply dismiss it as a childish or feeble attempt to create music when it really doesn't have all of the elements of music. I mean, I think the earliest forms of rapping I would consider those beatniks that would write poetry and had a bongo player playing abstract whatever while they vocalized their poetry. Yeah, that didn't last long. Rap has been trying over the years to become legitimate by people rapping on top of more formalized forms of popular music to market it, but they only have had limited success and now they put AutoTune pitch correction to make someone that doesn't how to sing to make it sound like they do. It's basically cheating, or whatever you want to call it and I think it's just dumb, stupid, childish, and is more of a fad, or a gimmick but I wouldn't take it as anything serious.
Street art? Sure, plenty of guys that have talent. Some don't from my point of view. And? You may like what I hate and I may like something you hate. And? If they spray paint a mural on a wall, how can they sell it and make any money? If they do it on private or public property without consent of the owner, then that's illegal. OOOPS. Some of them should maybe see if they can get scholarship to get a free ride at a college and hone their skills. OR they can simply get some canvas, do their thing and try to sell it. If it's good and people want to buy it then great. But I won't say it's not art, it's just something I like don't like would pay for or wouldn't pay for, etc. And? Art ultimately comes down to subjectivity. Plenty of people attend street fairs to sell art and make an honest living. Plenty of opportunity for people to do that.
But music, there are theories that have been established by what are considered experts or masters, just like Classical Indian music has their rules. If you go to Africa, they have their masters that establish what's good and accepted and what isn't and they have their own way of doing things. But it's the pop world that likes to bend/break rules as much as possible and since the computer came into the scene, what they do is record music in a manner that's just not as pure. It used to be where you got the musicians in a good room, put a microphone or two in the room and recorded the entire band or musicians at the same time and that was it and then it just got adjusted for volume levels and that was the extent of it. NO compression, no special effects, no processing to take a performance and turn it into something more artificial. Some like the purist sense of music production because if done properly it captures the essence of the PERFORMANCE of a piece of music, some like the FIX IT IN THE MIX and who cares if the singer can't sing, who cares if the musicians can't play, who cares if they aren't in tune. etc. and then they take what they have and manipulate it into something that's sellable. To a LOT of trained musicians THEY HATE THAT process because it's NOT pure, it's a more dishonest way of creating music and the more respected musicians HATE that process, but some musicians HAVE to because that's how some artists work. Stevie Wonder did most of the performing of all of the tracks, so he had to overdub, but he's a rare exception that's just freakin Genius. He can't help it if he's just freaking gifted. Even if he doesn't play one instrument perfectly. Instead of using a REAL band, they use drum machines, and sampled this, etc. Back in the old days they wouldn't allow anything sold that wasn't performed by REAL musicians. If it had a drum machine, that was just a demo and wasn't released as finished work. so from some people's perspective that came from the more traditional methods of recording music think there is a lot of crap sold on the market and they don't like it and they don't consider it worthy of being called a legitimate form of art that should be sold. You have to at least hear their opinion and respect it if they come from a place of higher knowledge of the art form. Everyone has their own level of what is called INTEGRITY to the art form. What do you think is legitimate and what do you think isn't? I know what levels I would consider legitimate and what isn't, but don't chastise someone that at least has some training and professional experience in the music industry because you lack that experience and knowledge and background. OK?
Now, do you like McDonald's hamburgers? They are made by kids that haven't gone to a culinary academy trained in the art of making food for the professional world. Yeah, anyone can make a hamburger I guess, but would you put a McDonald's hamburger equal to a high quality hamburger that is made from the finest quality beef using the highest quality buns, cooked to absolute perfection on a grill? Well, I think food critics will consider the McDonald's hamburger not even edible, yet they sell billions of them. Same thing happens in the music industry. Get used to it.. Yes culinary is an art form. The best way to judge a work of art is to get a background and education on what are the aspects to even know HOW to judge a piece of art. Can you tell if someone is not in tune? Uneven tempo? a cliche melody line? A gimmick? Do you know how to dissect a piece of music to figure out where the influences came from in terms of genres of music or maybe other musicians that originated a certain style of writing or playing? The list goes on once you start studying MUSIC. Or do you have the same mentality they had on American Bandstand when they had people rate the song and they usually came up with "It's easy to dance to and I can sing to it". and that's all they cared about. Oh OK, Mr/Mrs whomever doesn't know how to LISTEN to music and have any REAL ability to critique it other than the most basic method of judging a song. Welcome to the world of POP music. It's the I don't care method of listening to music. Oh OK. Whatever gets you through the day. Calling me a snob is the wrong word to use. Calling me more musically educated would be more appropriate. I'm not a world expert, but I do know a lot more than most.
