Technology abuse

The following are my thoughts and I’m not implying anybody else needs to subscribe to my particular esthetic.

In Second Life there are a whole slew of people that sing with back up tracks. I’m not addressing these people at all. They really have little to do with music I don’t consider them part of the actual “Music scene”. They are really one step away from being DJs and I don’t consider them musicians either.

What I want to talk about today are musicians that play with recorded tracks they’ve recorded themselves.

Most of theses enterprising fellows are writing their own music and putting a lot of effort into presenting it in the best way they know how. However, I’ve never once seen it work. The end result is always seems to be that of a frosted turd. Lots of creamy sweetness covering shit.

Why does this happen? I have a theory and let me bounce it off you.

I think when you conform to the norms of music (words rhyme, cord progression works) things sound musical. Put behind that the bombast of drums, bass, syntho sampled magic, automated back up vocals, and suddenly something mundane can seem very musical.

But it isn’t musical it just SEEMS musical.

Music is not about conforming to the norms, although that does work 90% of the time. Music is about expressing musical ideas. The problem is, most so-called musicians understand the conventions of music, but have no grasp of what a musical idea is.

Of course, the vast majority of music listeners don’t understand what a musical idea is either. It seems the more fresh and original a musician’s expressions become the smaller their audience becomes.

I’ve seen more “Wank masters” then I care to mention in Second life. These are people that imagine themselves the next Joe Satirani, They dial up the “METAL SOLO INSANE” pre-set on their stompy pedal and Wank furiously. They record their own backing tracks… whoopee. The end result is an hour of blues scales playing as fast as possible and a bunch of musical challenged listeners emoting “YOU TOTALLY ROCK”.

Now I’m sure the Wank masters spend hours working on their back up tracks and invest hours in playing their licks super fast. They invest a lot of money in stompy pedals that sound “TOTALLY ROCK” and have tons of gizmos.

Good news/bad news, most listeners don’t know anything about music/ your music is a joke.

Conversely, I’ve seen a few brilliant musicians in Second life plying their trade with nothing more then and instrument and a voice. POL Arida ROCKS harder then any Wank Master. He pounds his gee-tar, stomps his foot on the floor and screams like his penis got slammed in the door.

Good music in my estimation is about musical ideas and emotional content. POL as both covered in spades.

As for my own music (yes I’m aware how self serving this may seem), I find it rife with musical ideas simply because there is not set Zorch sound. My music seems quite Genre free almost to the point of handicap. The unifying element is the emotional content. Simply put, my songs bleed. When I play live on Second Life I’ll be honest and tell you I’m emotionally spent at the end of the show.

I’m not anti technology. I don’t really have a particular bias against instrumentalist. I’m just a bit tired of… crap.