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Unrefined "Musician" Gains a Global Audience
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "An unskilled musician performed a catchy pop instrumental for more than one million YouTube users even though he can't play a lick of drums or piano. The 22-year-old Norwegian's tool was stop-motion video, WSJ.com reports. From the article: 'To make "Amateur," Mr. Gjertsen recorded each analog beat and note one by one on video. He transferred the sounds from each video clip into audio files, which he could rearrange with the Fruity Loops sound-editing program — the same software he's used to create his all-digital music in the past. After organizing the sound files into the right order, Mr. Gjertsen reconstructed the pattern with the original video files. In the final product, he insists, nothing about his performance was digitally enhanced. "You have the original sounds from the video," he says.'"
"Unskilled musician" yes. "Unskilled video editor" I think not.
"Is that dad? Either that or Batman's really let himself go."
So what? Is this really news?
So he sampled sounds, put them in a "sequencer" and created a pattern appealing to the ear.
Tangerine Dream and a bunch of other krauts were doing this 30 years ago.
Am I missing something?
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That's essentially the concept of IDM; taking sounds from different sources that shouldn't work in any coherent sense and making them come together musically. This doesn't even go that far, sampling's been around for years. Also, "musician" refers not only to those who can play musical instruments, but also to those who compose musical works. He fits the criteria, as far as I can tell.
His skill at turning someone with zero musical performance skill into something entertaining and presentable shows he could get a job as a pop music producer. Hell, he can't do any worse than the pimps who churn out the pop tarts we see on stage today!
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
If someone submitted the link to this video a month ago when it first appeared on blogs and Digg etc it wouldn't have been accepted as a story on Slashdot. Funny how the Wall Street Journal's description of the video, spare interview, and short backstory showcasing their world-class investigative journalism (the same that doggedly followed the Enron debacle) makes this YouTube clip a legitimate story to post on Slashdot's front page.
I'm not complaining about it being here, or complaining that the Wall Street Journal submits its own stuff. Just funny how a random link becomes legitimate, that's all.
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Now, your critique about modern music is unfounded. Yes, I hate N'Sync also and I'm sure that their studio does a lot for them. But it sure the hell isn't micro-sampling like this guy is doing. At some point, it stops being sound editing and it becomes sampling. This man is a skilled sampler but horrible at drums (he never uses anything but one symbol--I mean, there's three or four others, try the ride!--and a little bit of hi-hat).
So while he may 'have a sense' of beat, tempo and melody, sit yourself down at fruity loops and mess around. You'll be pleasantly surprised that after a few hours, you have something that sound cool to you. After a few days, something that might sound cool to others. A few months and who knows?
The man is skilled. Skilled at sampling and editing. He's not, however, a skilled musician. He doesn't record 'tracks,' he records 'samples.' There's a difference and your statement of "a lot of people" and "most modern music" is quite hastily made.
My work here is dung.
This kid really is awesome. His editing skills are unreal.
Check out his MySpace page. He has other material apparently.
"No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes scripture." - Learned Hand
Can you imagine the potential of this? Why, you could be an entire orchestra by yourself! In fact, you could even perform this kind of trick LIVE - simply substitute musicians skilled in their instruments for the samples, and in order to "control" them, you could provide them with the musical instructions somehow on paper. Of course you'd have to implement some kind of global timer to keep them all together, but it seems very doable!
/.s planning to prove that it is.
/.s thinking "meh", consider that he actually did something about doing it, no matter the approach he used.
I am sure it is doble and there are probably a few dozen
What makes this video interesting is the orginality and this is what art is often comes down to: it is not the ability to do it, since many people could probably do it, but actually making this real and sharing it for all to appreciate. A copy of an art piece is still art, but it not original art where the artist went the process of play, experimenting and realisation. So for those
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
While actual mechanical skill with an instrument belongs to one level, composing and arranging belong to a wholly different level. I'd even go as far to venture that both rely on completely different sets of brain matter. Speaking from personal experience, i may be able to shred guitar with the best of them (okay, i might be exaggerating a bit), but i really hit a wall when i try to arrange something, especially if it has many layers of instrumentation, melody, harmony, etc. That guy is a master arranger in his own right.
"Unskilled musician" yes. "Unskilled video editor" I think not.
"Unskilled musician" no.
"Unskilled performer" yes. "Unskilled composer" I think not.
What the h*ck do you think MIDI is? Or tracked music? Or Mellotron? Or Fairlight?
So basically he made a MIDI track using live instrument samples? Now this is cutting edge stuff here - simply by dictating what pitch, how long, and when notes should be played, he was able to "perform" an entire song!!
Nothing new about the technology he used. The real point is that he created a new composition using that technology.
Can you imagine the potential of this? Why, you could be an entire orchestra by yourself! In fact, you could even perform this kind of trick LIVE - simply substitute musicians skilled in their instruments for the samples, and in order to "control" them, you could provide them with the musical instructions somehow on paper. Of course you'd have to implement some kind of global timer to keep them all together, but it seems very doable!
This method, in fact, was once much more popular than it is today. Ensembles of musicians of all sizes up to full orchestra read music to entertain live audiences. The global timer was the conductor.
But I suspect you already knew that and were just trying to sound clever.
Just a different type of technological tool for the real creative force: the composer. Orchestras are the puppets of composers, even after those composers are dead.
The methods this person used are not new, but they are valid. Anyone past their sophomore / junior year in college would know this from having paid attention in humanities, much less having taken intro to music as an elective. Tearing down others doesn't make you look smart.