I cannot see Beats being worth $3.2B. My guess is there will be no lump sum buyout or that that number is a figment of analysts' always fertile (and wrong) imaginations.
What could possibly be the reason for any purchase? I would have to guess is that Apple is not being successful in negotiations with content providers. Steve Jobs had some initial success but his take on the intelligence and business acumen of the entertainment industry, which he openly discussed, was decidedly negative.
Dre and Lovine may have value as industry insiders in moving negotiations along, and perhaps may be Apple's agents in advising them on which entertainment companies to buy.
Let me see if I can explain this.
Take rapping by itself with nothing else. You know, acapella rapping. They aren't singing any melody, so it's just talking or speaking poetry with has rhythm, but there is no melody.
Now, put to a drum machine or whatever "music" is commonly used in a rap song which is typically sequencing of the rhythm part. Again, there's no melody line. Now, if you took someone rapping and put it to jazz, then they STILL aren't singing, they are STILL rapping, which they are STILL not singing a melody line, but the music portion does have some forms of chord progressions and maybe some melodies behind the scenes, but that's not considered rap music, that's considered jazz music with rapping on top.
Now, if you go to a private music instructor or some formal music course they will tell you the elements in music. There is rhythm, melody and harmony. If rap music doesn't generally have melody and harmony, then it really isn't music from someone that teaches music. Now, there are other elements of music such as tempo, pitch, dynamics, key, texture, timbre. But rap MUSIC doesn't have all of these from a general standpoint. Rapping by itself isn't like an acappela singing group which DOES have all of these elements. Does this make sense?
So from a technical standpoint, rapping doesn't contain all of the elements of music and most of the music they rap to in a RAP SONG (not a jazz, rock, funk, etc. where they DO have these elements), then it really can't be considered MUSIC. It's close, but it just simply doesn't have all of these elements.
If you want a better explanation of these elements. Here's a link for you to actually LEARN something about MUSIC. God. forbid you actually learn something you didn't already know.
http://musiced.about.com/od/beginnerstheory/a/musicelements.htm
Have a nice day.
Sounds like you have a ethnocentric view of what music is. Yes, "white" music is based on European traditions, where all the evolution and efforts have been to create melody lines within a narrow range of tones. African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Pacific Islands have different traditions and have evolved incredible beauty and complexity within their musical traditions that cannot even be understood by the Western ear. The percussive lines within the African traditions, for example, contains tonality and color and complexity of the instrumentation and performance that is unmatchable in traditional Western music.
I don't listen to rap generally, and don't understand it. I'm in no position to compare it intelligently to other musical traditions. But, it is clearly music -- just not traditional "white" Western music.
Your comments on the need for chord progressions in rap to make it "real" music thus cannot be seen as anything but arrogance of someone with so limited a knowledge of musical traditions that he doesn't know what he doesn't know.
Sounds like you have a ethnocentric view of what music is. Yes, "white" music is based on European traditions, where all the evolution and efforts have been to create melody lines within a narrow range of tones. African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Pacific Islands have different traditions and have evolved incredible beauty and complexity within their musical traditions that cannot even be understood by the Western ear. The percussive lines within the African traditions, for example, contains tonality and color and complexity of the instrumentation and performance that is unmatchable in traditional Western music.
I don't listen to rap generally, and don't understand it. I'm in no position to compare it intelligently to other musical traditions. But, it is clearly music -- just not traditional "white" Western music.
Your comments on the need for chord progressions in rap to make it "real" music thus cannot be seen as anything but arrogance of someone with so limited a knowledge of musical traditions that he doesn't know what he doesn't know.
"I don't listen to rap generally, and don't understand it. I'm in no position to compare it intelligently to other musical traditions. But, it is clearly music."
?Sorry, but you aren't in a position to say if it is or not since you don't listen to it, understand it and aren't in a position to compare it intelligently other other musical traditions.
I've at least listened to over the years starting with the first rap song that I was exposed to which was White Lines or some Sugarhill song that was famous a LONG time ago, which actually has a LOT more elements of music than the crap they have now, but the problem is with rapping itself, it's talking not singing, what music they play behind it and whether or not it adheres to the elements of music is what also has to be considered or analyzing the "MUSIC" portion to figure out if it really is music. But rapping by itself is speaking poetry. In the early days, they used a bass player, a drummer, actual singers singing, go look up the song and listen to it, and compare to the crap that's on the market now. It predominately doesn't have those elements. But I would probably say that White Lines was more of a funk song with some rapping on top and they had some background singers, but the rapping is STILL poetry, and not song to a melody line. The style of music was either funk or dance music related, which could be easily related to one another. "Gotta have that funk" - George Clinton.
