A path to improvement?

[ht73]

I did the “genre” thing for a while but didn’t find it satisfying. I didn’t know what really I was adding to what others had done. there was always the vague notion that I would “hybridize” a certain genre with what i was actually listening to at the time. But in truth I wanted to go fully ahead into that indefinable something that I could never quite reach. I realized at some point, just listen to the sounds that come most naturally from the gear. That was the thing, in pursuit of “genre” I had forgotten how to listen! Buf then the task became to evolve processes that also were suggesting themselves, that also best fit into that. Over time, this was the new “genre”, or new individual approach. It’s anything but a situation with “absolute freedom”. the constraints are my gear, my habits, my process. Each iteration constrains the next. How it came nobody can say. I certainly don’t feel I invented anything or deserve any credit. I decided to just be open, and accept what was already coming forth. Aletheic freedom. I decided to choose the only possibility that presented itself rather than cast myself as “lord of all possibilities”. But this also meant releasing myself from all “genre” preconceptions that had made me so unhappy.

[papernoise]

33 years or so now that I’ve been making electronic music in one form or another, I’ve never had these sorts of feelings with it. There’s not a long list of things I am bad at – okay, there is, but most of those don’t actually matter because I can do other things well. Really, it was mostly exploration and play and experiments. Some experiments fail, and that’s okay. Sometimes failure is better than success anyway.

Cetrainly electronic music has made the concept of virtuosity more relative. Brian Eno once said:

“The great benefit of computer sequencers is that they remove the issue of skill, and replace it with the issue of judgement. […] So the question becomes not whether you can do it or not, because any drudge can do it if they’re prepared to sit in front of the computer for a few days, the question then is, ‘Of all the things you can now do, which do you choose to do?’”

Virtuosity in electronic music is probably the ability to make decisions and to choose (making decisions in time, if you perform live, as Rodrigo puts it)
But that’s probably not the only factor. Things are less defined by tradition with electronic music. It’s a more chaotic system, and hence it gives more freedom.
I think not having the pressure to perform (in the sense of becoming virtuous at playing an instrument, or at classical composition) is by itself a good thing, though that can be a very positive driving force as well at times.

At the end of the day I think it’s important to note though that this puts more of a burden on our shoulders. There’s nobody telling us which tone or which chords are the right ones, we have to figure that out. So adhering to a genre does indeed help. More freedom means more decisions to take, more things to figure out, which on a certain level, makes you less free… ironically
Please note that I’m saying this mostly as a provocation. I always felt quite oppressed by strict genres (as I’d call them).

I didn’t know what really I was adding to what others had done. there was always the vague notion that I would “hybridize” a certain genre with what i was actually listening to at the time.

And since I’m in provocation mood… isn’t anything we do always a “hybrid” to some extend? I mean, anything we do is a remix of things other people have done, which is a remix of what other people have done etc…
The difference is in how you mix things I guess.

Back when working hard on my drawing skills (for illustration) was the big focus on my life I was seeing many people copy other artists’ work and they were pretty good at it sometimes. But that always felt totally wrong and boring to me. Why do a bad copy of somebody else’s work? Does the world really need that?
With time I learned that copying is not only bad though. It’s how you copy that makes the difference. When you copy with a critical and analytical eye, you absorb the principles not the rules. Principles are what help you to understand the matter you are dealing with, and then apply those to your personal view of the world, your personal way of working. They become tools not the final product.
So from a learning point of view copying (and copying anything) is very valuable if done right. It’s also very valuable to develop one’s artistic voice I’d say.