Do you consider electronic music creators musicians?

mr dave · 03-11-2012, 07:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by anticipation

In my eyes, any artist who uses electronic implements to create music is a musician. Artists who use instruments, such as guitarists, pianists, bassists, etc., to create music are also musicians. The distinctions only differ when you wish to further describe what kind of music such artists make. Is hip hop any less hip hop-py when using a real symphony/ensemble instead of a traditional beat? In my opinion, it is not.

Here's my beef with that angle. Let's say you're realm is the visual arts. You've dedicated years of your life to learn to paint. Then some kid shows up, snaps a digital photo of a scene you've been working on, spends a few hours in Photoshop running filters over the image and then VOILA! their end result looks like a painting. Is that person an actual artist or just an image manipulator?

That's the thing that seems to be lacking for me. A lot of people arguing that angle seem to put musical instruments on the same level as the computer - it's just a tool the musician uses. Which, on one level is completely true and accurate. On another it's complete wrong. There is no other purpose for a piano, guitar, drums, etc to exist other than to make music. That's why they were invented. The computer, not so much.

I guess that's really my main beef with computer / non computer musicians. If you've never actually learned a musical instrument I can't bring myself to call you an actual musician. The computer is NOT a musical instrument.