I think people have been brainwashed by the music recording industry (the people that are responsible for marketing and selling the product) have successful in convincing non-musician listeners out there that it's music. I just am NOT buying into it. I think it's safe to say it's borderline music at best and that's based on my knowledge of music that I've learned through attending college courses, private lessons, reading books, playing music, performing it and studying listening to music over the years. I can't go by, I think it's music just because the record labels that sell it say it is. They are making money from it, college professors aren't trying to make money from rap music, they make money by TEACHING it, so they are a lot more unbiased and come from a place of infinitely more knowledge about music that the masses of people that buy it.
?I think society should be listening more to academia for guidances and quit with this having heads up their asses because they don't study a subject matter they make money in or spend money in.
Since when does one have to listen to all forms of music to recognize it as music? I don't listen to Mariachi but it's still music. But you know the difference, instead of acknowledging any of the examples you've been given that clearly show a vast arrangements of instrumental and vocal music accompanying rapping on rap songs you're defending your racially fueled position through straw man and other argumentative fallacies. If I point out the music that Dr. Dre produces you claim it's all electronic and therefore "not a real instrument since it uses a machine" even though all musical instruments are machines. If I then point that Daft Punk uses machines you then say, "Well, that's different." but you stop short of saying it's because they're not "the blacks" and state "it's not very good and barely classifies."
You're too afraid to even consider something outside your limited scope of knowledge as acceptable because it frightens you too much. You remind me of this mandolin player I unfortunately knew. He got kicked out of every band he was in. Not because he wasn't good at that one instrument but because he was too much of elitist ass to work with.
Dr. Blank, Benjamin Frost, others...
The only"Immature form of expression" here are your rants about an art form you know nothing about.
Let me start out to say that I am a performer and a composer with over 20 years of experience. I studied piano and composition with some of the top composers and performers of our day. When I was younger I competed in international piano competitions, playing Bach, Mozart, Bethoven Chopin, Scarlatti, Rachmaninoff, Liszt and others. I made my early living performing chamber music in Duets, Quintets etc. whenever and wherever I could. I made the most of my opportunities.
I have been composing for nearly as long, and am lucky enough now, to be in a position to lead my own groups who perform music that I have composed. Some of the that have performed my music are contemporary classical music. Other are more alt/rock/pop/electronic based. It is possible that you may have heard some of the music that I have composed, or not, as I protect my identity under several pseudonyms.
Either way, if any musician that I work with ever expressed to me the closed mindedness attitudes that you have displayed, I would kick them out of my group so quickly they wouldn't have time to react.
"Real" musicians simply do no carry those sort of attitude. Jazz music, for example, was considered to be 'degenerate' music of whorehouses and dance halls. Now it is taught in Universities. Rock music such as the Rolling Stones or Velvet Underground were associated with the drug counterculture. Perhaps they all were. So what? Its all part of the human experience and has some value either way.
The reason that Hip-Hop has become so dominant in our culture is because it is so open. There is not one genre of music that Hip-Hop does not borrow from or gain influence; whether its jazz, classical rock, country, anything... It's all there.. Because it is so transmutable and universal in it's appeal, there is not one country in the world that doesn't have it's own brand of hip-hop. It embraces modern technology. It is a truly global phenomenon.
I can see why you don't like it, because it's values of openness and technological progress are diametrically opposed to everything that that you have said you stand for
Well, as I can plainly see, YOU FORGOT THE BASIC ELEMENTS OF MUSIC.
As much as you appear to know, YOU FORGOT to mention the basic elements of music.
Let me refresh your memory.
http://musiced.about.com/od/beginnerstheory/a/musicelements.htm
Have you tested rap music to see if it adhere to these basic elements of music? Obvioulsy, you forgot to include MELODY.
Rapping isn't singing. If they aren't singing, they aren't creating music. Let me know when a reputable higher learning institution teaches kids how to create rap lyrics and rap music. When they do, then MAYBE I'll listen to you.
All the music industry is doing is trying to capitalize and legitimize illiteracy and musical ignorance and applying the word RAP to it. It's low grade music. And i use the term lightly.
Glad I don't work with you, I wouldn't want to damage my reputation in this world by pandering to the lowest common demoninator.
