I just did. One who writes and/or composes music.

Producers generally don't actually do this. What they are good at is audio engineering and effects processing to make music sound good or better. That is the main role of the Producer.

There are three main creative forces that go into all music creation: the Performer, the Composer, and the Producer. I'll write more on who they are and what they do later. I have to run.

But the role of the composer and producer in electronic music has become blurred, at least semantically. In most genres of music the producer takes the band's performance and uses the studio to make it sound good, via the mixing desk and so forth. However, there are plenty of producers who take a band's idea of what the track sounds like and have significant creative input to make it sound "better".

An example would be Blondie's "Heart of Glass" which was originally quite a punky record with drums all over the place. The producer basically said "That's worth shit on the radio" and made them build the percussion up as a 4/4 kick and so forth until it sounded like a disco record. Result: a handful of platinum discs. Fuck all like how the demos sounded though. Producers can have more creative input than you imagine, even in the pop world.

Because electronic musicians write the music, put it together using synths and the sequencer and essentially "perform" it too, they fulfill all the roles on their own. Which is essentially what dance music's been about since the early house days: DIY records with as few middlemen as possible. But everyone calls them producers, because a fair amount of dance music involves sampling or remixing over original composition so most of their work is in making it happen with the equipment rather than doing something you can put down in sheet music.

EDIT: And concerning the actual issue, do you have to compose your own music to become a musician? Arguably if you're creating a new musical piece you're a musician. After all, music is art. Is DJ Shadow not a musician for creating a record almost entirely out of samples in Endtroducing? You can't deny that it's a piece of art. Whether or not he did it in the studio or on the decks (I suspect the former, unless the man is an octopus) it raises the question of just when does a DJ set become a piece of art when the DJ is reinterpreting the music of others to create something that is new: a new piece of art concieved and executed by them. And if the DJ has created a piece of musical art, is the DJ a musician or not?

___________________
Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

Last edited by SYSTEM-J on Aug-31-2006 at 00:54

So you do not a agree to the turntable as an instrument. Fine.

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Check out Crossfade Collective
Sebastian Zander - Hotel Chaplin
Sebastian Zander - Set Two [Electro/Tech House and Trance of some sort]
Paulo Da Costa - AVGN [Prog. House](128kbps])

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J But the role of the composer and producer in electronic music has become blurred

You hit the nail on the head with that one. I was just about to say EDM is one of the few and rare cases in music where the producer is the composer.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J EDIT: And concerning the actual issue, do you have to compose your own music to become a musician? Arguably if you're creating a new musical piece you're a musician. After all, music is art. Is DJ Shadow not a musician for creating a record almost entirely out of samples in Endtroducing? You can't deny that it's a piece of art. Whether or not he did it in the studio or on the decks (I suspect the former, unless the man is an octopus) it raises the question of just when does a DJ set become a piece of art when the DJ is reinterpreting the music of others to create something that is new: a new piece of art concieved and executed by them. And if the DJ has created a piece of musical art, is the DJ a musician or not?

one distinction comes about from the answer to the question: do you call the afformentioned DJ Shadow track a dj set? or do you call it a track?

another comes from the fact that dj sets are preformences, while tracks are recordings (obviously there are exceptions with both).

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quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J But the role of the composer and producer in electronic music has become blurred, at least semantically.

Yes, of that I agree. I was going to say more about how sometimes one person is all three, but not always. I've written about this in another thread....Britney Spears, for example, is the performer, but Max Martin is the composer and producer. But I had to run and I couldn't finish my babblespeech.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J An example would be Blondie's "Heart of Glass" which was originally quite a punky record with drums all over the place.

A better example is George Martin. Sgt. Pepper's was his idea.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Because electronic musicians write the music, put it together using synths and the sequencer and essentially "perform" it too

This is right, but also wrong. With most electronic music, there technically isn't a composer...ie: someone who actually writes and composes the music to a finished form before he heads to the studio to flesh it out. For most electronic Producers, the composing and producing part of the music happens simultaneously. Quite a deal many of them admit that they don't compose at all....they just hit the desk, lay out some keys, and noodle around with features n frequencies until something starts to sound cool, and eventually come across a unique envelope or filter that they very likely couldn't reproduce as they weren't sure how they arrived to it in the first place. In short, they make the track by trial-and-error, experimentation, and often enough, by complete accident. Air once admitted that this is how they made "Sexy Boy".

The "performer" is the DJ.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J And concerning the actual issue, do you have to compose your own music to become a musician?

I like to think so. Calling everyone who can squeak out audible noise from their desktop studios a "musician" would be like calling everything that's floating around in space a "planet", to use a highly-publicised example. Divisions must be made for categorization purposes. Why else do you think the scratch guys don't want to be called DJs anymore? .....because the very name is basically an insult now, tarnished and patronised by the trance record players. They're called turntablists now.

None of this has anything to do with whether its art or not. That's a different argument altogether.

Last edited by Ishkur on Aug-31-2006 at 13:16

quote:

Originally posted by Psy-T one distinction comes about from the answer to the question: do you call the afformentioned DJ Shadow track a dj set? or do you call it a track? another comes from the fact that dj sets are preformences, while tracks are recordings (obviously there are exceptions with both).

Well Endtroducing is an album. However, it's really just a further extension of the core musical idea behind hip-hop. With today's DJing software it surely isn't impossible to make a set up live comprised out of samples.

As for the DJ being the "performer", I don't agree there at all. For a start, plenty of electronic acts perform their music live anyway. You could say a DJ is to an electronic producer what an orchestra is to a classical composer, but just as Ishkur defines a composer by a process: writing music down then going to record it I'd define a performer who actually plays an instrument or sings or otherwise recreates the track, rather than playing the studio-recorded version. Also, the performer will often appear on the record: the singer, the instrumentalists etc. A DJ who doesn't know the artist just pressing play does not constitute a true "performer" to me.

Ish: I bring the whole art thing up because you define a musician as a composer. However, many people define someone who plays an instrument a musician. Whether they're part of a band or a rent-an-instrument musician, they're still musicians. The term "musician" is not limited to one part of the musical process and I'm arguing that if a DJ is making new music on some level then they are a musician.

___________________
Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J As for the DJ being the "performer", I don't agree there at all. For a start, plenty of electronic acts perform their music live anyway. You could say a DJ is to an electronic producer what an orchestra is to a classical composer, but just as Ishkur defines a composer by a process: writing music down then going to record it I'd define a performer who actually plays an instrument or sings or otherwise recreates the track, rather than playing the studio-recorded version. Also, the performer will often appear on the record: the singer, the instrumentalists etc. A DJ who doesn't know the artist just pressing play does not constitute a true "performer" to me.

that's more of a semantics problem than it is a disagreement mate, i didn't mean the dj would be the performer, i said that a dj set is a performance (in comparison with a track which is a recording).

___________________
People who own my ass: Citric Acid, Boomer187, Tribu, Sand Leaper,
Jackson, venomX, jamie, Renegade, Konjin, Akridrot, Miss Bliss.
Psy-T - Down The Rabbit Hole (400minute long acid set)

quote:

Originally posted by Psy-T that's more of a semantics problem than it is a disagreement mate, i didn't mean the dj would be the performer, i said that a dj set is a performance (in comparison with a track which is a recording).

Well I was addressing Ish there too.

___________________
Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

quote:

Originally posted by DjConfessions some of their shows have been literally G/D only nights

yuck...

1 or 2 of their tracks in a set i can understand. But having an entire set in that style... yuck.

Hmm...

I can think of a lot of people out there who need to read this thread. Especially people who despise the EDM scene, and people who are just getting into it.