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.'"

Comments

Re:Pompous much?

[CRCulver]

One thing's for sure: in no cultural musical traditions in the world, composers and musicians compose like they were drawing mathematical functions.

Totally false. The Greek musical tradition owes so much to Pythagoras and his school, for whom music was an expression of sacred numerology. While to a certain extent Pythagoras was describing an earlier musical tradition, there are areas where he clearly pushed forth new guidelines on musical progression purely for mathematical reasons. See M.L. West's Ancient Greek Music . Furthermore, in Toru Takemitsu's works which he commenced after reconciling himself to his native country's musical tradition, the use of magic squares becomes an important factor.