You must think Justin Blieber is an excellent songwriter singer too!!
Open? No. It's becoming popular because it gives the kids a way/excuse to not study Englsih, not study Music, and to walk around with their underwear hanging out, while they smoke pot, drink alcohol, do drugs, steal, degrade women and each other, get involved with guns, go in/out of the jail system and then blame society.
Miles Davis and others during the age when they were creating music that was combining REAL musical art forms that actually have and adhere to music and then pursuing forms of improvisation is OPEN. RAP is closed. You have to act like them, talk like them, look like them otherwise you don't fit their mold and they reject you, so THEY are the racists ones just trying to manipulate educated musicians into thinking it's special.
So, when does the London Symphony Orchestra ready to combine classical music and rap and put on a concert? That will NEVER happen.
You are a disgrace to the music industry by promoting rap IMO.
Obviously, the top jazz musicians that even hinted of using rap with Jazz all failed at it because they don't do anything with it. They might have experimented with it, but it didn't fit them moving forward. Yeah, like Herbie Hancock is going to bring a rapper to destroy his band's music when he performs with one of his V.S.O.P. groups. That'll never happen.
You are a SELL OUT. Plenty of those around.
It would be interesting to see how one would chart out a rap song. It's pretty hard to chart out a melody when they aren't singing a melody unless they through Auto Tune on the vocals to force it to a musical note. Freaking BS music. There, I classified as music, but I also put the letters BS in front of it to describe what TYPE of music it is. Happy Now? My, Nigga... (Nigga is being used to mean the word "friend")
I can only imagine what albums you have.
Motzart
Copeland
Miles Davis
Dr. Dre
Justin Bieber
Vanilla Ice
Strauss
Devo
Anthrax
N.W.A.
So, when you perform your next rap concert? Have you ever performed at one? Just curious. Do you have any rap albums I can listen to that you composed and performed? I'm open minded enough to listen to it to see if I like it.
Oh and your definition of "REAL" musicians is the ONLY definition? Well, the "REAL" musicians that I've played with and studied from won't touch rap music with a 10 foot pole. They hate.it. They see no value in it.
So you're still saying that anything placed in the rap genre isn't music? You're saying that the music that rappers are rapping with isn't music despite the harmonies and melodies that are an innate part of the rap song? How exactly does the rap portion of a song cancel out the instrumental music and/or sung chorus or hook?
Again, and about the 50th example, you can't discern a melody from this rap song?
[VIDEO]
This sure sounds like music that could have been made by a violin, piano and various woodwinds and percussion instruments to me and that sure sounds like Rhianna singing but because Kanye West is a
blackrapper you can't classify this a music. :no:Now you're calling people sell outs. Your comments on music are fucking ridiculous. Do you play the mandolin? If you do I probably know who you are.
Are you a musician? I am, and in book, I don't consider rap to be music. It's talking or yelling or whatever they are doing. But it isn't music. It certainly anything enjoyable to listen to unless you are some kid that's pissed off at the world and this your way of showing it by listening to it or creating it. That's all it is. Immature form of expression being marketed as music.
God, the music industry has done a number on society.
Would you want your computer to start up with a musical passage or chime or some as swipe saying "You whore nigga bitch" instead. don't tell me, let me guess.
Dr. Blank, Benjamin Frost, others...
The only"Immature form of expression" here are your rants about an art form you know nothing about.
Let me start out to say that I am a performer and a composer with over 20 years of experience. I studied piano and composition with some of the top composers and performers of our day. When I was younger I competed in international piano competitions, playing Bach, Mozart, Bethoven Chopin, Scarlatti, Rachmaninoff, Liszt and others. I made my early living performing chamber music in Duets, Quintets etc. whenever and wherever I could. I made the most of my opportunities.
I have been composing for nearly as long, and am lucky enough now, to be in a position to lead my own groups who perform music that I have composed. Some of the that have performed my music are contemporary classical music. Other are more alt/rock/pop/electronic based. It is possible that you may have heard some of the music that I have composed, or not, as I protect my identity under several pseudonyms.
Either way, if any musician that I work with ever expressed to me the closed mindedness attitudes that you have displayed, I would kick them out of my group so quickly they wouldn't have time to react.
"Real" musicians simply do no carry those sort of attitude. Jazz music, for example, was considered to be 'degenerate' music of whorehouses and dance halls. Now it is taught in Universities. Rock music such as the Rolling Stones or Velvet Underground were associated with the drug counterculture. Perhaps they all were. So what? Its all part of the human experience and has some value either way.
