So, one of the classes that I'm taking is a Scoring for Film and TV class. It's a really interesting class, and since it's what I want to do with my music career, I plan on taking the sequel next quarter (horrible pun intended). For our final exam, we actually have to score a 30 second clip of our choice out of three available clips. Since I am most comfortable with soft, smooth piano pieces, I've opted to score the love scene clip. I've pretty much already written my main theme and melody, and have started planning how I'm going to orchestrate everything and dress it up. While I was getting ready for bed last night, I really started thinking...
It is simply amazing at how digital and virtual the music world is now. Hardly any sound you hear on the radio now-a-days is an authentic sound...everything is sampled, and played by virtual instruments and sample libraries. When I am recording a piece that I wrote, or plugging in certain instruments (strings, horns, etc), it's all virtual. I do it all with a MIDI controller and a sampler library. Basically, for those that don't know, I click on a specific sound that I want, and the little keyboard in front of me now generates that sound in the program, based off samples of live instruments. I have an entire orchestra at my fingertips. And this applies to any genre of music, including rock, but more specifically club stuff, hip-hop, and pop. Classic rock music is still played with live instruments, but processed through digital programs like Pro-Tools. In these programs, you can plug in different sounds and effects, and add a virtual "something" to your actual "anything".
However, realistically speaking...you don't even need to know how to play or access live instruments anymore. You want a muted blues trumpet? Point and click. How about a slap bass? Point and click. Maybe a brush drum set with a grand piano, set beside a harp quartet? Point and click. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this... On the one hand, studying music and being a "musician" today really only gets you so far in this game. Anybody is totally capable of making music these days, and they really don't even need to know how to read or write music. That kinda pisses me off, but probably only because I'm hatin on them for being able to do so. I used to think that knowing how to read and write music, and orchestrate as well, was a serious advantage. While it is still an advantage, it doesn't really hold that much more weight (depending on the genre, of course). I mean, someone who doesn't know how to read or write music certainly couldn't write a classical piece for a 50+ piece orchestra, or a show tune for Broadway...but they certainly could produce the next hit song on 97.1 or Z100.
On the other hand, you have to consider where music would be without this digital and virtual advantage. Think about how many great songs we've all come to love, simply wouldn't exist. The synthesizer has evolved so much from the days of the first Theramin or Mini Moog
(Google them), and it really has helped the music world advance in sound and capability. I could almost guarantee that most of your favorite songs are made via virtual instrument, and EVERY club and techno song is. Which is fine...I mean imagine tryin to roll or trip to an acoustic guitar at The Tunnel in NYC...not happening.
After thinking about all of these club songs and techno stuff last night, it made me realize something...we have become so dependent on computers, that we now actually make music from and respond to computer sounds...like robots. All the high pitched and bending notes, sound like the same types of sounds computers make when they are communicating with one another. The rhythms...computers. These sounds enter our brains, and we are almost commanded into dancing and doing other things, that had this music not been played...we probably wouldn't have ever done in the first place. Kinda weird to think about.
I suppose the natural musician will and can't ever be totally phased out, because that's just ridiculous....but, I will say this...the natural musician better get with the program real fast, otherwise we'll all be broke piano men, playing at a bar, wondering what we're still doing here.
In closing, remember this...A painter paints pictures on canvas, but musician's paint their pictures on silence.
Peace.
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