Hpyjealous much ? everybody going "all he did was blah blah blah"
iam sure you can compile a Kernel or put a new skin on KDE but can you do what he did ? and if its so easy lets see your version iam sure you have loads of music and creative videos you edited right ?
is that crickets i hear or the sound of tumbleweed ?
to some people hardcore ASM code is an art to others its mindnumbing shite, Art takes many forms how many can you master ?
He's just using a different instrument, played in a non-linear way. He's as much a musician as anyone playing a "traditional" instrument. Do you complain about authors writing in a non-linear fashion with a computer rather than linearly with a typewriter?
A few months and who knows?
The man is skilled. Skilled at sampling and editing. He's not, however, a skilled musician.
I'm sorry, you're mistaken.
The only things your argument establishes is that he is not a talented drummer or pianist. A musician is someone who makes music, and for the purposes of defining the term, I couldn't give a shit how it's made.
The Richard D. James Album by Aphex Twin contains, in my opinion, some of the most beautiful "music" made in the last decade using techniques very similar, in principle, to the ones this guy is using. I'm thrilled to see that new tools are allowing different people to become musicians in brand new ways.
Agreed. That's a pretty standard Baroque chord progression, and anyone familiar with Bach will spot the harmonic minor touches immediately. The guy may not be able to play the piano, but he certainly knows music.
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He's not a pianist or a drummer, that's for sure, but he's a hell of a musician. In that he makes music. That doesn't imply any skill at any particular instrument, although in this case, I think it's quite arguable that the computer is his instrument.
Although new instruments have had a history of being rejected by more conventional instrument players whenever they're introduced, I would have hoped that we'd moved beyond that now. (Did you know what harpsicord players thought of the piano when it was first introduced? It wasn't flattering, I'll bet.) Keyboards, synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, and other electronic devices are all valid tools for a musician to use. For that matter, so are 55-gallon drums and PVC pipe, at the other end of the spectrum.
This guy made music; therefore he is a musician. The fact that you think that 'anybody' could do this is irrelevant; everybody isn't doing this, or it wouldn't be notable and other people wouldn't be listening to it. Acting haughty because he doesn't have conventional instrumental skills is ridiculous.
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I disagree with just about everyone in this thread re: definition of musician vs. composer vs. editor etc., but I'm replying to you because I feel that this point of view is particularly damaging to good, original, modern music, and it's acceptance by a wider audience.
No one, other than academics who over intellectualize most music, really cares whether there is a 12-tone row in a piece of music. Why would you expect one to show up in a song by Aphex Twin? Would it make it a better piece of music? Aperiodic rhythms? Who cares?
Music is judged by the vast majority of people in subjective, opinionated terms. Arguing that someone should justify the use of sampling in music by citing an unknown, and in most people's opinion unlistenable (though innovative), composer is ridiculous. I appreciate those on the vanguard like Stockhausen for pushing boundaries and bringing new ideas to the table, but that doesn't necessarily make what they do 'good' music in a conventional (i.e. layman's) sense.
You sound like a pompous asshole. I guess what bothers me most is the tone of superiority that is expressed through statements like yours and by most people who hold similar opinions, and the insinuation that if someone disagrees they are stupid and wrong. It does nothing to encourage communication and exchange of ideas, and everything to turn people off of the fringe completely.
I disagree with what you're saying simply because it's wrong--this guy obviously grasps rhythm, melody and harmony; what you're claiming is ludicrous--but since 30 other people have written in to tell you that, I'd just like to point out that the standard by which any art should be judged is whether it's new, interesting, different, thought-provoking and/or aesthetically pleasing. I found this video to be at least four of those. If playing instruments well enables you to achieve that, that's good, but it's not really an end unto itself, artistically speaking. The world is full of extremely well-trained musicians who do nothing but play other peoples' work all day long and haven't a creative bone in their body. To me that's boring. Why do we need more of that? This guy is doing something fresh and innovative, and he deserves credit for it.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
How many of you clowns pooh-poohing this guy's composition because it's "just editing" would bee messing your drawers in awe if the music in question was (say) the original 1963 theme to Doctor Who? You know, the one Delia Derbyshire composed and "recorded" by physically cutting and splicing (in some cases) individual notes recorded on magnetic tape?
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
The man is skilled. Skilled at sampling and editing. He's not, however, a skilled musician.
This is kind of arguing the semantics of whether the word "musician" includes composers who create music but can't actually play that music. There's also the point that due to the invention of devices that can record sounds and play them back, and with it the genre of music concrete, you can be able to play instruments such as audiotape and digital samplers without having to play them in real time. I think we can agree that this person is talented at the same thing as The Art of Noise and Pop Will Eat Itself (and pretty much any composer who had an Amiga), and hopefully agree that the sampler is a valid instrument. At the end of the day, he's creating music that he can't play live, but he can show a recording of it to other people.
Just because you don't understand how classical musicians work (and I'm sure this is what you're referring to), please don't make an outright arrogant statement such as this. By your line of pathetic reasoning, Ben Kingsley doesn't have a creative bone in his body because he does nothing but "read other people's scripts all day". Ben Kingsley interprets scripts, just like Marc-André Hamelin interprets musical scores, and they're both frigging incredible at it.
And yes, I'm a trained semi-professional musician, who has been playing/studying piano for 20 years, earned almost two degrees, and will be doing a masters in music very shortly. And you know what? I think this was seriously one of the coolest videos I've ever seen. But I avoided commenting, because I knew it was just going to turn into a pointless argument over whether or not he qualifies as a "musician", and sure enough, that's exactly what happened.
So ligthen up everyone, and give give the kid a break...he was only having a bit of fun, for christ's sake...
What about the unoriginal "painting" process used by so many artists? Or the unoriginal "film" process used by all those movie producers and directors? Or that unoriginal "acting" process used in the theatre? I guess there's not much to be excited about in the art world, since it's all unoriginal...