The reason that Hip-Hop has become so dominant in our culture is because it is so open. There is not one genre of music that Hip-Hop does not borrow from or gain influence; whether its jazz, classical rock, country, anything... It's all there.. Because it is so transmutable and universal in it's appeal, there is not one country in the world that doesn't have it's own brand of hip-hop. It embraces modern technology. It is a truly global phenomenon.
I can see why you don't like it, because it's values of openness and technological progress are diametrically opposed to everything that that you have said you stand for.
If you're so blinkered as to kick people out of your group for expressing views contrary to yours, you must be a bundle of joy to work with. I can see why you strive to protect your identity so earnestly.
Since when does one have to listen to all forms of music to recognize it as music? I don't listen to Mariachi but it's still music. But you know the difference, instead of acknowledging any of the examples you've been given that clearly show a vast arrangements of instrumental and vocal music accompanying rapping on rap songs you're defending your racially fueled position through straw man and other argumentative fallacies. If I point out the music that Dr. Dre produces you claim it's all electronic and therefore "not a real instrument since it uses a machine" even though all musical instruments are machines. If I then point that Daft Punk uses machines you then say, "Well, that's different." but you stop short of saying it's because they're not "the blacks" and state "it's not very good and barely classifies."
You're too afraid to even consider something outside your limited scope of knowledge as acceptable because it frightens you too much. You remind me of this mandolin player I unfortunately knew. He got kicked out of every band he was in. Not because he wasn't good at that one instrument but because he was too much of elitist ass to work with.
I'm just looking at it from the aspect of does it fulfill the basic requirements for the term "MUSIC". I just think that's important. So I should be chastised for using some of the education I have had to apply it to a form of popular music that I really don't like listening to. It doesn't make me feel happy, it doesn't relax me, it doesn't move me to want to dance to it, so to me, it's useless and i just see first hand what the RAP CULTURE is doing to the kids growing up and they are ending up not wanting to go to school or college and they would rather smoke pot, drink alcohol and call eat other niggas, bitches and ho's. And I just don't think that's acceptable. And you think I'm WRONG to think this way? Really?
Here's a link to the list and their definitions to explain each one.
http://musiced.about.com/od/beginnerstheory/a/musicelements.htm
What these rap artists haven't done is become accepted in the poetry world for their poetry. If they got a college to teach how to develop a rap poetry as a legitimate form of training, then it becomes LEGITIMATE. Poets that become famous usually have some serious education in poetry, the rules and guidelines in the different styles of poetry throughout the years. Good lyricists usually have spent time reading the works of the great poets of the world so they have an understanding of how to use words to create emotions and images, etc. POP culture throws a lot of stuff out the window because the record labels and artists in the pop put MONEY and FAME above art when they shouldn't. They didn't use to do this, but it's becoming obvious that money and fame is more important than the quality. Some good has come of it, but a lot of trash has also, it's trying to sift through the trash to find the nuggets of gold and every day, there is less golden nuggets of REAL music to be had. It's sad too.
And while they're at it, they should give those street musicians that play on a plastic bucket a recording contract to see how rich and famous they can make him for playing solely on a plastic bucket. I know the Blue Man group has had success using PVC and other objects not normally considered musical instruments. but the thing is,, those guys are and HAVE to be SERIOUSLY SKILLED AND TRAINED DRUMMERS and I mean SERIOUS Drum Corp chops and background, so those guys ARE TRAINED musicians. They are performing more percussion assemble work. It's more of a performance art because I don't know of too many people that will buy a CD and listen to it, because it's more visual. I can handle them a couple of times, but I don't have the desire to play with them or learn how to do what they are doing, but I can certainly appreciate and respect their level of abilities. They do certainly warrant getting an audience.
I have 3 years of violin and 12 years of piano under my belt. As a youth my parents (read: mother) felt I should I study these instruments and learn to play classical. I have done some composition on my own and taken plenty of classes but certainly not to the level in which you describe. For me, I ultimately consider it a waste when I am more geared toward scientific pursuits (which I know can be done within music) but I would much prefer to listen than to compose or play. I would have preferred to have had a personal computer in the house instead of using my first one when I was in my early 20's. I went from never using Windows back when NT 3.51 was transitioning to Windows 4.0. It was a toss up between Novell and Windows for some multi-week crash courses. Didn't take me long to realize how much I love the communication side of computing and moved into Cisco networking. I have no idea what synaptic pathways all that music created but I still feel that time could have been better spent as I struggle now to grasp both the Objective-C and Spanish languages.