Trollheart's Room 101 (Music Version) is open for business!

mr dave · 05-10-2012, 09:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trollheart

But there is, isn't there? The worst band in the world can be made sound great with the right technology (look at Milli Vanilli and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, for example, and for a great satire on this the Simpsons episode where all the local kids are made into a boyband, even though none of them can sing --- "God bless NASA!"), but if you can really play, you shouldn't have to rely on all that tech. It should be as simple as guitar, chair, voice, audience, and away you go.

I'm sure most of you who can play began that way, acoustically, so surely going back to it for musicians is just their way of showing they haven't lost touch with their roots, aren't relying on technology to "make" or "enhance" their sound, and are still in touch with what first made them pick up a guitar, sit at a piano or whatever?

Would you not agree with that?

I think you're considering what is causing the shadow as opposed to the actual shadow (which is what Janszoon, Mojo, and now myself are pitching towards the room).

Technology doesn't diminish the honesty, or emotional integrity of a piece of music when performed by an actual musician (so forget the Milli Vanilli example). All the technology does is accentuate the talent that's already there. There is absolutely no way to illicit the same emotional response that a listener gets upon hearing a power chord held through a Marshall stack until it starts to break apart and transform into a wailing squeal of feedback with an acoustic. This doesn't make one better than the other, just different.

The issue is the attitude that somehow acoustic music is more pure, and that non-acoustic music is somehow compromised or faked. It's no longer about accepting and recognizing a difference but rating one as superior to the other. If anything I think a lot that attitude stems from ignorance of the technology or a desire to be seen as special or unique or a somehow more refined listener, none of which is worth much in my eyes.