Musicmakers
I've been listening to the album "Fallen" by Evanescence quite a bit as of late. Honestly, on the whole, the album feels somewhat contrived, but it does have its moments, and it is pretty catchy. I can't say that I'm a huge fan of Amy Lee's voice or lyrics, but there are times on the album when everything comes together and just seems to work.
As someone who has tried to record music, I can appreciate music that has decent production, and that's way more than the music. Ten years ago, just recording your music and making it sound good was much harder than it is today. But that doesn't mean that it's actually easy.
For me, good music is about a great aesthetic experience that's much, much greater than the sum of its musical parts. On the aforementioned Evanescence album, there's a track called "Hello". At the very beginning of the track, before the piano comes in, there's a brief haunting sound introduces the track. Or on "My Immortal", right after the first time she sings "all of me", there's a few very chilling seconds where the piano is enveloped in an indescribable ambience.
Like them or not, these are the things that make good music, and they're not the kind of things you can plan for. You can write all the music you want, but the additional elements that really "make" an album are born of the result of trial and error. You take music into the studio, record some stuff, try putting it together different ways, and test, test test. You see what works and what doesn't. When you happen upon something that evokes the mood you were looking for, it was probably an accident.
Music might be technically easy to produce, but it's phenomenally difficult to make interesting. You can't skip the part where you do the sonic experimentation to find what you were looking for...you just have to put in the hours, learning the software and blindly stumbling around.
There's a struggle in every worthwhile endeavor. ProTools and GarageBand make music production seem easy. And they do, because it makes serendipitously stumbling upon a unique sound for your music much easier. But those little things still aren't easy to perfect.
As someone who has tried to record music, I can appreciate music that has decent production, and that's way more than the music. Ten years ago, just recording your music and making it sound good was much harder than it is today. But that doesn't mean that it's actually easy.
For me, good music is about a great aesthetic experience that's much, much greater than the sum of its musical parts. On the aforementioned Evanescence album, there's a track called "Hello". At the very beginning of the track, before the piano comes in, there's a brief haunting sound introduces the track. Or on "My Immortal", right after the first time she sings "all of me", there's a few very chilling seconds where the piano is enveloped in an indescribable ambience.
Like them or not, these are the things that make good music, and they're not the kind of things you can plan for. You can write all the music you want, but the additional elements that really "make" an album are born of the result of trial and error. You take music into the studio, record some stuff, try putting it together different ways, and test, test test. You see what works and what doesn't. When you happen upon something that evokes the mood you were looking for, it was probably an accident.
Music might be technically easy to produce, but it's phenomenally difficult to make interesting. You can't skip the part where you do the sonic experimentation to find what you were looking for...you just have to put in the hours, learning the software and blindly stumbling around.
There's a struggle in every worthwhile endeavor. ProTools and GarageBand make music production seem easy. And they do, because it makes serendipitously stumbling upon a unique sound for your music much easier. But those little things still aren't easy to perfect.