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

"Unskilled"?

[daveschroeder]

Just because he can't play piano or drums, he clearly still knows what sounds good, has a sense of beat, tempo, and melody, and knows how to use editing software.

I'd wager most modern music is made just like that, and involves a lot of people who would meet this definition of "unskilled" musician.

Re:"Unskilled"?

[poot_rootbeer]

"Unskilled musician" yes. "Unskilled video editor" I think not.

"Unskilled musician" no.

"Unskilled performer" yes. "Unskilled composer" I think not.

Re:"Unskilled"?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

It's cymbal, not symbol. I'm not a musician and even I know that.

Re:"Unskilled"?

[Simon Garlick]

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.

Re:"Unskilled"?

[drix]

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.

Re:"Unskilled"?

[SpasticWeasel]

Being a pedantic dick works a lot better when you can spell cymbal

Re:"Unskilled"?

[Eideewt]

Translation:

"As a clueless amateur who has managed to lay my hands on a few instruments, I now prepare to deliver my infallible wisdom. First of all, he's not actually playing those instruments. He just recorded video clips and rearranged them. So you see, he didn't actually have to play the notes in order or at any particular time. Real instrumentalists *do* have to play notes in sequence. Ergo, he is a terrible musician.

Even though I'm a musician in the loftiest, most pure sense of the word, I am not rich and famous. I now mention a current band to show that I am 'with it'. I also hate them for their success. I've never been part of a real recording session, but I know just how it works, and quite frankly, this guy does not meet my own personal standards of musicianship.

So while this guy may be skilled at making music, he is not a skilled musician. This is so obvious that I can't be bothered to explain my logic."

Starting from the top:

Thank you for you explanation of the nuances of playing an instrument. Because we all missed the part where he didn't actually play them. The way he just plunked a few notes then assembled them into a piece was kind of like the point, you know? At the beginning he showed us that.

Now your knowledge of modern music is somewhat lacking, both in the areas everyone should know (current groups) and in the areas you propose to explain (recording). Certainly the amount of editing any particular group needs varies, but speaking as someone with actual knowledge of the field, modern music is very heavily edited, and has been for a number of years. When he says that modern music is made "just like that" he's right on the money. A sample is generally longer than his, but there is a phenomenal amount of cut'n'paste work in every single song you hear on the radio (unless you're listening to oldies or acoustic music).

Nice attempt to make yourself look moderate here. "The man is skilled. Skilled at sampling and editing." These sound like words that would leave George Bush's mouth, by the way. You've managed to develop a strange definition of "musician" which doesn't seem to line up with whether a person makes music. I suggest syncing with reality at your earliest convenience!

Hair

[jamesl]

Its the hair, man.

Man I Dig That Crazy Beat!

[RailGunSally]

He should take it on the road!

IDM

[mushadv]

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.

Re:Career path

[Rob the Bold]

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!

I think that's his point. That the 'musician' in much of today's recorded music is actually the producer/editor and not the person you hear singing/playing the notes that make up the music. The music is the editing, the editing is the music.

umm

[illuminatedwax]

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!!

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!

Funny

[anaesthetica]

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.

Redundant

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, thanks, I saw that same link in the summary.

Re:Moo

[Cybersonic]

Use the Video Downloader firefox plugin: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2390/

Then use VLC http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ to play the resulting file.

MySpace

[gt_mattex]

This kid really is awesome. His editing skills are unreal.

Check out his MySpace page. He has other material apparently.

Aphex Twin is Music

[Dster76]

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.

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.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[Simon Garlick]

He is unskilled musician.

I have always relied on the definition of music as it was taught to me by my first college music professor: "Music is sounds and silence organised in time".

As far as I'm concerned this guy is very skilled at organising sounds and silence in time. Ergo, he's a skilled musician. He's just not a skilled instrumentalist.

Lasse Gjertsen is a genius

[cliveholloway]

It's obvious from some of the comments that posters haven't seen his work. He's one of the most creative artists I've seen on YouTube. From the pointless and bizarre Den Lille Valpen, to the simple humor of US, to the amazing production values on Jeg går en Tur. And the guy is only 22.

Personally, I can't wait to see what he comes up with next.

cLive ;-)

ps - oh, and the "Your mother is a" Slutt joke is quite funny too...

He certainly is a musician.

[Kadin2048]

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.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[Perseid]

In case you haven't realized it yet, not everything posted on /. is earth-shattering news. This video was neat. I enjoyed watching it. I bet he enjoyed making it. All is well with the world. Relax.

Pompous much?

[AlgoRhythm]

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.

Re:Pompous much?

[emilng]

I am an amateur when it comes to musicians and music theory, but if this discussion were applied to visual art, you seem like the kind of person who would walk into an art gallery and look at the little plaque next to the piece and disregard the actual artwork because you see the name of the artist and recall that from some art review that their work was mostly derivative of a genre of art originated by someone who is mostly unknown in modern main stream culture. You would then proceed to go home and research this artist and convince yourself that because this artist was the first they are better than the artist whose work you completely overlooked in the gallery. I'm not saying that's what you do, but that's certainly how you represent yourself.

Re:"Unskilled"? C'mon...

[davidsyes]

He was being cymbolic. Don't have a tympani tantrum, hehehehe

switch about...

[Dun Malg]

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?