#49

Even more confusingly for the uninitiated, the Jamaican/Dancehall Deejay is actually the MC. With the DJ being the selecter.

(Because of course I hang out all the time at dancehall parties…)

My personal experience is similar to yours; people expect me to be able to mix records with appropriate cunning.

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#50

Yes or on the flipside (record analogy?) expect that when a DJ is mixing songs in a club they are changing the music as much as someone who is making a remix.

Continuing tangents that are probably still on topic: it also makes me smile that the remix in pop / R&B / hip-hop culture became putting new verses on the same instrumental. Almost 100% flip from 5-10 years earlier.

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#51

i just stepped away and did a kitchen chore, and this was bothering me. i’m not a linguistics buff and i’ve never heard that exact term before, but i don’t think what i’m doing is the same thing as your examples from ancient history.

in my day job i hear “product” all the time - “product development,” “product line,” “production,” “productivity” - it is living usage and totally mainstream.

when people characterize music making as “production” from the outside (artist didn’t choose the label) it feels wrong. like calling me a “rioter” because i went to a protest. a different and less benign kind of semantic drift. (notwithstanding other, simultaneous usages like “riot grrl” or “atari teenage riot”)

but honestly, this doesn’t matter so much to me personally. just trying to convey what i’m thinking.

and part of my wanting to convey this is thinking about my dad and mort and those people. the 70s and 80s were very frustrating for synthesists - don hated being categorized with creators of DJ equipment…

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#52

This is like the deejay point I mention above - words have changed. I would love to be called a ‘producer’; but hobbiest is probably closer.

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#53

When I was young teen, listening to music and taking in the liner notes of my favorite records, I decided I wanted to be a producer when I grew up. Not a musician, a composer or an engineer, as much as those parts were interesting the me, but the person who worked with all those people to craft a completed whole, leaving my personal stamp on it.

When I started creating my own music, I worked a lot with samples of other people’s music, and while I would never claim to have really written or performed the music I released, I definitely felt like I produced it, based on the work of those I sampled.

Over the years my own musicianship and ability improved, and I can now actually write and perform music, but I still feel that the role that defines me best is the producer. I’m just able to fill in the other roles myself, giving myself more flexibility than having to rely on samples or other musicians.

So now, when I meet people they ask me what I do, if I say “musician” they invariable ask me what instrument I play, leading to a convoluted explanation of how my music creation process doesn’t necessarily revolve around playing an instrument. But if I tell them I’m a producer, it’s a better starting point for them to understand what I actually do.

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#54

Exactly. (20 characters)

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#55

I wonder if that comes from radio, where djs both select the records and talk?

#56

Yeah I felt that uncomfortable twinge that I was kinda stitching you up as I wrote it actually. Sorry, I think I misrepresented your position in my haste to comment on a thing I have seen many times and dislike.
(The older meaning of “straw man”, rather than the meaning I hear every day at work. :slight_smile: )

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head - of course usage of other words can influence people’s perception of words that sound or even just feel similar.

I don’t hear the same connections between the modern use of “product” and “producer” being applied to music around me. Um, I mean I’ve never heard music-makers who call themselves producers talk about their “product”.

I’ve just realised I would react pretty badly if someone called me a “content producer” and talked about my latest content. :face_vomiting: (Resistance to language change is commonly observed in linguistics too, heh)

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#57

still thinking about synthesizers, and why this is sticking in my brain.

as far as i can tell (that is, according to the old/dead guys), in the early days there was this real struggle to get people to regard synths as instruments and tools for composition, in the face of a tendency to see them as labor-saving appliances for industry use. especially if you didn’t have “traditional” input structures like keyboards.

maybe i’ve just been missing my dad a lot lately and allowing myself to channel his very strong opinions a little.

it seems a little archaic now that electronic instruments are firmly part of the contemporary vocabulary of “folk music,” and most users of them are non-professionals (and non-academics.) as has been hinted here, maybe the “producer” label has flipped from being kinda derogatory (in some minds) to more aspirational.

