#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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#69

This thread put me in mind of an interview I heard with a member of Parliament (I forget who) where he briefly compared Dr Dre and George Clinton, both called “producer”. But the guy was like “let’s just say I can’t remember George touching any equipment” - and not in any disrespectful way, just pointing out they were doing very different things.

I assume some of the negative associations with producer (as per comments about Steve Albini further up - which do make a lot of sense in context) are the image of someone foisted on an act by a label who fucks up the musicians’ ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDRjsKcFC9g

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#70

Yeah my earlier comments were about my experience of people who are not in those circles, looking in.

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#71

Yeah just jumping in, not responding to anyone in particular. Just got off work, catching up on an active thread.

Just saying, it’s pretty much just creator-composer in some circles, nothing high- or low-faluttin’.

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#72

Reading back more carefully, pretty sure we’re in sync here, I was definitely not responding to you directly :slight_smile: to me personally ‘producer’ is just creator-composer person and exactly what I’d expect to use or be called in some musical contexts.

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#73

to qualify this
i’m not only talking about non-musical observers and listeners

i’ll never forget watching king britt about ten years ago during a set and being completely stumped about how the sounds were being arranged and deployed

he was using a laptop and a controller but that didnt add much clarity from my vantage point below an elevated stage

if i’d had a chance to speak with him afterward i would have seemed pretty clueless

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#74

Tape Op! 20 chars of great!

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#75

Agreed – I cannot really “read” videos of people playing a Grid. To me there’s no correlation between the lights, button presses, and the sound.

But honestly, I think if I had watched from outside my own head as I recorded last night’s song, I would have been unable to link what my hands were doing on the controls with the music I was hearing – even knowing the gear and tracing the patch cables. There just were not enough visual cues; you can’t see feedback loops that are partially in software, nor sequences in many cases.

My spouse tells people that I’m a “composer of electronic music” and that’s close enough I guess. Except most of the time, I’m not conventionally composing, but setting up for improvisation…

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#76

Agreed. And not meant to diminish the work of those who consider the traditional and conventional means of composing their aim.

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#77

To feel better, you would take a lift (to lift you up), go down the escalator, and repeat!

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#78

catching up on this now and these responses are incredible. I try to stick to active verbs and simple language as much as I can. “I make music”. Which could theoretically still be debated by someone I suppose. But it’s much more fun to not put myself in a pigeonhole, when the world is asking everyone to categorize their “personal brand” constantly.

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