[Skitz0.X]

Art is a very broad statement, no?

Sometimes people will have a passion and automaticly consider themselves an artist, which is dreadful...because it sometimes leaves a bad mark on those aspiring artists who really do take their work seriously, yet just a bit eccentric?

I hate the fact that these "new-to-electronic-genre" teens go off and start spinning at clubs, and automaticly consider themselves someone who knows a lot about the music in general. Not to mention, considering themselves musicians.
Go to a highschool nowadays, and you will most likely find at LEAST 10 teenagers there that "spin at clubs" and think they're some techno guru.

Well, I'm sorry...I don't have a rich mom and dad to buy me a sampler, synthesizer or a drum machine. But, I do have a passion for techno-industrial music.
Bill Leeb would have to be my main inspiration for what I want to achieve in the field.
So I ask you...what does it take to be considered an artist within the music side of things?
Does one have to be a classical composer to be considered an "artist"?
I do not think so, I even feel Bill Leeb is a magnificent modern artist and extremely talented in music. Truly someone who is doing what they are made for.

Art....where are the boundries, and where do we stop calling something art?

[roundeye]

broke ass? get yourself some it2.14 and go nuts!

[J Bradford]

I would have to say "Art" is a broadly used word, and for good reason. It could be argued about for hours upon hours, but in the end there is nothing that can't be included. In that sense, though, everything around you is art; most things you see during the day is an invention, is that not a form of.. "art"? Nature's creation could be art, it's visual isn't it?

If I had my way, I would carve more detail into the word, give it some cousins so that you could apply it too music, painting, etc. That way people wouldn't make stupid threads that ask about it's true meaning! Bwahaha!!

[balistic]

I haven't met any club DJs who call themselves artists . . . but you're right in that many DJs consider themselves hip and underground and in-the-know, when in fact all they're playing is epic trance and UK prog house trash. Most don't do it because they want to push musical boundaries, they do it for pussy.

But you don't need expensive gear to make techno . . . that shit is all status. I have a mid-range computer with a game sound card, Impulse Tracker for drums and sequencing, and Orion for synthesis. A hundred bucks worth of software, some decent headphones (Sennheisers are lovely), and an average PC are absolutely all you need to make any kind of electronic noise you could want, you just have to be (wait for it) creative.

As far as when music deserves to be called art, I've always felt that it boils down to commerciality. Carl Craig doesn't make a ton of money off of the records he sells . . . I mean, 4,000 copies is a certified smash hit for a techno record. People like Carl, Jeff Mills, Underground Resistance, et cetera, make their money playing live shows, so the actual studio production that they do is freed from having to be "marketable."

But that's also why techno is the least-heard, least-understood genre of electronic dance music. These guys don't make records that are easy for crap DJs to mix into their "breaks-every-32-bars" trance sets, so not many people end up hearing real techno unless they go looking for it.

Accessability vs. innovation is always a tough line to walk.

At any rate, I'm working on a new EP in Orion, but I don't know when I'll be finished with it . . . I'm being a lot more production-minded with this project, trying to build-in a lot of subtle traces that you don't get when you're just banging out chords in Impulse Tracker.

I look at music, well, my music anyhow, as a way to get out emotions and moods that are difficult to express in pictures . . . I've never felt all that comfortable making paintings that reflect my emotional state, but for whatever reason, that inhibition is lifted if I'm working with audio.

[ October 25, 2001: Message edited by: balistic ]

[travis travis]

Ah art. That funny little three letter word that doesn't mean fuck-all when you get out in the real world. No, seriously, I'm not trying to be disparaging here... but you can bitch and moan for years about integrity, intent, worth - I know I did - but reality is a bit more of a soup that is best just eaten - not qualified and obsessed over. That's not to say you won't have your own values and creative path... but you can keep on it without worrying about anyone else's and you'll save a lot of time

[wayfinder]

whatever you do, be sure to piss off as many people as you can along the way!

seriously, prepare for pointless bickering over your style a lot.