#41

This is called etymological essentialism, if you’re interested - a belief that the origin of a word determines its meaning.
Other hyphothetical examples of it:
“Decimate” means reduce by 1/10th, even if that’s not how people use it.
“Chairman” is not a gendered word, because the “-man” bit comes from the Latin word for hand.
When people use “Serendipity” they are comparing something to Sri Lanka. (ok no one thinks that, but it would be an example of this kind of essentialism)
etc etc.

I’m definitely not here to argue about what words you want to use, especially to talk about yourselves, but I thought you might find this an interesting thing to think about since it’s a thread about language.

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#42

hm, i suppose i should apologize for disregarding a potentially more expansive definition of “entertainment” than what first comes to mind.

oh my god, i hate it when people use this word (except Roman historians)

have decided that from now on, i’ll take “product” to mean “algebraic product” and “producer” to mean “multiplier”

(“did you multiply that yourself?” why yes i did)

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#43

Ugh yes, “DAW” is so awkward, and is overloaded to mean both the hardware and the software. “Sequencer” is obviously inadequate and “host” is specifically a plugin thing…

I kind of like “sound computer” as in the ER-301… which is kind of almost a DAW in itself :slight_smile:

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#44

Haha, that’s definitely going to make for some exciting conversations in your future!

As per ramblings further up, next time someone asks me to escalate an issue at work I’m going to check if they mean put it on an escalator. :slight_smile:

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#45

But what kind of product? the multiplication from arithmetic, the Cartesian product, a scalar product, a tensor product, a semidirect product, a coproduct… the algebraists need to know!

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#46

i’ll take any associative, distributive operation that you care to define on an abelian group[*], mathy-pants

(fortunately its easy to define the identity element in music production)

[*] now i’m overthinking this.

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#47

Yup, I probably fell into my own ‘Western Canon’ trap there… Entertainment and patronage were intended as examples, in retrospect… Although if we think of ‘history’ as itself a construct of the privileged, my initial phrase might hold…

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#48

To come back to earlier producer / DJ distinction stuff - I come from a background of making what was broadly (and sometimes v narrowly) dance music, and people who aren’t interested in the mechanics of making or recording music will always refer to me as a DJ. I find it particularly funny nowadays as the music I’ve been writing for the last few years is just not at all connected to club culture. If I play out it’s more likely a gallery or listening party type environment.

Concepts of “mixing” records and “remixing” songs and so on continue to make the language really murky for anyone who isn’t really interested in this stuff.

#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.