I'm loving this site more and more every day.
shadeed said:
As far as musician vs. beatmaker debate, MANY musicians especially those that don't mess w/ hip hop feel that beatmaking isn't "musical", so don't sweat that.
I've always felt that sampling and beatmaking was an evolution of DJ'ing and I don't look at it in the sense of "playing music" to me its two separate things, but to be a good beatmaker does require an ear for music and talent.
Thank you! I agree, sampling and beatmaking are definetly evolutions of DJ'ing and is completely different from playing a traditional instrument. Can anybody learn to make a beat? True! But to make a beat that is considered hot by the people who apreciate that type of music you do need an ear for the music and some talent. Anybody can make a shitty ass beat. What irked me was that the dude was coming at me with an elitist attitude and had the balls to say, and I gotta quote,"a monkey can learn to make a rap song, but I bet you that most people who make rap don't have the mental capacity to learn a real instrument." Now you see why I wanted to smack him? Dude was indirectly insultng me and trying to dumb me down because I don't play a real instrument.
classic said:
I can tell you personally that learning how to play an instrament, and creating beats are 2 totally seprate processes with minimual over lap.
Like if i never learned how to play the piano or sax, i still think i would be making the same type of beats, becasue when producing, its more focused on instinct & talent rather then trained techinal abilitity, you either got it or you dont...
BUt if ur composing from scratch and creating your own sounds and samples as well as manuplating other samples i think that it cat be VERY musical....
Classic - you're the man. Your beats are all hot and I got the deepest respect for you knowing you play the piano and sax too. This is great, now I can pick the brain of somebody who comes from both angles. Yes they are both seperate processes, but, in both cases, you start off as a beginner and put in practice, hone your skills and continue to progress and elevate yourself to higher levels. Now it's clear that most instruments are gonna have a much steeper learning curve than lets say an MPC, but I think it's wrong for someone to totally dismiss the hard work and all the effort you put into producing a quality track, which is what the dude was doing. Do you think you deserve any less respect for your beatmaking than you do for your piano and sax skills? I don't think so because any music you make with any of the three to me is music, art and something to be appreciated.
bigdmakintrax said:
can someone be taught to be a dope turntablist.....??? hell yes no doubt....would someone come out of the gate with the ability to spin and cut better yep..but one can be taught that......I am closer to agreeing with dude myself....
While I agree that someone can be taught to do anything like beatmaking or scratching, I have to disagree with your claim that they can reach a level that is considered dope! Beyond learning the basics of any art form, no amount of practice can make up for a lack of talent.
Formant024 said:
There's dudes doing years of study on how to get their contra's dynamics just right (they'll kill you for compressing their recordings) under their control and you want to compare that to operating an mpc ? Same with piano, you can play piano or you can play liszt. The topnotch king pimp god blessed avatar of beatmaking wont equate to such a musician
If you go back and read my post, you'll see that I never tried to equate beatmaking to being a musical virtuoso of any instrument. On the contrary, I give mad props to all musicians. The point that I was trying to make was that while one may be infinately more difficult to learn than the other, to me, and I hope I'm not alone, the end result, the music, is an artistic expression of the artist manipulating their chosen instrument and should not be dismissed or put down, but given credit. I would never dare to compare a pianist to somebody banging out beats on an MPC, that's like comparing apples and oranges, but I appreciate and acknlowledge the amount of effort and training that was put in by both. The dude I was arguing with refused to give any credit at all to anything other than 'traditionally' composed music. And for the record, he was the one who brought the subject of intelligence into the conversation which I found ironic because for someone who claimed to be so intelligent, he was incredibly close minded.
Big up to all of y'all, I respect you opinions and I'm glad to see people speaking their mind! Respect!