Cherry Petals in the Wind

[sleeplessdragn]

Re: Cherry Petals in the Wind

Well I don't agree with your views, but I'm trying hard to respect them by exploring this argument.

What I meant in my first statement is the concept of association: back as a young child with an impressionable mind, you formed for yourself all the associations for all of your senses. You associated, based on social patterns and other cultural situations, what sounds good or bad, or even what sounds "like a bird" or "like a train". It's a process that everyone does as their brains develop. It's the process, and you can blame Hollywood almost entirely for this one, for why certain music sounds "dramatic" or "scary" or "action-packed". The point I was trying to make is that in order to critique someone's work, you often have to ignore these associations because they are culturally implanted and as such aren't really your views, but the views of the society that bred you. This is why its important to try and understand the perspective of the artist, because the artist (based on the concept of art itself) is trying to comment on something, and very often that comment would not be clear to the society that bred you.

And personally, as an artist, I have very little concern for the three questions that you posed. The three questions you asked place the importance of music creation on the audience or in other artist, rather than in the pursuit of one's own true personal expression. I think Kurt Cobain is crying in heaven right now.

[DrugstoreCowboy]

Re: Cherry Petals in the Wind

I think Kurt Cobain is crying in heaven right now.

Where do bad people go when they die?

[sleeplessdragn]

Re: Cherry Petals in the Wind

Heaven

[Draigun]

Re: Cherry Petals in the Wind

!!!Guys listen to KgZ. He's in a dance game and dance games are serious business when it comes to music.!!!

[sleeplessdragn]

Re: Cherry Petals in the Wind

A business is the trading of something in an attempt to make a profit. In an attempt to make as much of a profit as possible, a business will modify their product based on their customer's needs, for the sole reason of making more profit. I assume, from your perspective, that your "customer" is your audience. Music is not a business, at least to me personally, because even if I have no "customers" I still gain the profit of personal self-expression, the profit of having created something that is truly my own, from my brain. Personally, I believe that viewing music creation as a business is one of the greatest fallacies an artist can do.

Secondly, I don't believe you are understanding my argument. I have tried very hard to explain why you need to critique music from the perspective of the artist, because of the associations that have been culturally implanted in your musical tastes. But it seems that you still are not able to disconnect this association even in your responses:

I didn't visualize anything that could otherwise give me a sense of something, or an enviroment- just plain club music.

The associations that have been planted into your brain are telling you this is club music. If Hollywood, or clubs for that matter, had not been portraying this image to you your entire life, you would not associate this music to clubs. And it is because of this association that you automatically force the song to adhere to the rules of the genre that you put it in.

So basiclly what I'm trying to get at is that the song had no personal expression at all.

Since you weren't the artist that wrote the song, in all honesty, you cannot know this to be true.

PS: No one really influenced me to enjoy electronic music- I've always listened to it through my own experience. If anything, videogames attracted this taste (not pertaining to Stepmania/DDR). Does that still make me socially influenced?

Absolutely! You've already associated electronic music with video games! Look, think about this: imagine having never seen a single movie in your entire life. Now imagine having heard the "dramatic" ensembles of the Gladiator soundtrack. Without the associations of the movies, you wouldn't have the mental imagery of fighting, or love, or any of the dramatics. The music would sound strange to the imagery, but after consistent association, it would become implanted in your mind. Society has done this to your mind your entire life!

I'm tired of this thread and I apologize to Cyanite for dethreading his post, but I honestly feel like I'm arguing with someone who isn't understanding my point about anything.

[Cyanite]

Re: Cherry Petals in the Wind

So basiclly what I'm trying to get at is that the song had no personal expression at all. (Again, another aspect I deem as generic, because there's nothing to interpret differently than to many other songs).

I could respect what you were saying about my music up until this point. I don't make music like a machine pumping out assembly-line songs to be sold cheaply and quickly. I make my music to try to evoke emotions -- naturally, not everyone can appreciate the music I make or what I try to do with it, and what you've said about it so far brought up good points to why you would think it's a faulted song that didn't do much for you, but this is ridiculous.

I find it blatantly insulting for you to say I don't try to express myself through my music. If I was making 300 BPM music consisting mostly of a saw synth and a ****load of overly distorted, loud percussion, then fine, say I'm not expressing myself constructively through my music. But just because this didn't evoke anything with you doesn't mean it wasn't one of my goals.

I know I'm trying to sell an album, and I know I should be making it for what the buyer would want, rather than what I want out the music, but throughout the entire creation process I made my music based entirely off of what I thought sounds good with very little regard to what other people might think of it. I figure if people share my viewpoints on my music, they might want to help me out by buying a copy of the album, and those who don't I really don't want to be making music for. My goal for selling this album was never about the money. That's a very small part of it, and also one of the reasons that I plan on just giving it away after a month or two.

You might not think this is good music, you probably wouldn't buy an album if I tried to sell it, and you probably think my methodology towards selling one is unprofessional in that I'm trying to make it to suit my tastes rather than other people's. That's fine. I thought you were being somewhat constructive through your other posts, and you definitely seemed to be, but with that post right there you've went back to the idea that you seemingly think that I'm some generic, shallow artist that makes music for no reason other than to make it, without expression, emotion or effort on my part, and in doing so you've not only insulted my work as a musician, but also my intentions. I'd much rather have you just say you outright hate my music rather than actually insult me and my intentions as a musician, which you so far have done extensively.

[sleeplessdragn]

Re: Cherry Petals in the Wind

Alright if I could make one simple little connection in this thread it would have to be this:

Sure, you may be being "honest", but its difficult (and rather insulting actually) to critique something without understanding the sides to it. It's like a slave driver critiquing the art of a slave.

So basiclly what I'm trying to get at is that the song had no personal expression at all.

I thought you were being somewhat constructive through your other posts, and you definitely seemed to be, but with that post right there you've went back to the idea that you seemingly think that I'm some generic, shallow artist that makes music for no reason other than to make it, without expression, emotion or effort on my part, and in doing so you've not only insulted my work as a musician, but also my intentions.

[Cyanite]

Re: Cherry Petals in the Wind

As a side note, if someone says that my song had no emotion, it was generic, or boring, I would want to understand from their point of view why they thought so. Instead of sticking with my own emotions, I want to focus on their emotions.

I share the same ideology, but I'm still having trouble seeing where you're coming from in saying that. You said the song has no personal expression, but you said that only because you didn't get anything out of the song yourself. That's a good reason to say you didn't like the song, but the thing that sets me off is the fact that you insulted my intentions in making the song by saying I wasn't trying to put any personal expression in it.

Sorry, initially you really pissed me off with that comment, but you did critique my works better than most do, up until that one comment. Frankly, though, I think this discussion's become a bit overdone.