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#58

In the context of chatting about my “hobby”, I try to dodge using any of musician, producer, DJ, musicker… maybe “giant nerd” from time to time.

“I write music on a computer with some other gadgets.”

Whatever noun people want to use for someone who does that, they hopefully get a faster picture of what I actually spend my free time doing.

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#59

I don’t mean to put him on the spot, but paging @madeofoak for his perspective on this since Wikipedia calls him a producer :man_shrugging:

#60

I love hearing these kinds of historical personal perspectives, so thanks for sharing.

I’ve found this really interesting for thinking about different stakes people have in words, being labelled etc. For me it’s all really low stakes.

#61

I think I just chafe at external labels of any kind.

Probably silly to be so determined to define myself, it’s not like it really matters. You do your thing, and people see what they see, and those two things are largely orthogonal.

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#62

pretty eye opening

before the posts made by @jasonw22 and others
i would not have imagined how the term producer could be interpreted negatively

in a musical context i have never, ever associated the concept of production with its more mundane commercial/industrial counterpart

my first exposure to the word was centered around the relationship bewteen quincy jones and michael jackson

then raphael saadiq and numerous r&b groups he worked with in the 90s

then dr dre
then timbaland and his cohorts
then ?uestlove
then pharrell williams and the neptunes
and eventually madlib

as an avid music listener i saw the description in the credits while reading cassette & LP liner notes

once i started researching i came to a better understanding of the different roles each of those “producers” played on the projects they contributed to

studying the work of guys like david axelrod & galt macdermot helped increase my admiration for producer/arrangers who i saw in a similar light as auteur film directors

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#63

I think it is really important to not let overly literal, hyper-idealistic, and mostly white definitions of/perspectives on the term get in the way of appreciating the artistic and cultural contributions of people who self-identify as producers, even if you wouldn’t choose the term for yourself.

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#64

hey, I resemble that remark!

:smiley:

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#65

the definition of the term has always been a bit fuzzy because everyone has done it differently even when it was reserved for the person in charge of directing a studio session

within the context of contemporary hip hop and certain kinds of electronic music
producer became shorthand for a whole host of activities

literally anything involved in making a beat (before mastering takes place)

that flying lotus, knxledge, natureboy flako, and dj harrison all fit under the same blanket term might expose it’s inadequacy

but as @joshhh so eloquently says above, most of them…

so i see no reason to create a new term for them or anyone else who prefers that mantle

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#66

speaking personally

i used to struggle when explaining what i do
because my desire for external validation made me inordinately concerned with what to call myself

experience has taught me that most people have no clue how music is made
when the music in question involves electronics and/or computers…the likelihood of misconceptions and ignorance about what is really happening is much greater

at this point in my musical development i am used to people being confused by the what i do and how i make sound

no single term will solve that for me so i say whatever comes to mind based on my knowledge of the person i’m speaking to

“computer musician” is most fitting
but to a layperson i might simply just say drummer (which is true)
to a fan of beats or somebody familiar with electronic pop, i’d say producer and they usually catch my drift

it really depends on how much they want to know, what the conversation has been about up to that point, and whether i have my instruments with me

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#67

I recognize this issue of explaining to other people what I do.
An adequate term would be really helpful.
I switch between muciscan, producer, composer, dj, electronic musician and sound artist.
Nothing really seams to cover it truly.
Sometimes people name me sound engineer or sound man.
I’ve also seen the term synthesist come by a few times.

#68

FWIW in the dance music circles I have been familiar with ‘producer’ just means or meant ‘person who creates music’. It has no connotations of being an overseer of someone else’s material and no one would confuse you with Max Martin. It’s probably just the simplest way to define “I make music by myself with a computer.”

It IS distinct from DJ in this circles… Often people would be both, but sometimes just one or the other. Making tracks and knowing how to move a room are different skills. Producers who played live would often be billed as PA, sort of the inverse of seeing “Hot Chip (DJ set)” on a billing. If it wasn’t labelled PA you’d assume that producer was DJing, probably with unreleased music or remixes which would be part of the draw.

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