Creativity vs. Technical prowess

ZV Yoda

What's more important - creativity vs. technical prowess?

For example – a technically proficient grad vs. a technically average musician (who’s written the themes for multiple blockbuster movies). Discuss.

Rockshamrover

Well a bit of both would be ideal.

But if I had to choose I'd pick creativity.

Welease

In musical terms..

It's The Beatles vs.Yngwie Malmsteen

I know which I'd rather listen to

MilanPan!c

Welease wrote: »

In musical terms..

It's The Beatles vs.Yngwie Malmsteen

I know which I'd rather listen to

Ummm ... The Beatles were extremely technically able.

Welease

MilanPan!c wrote: »

Ummm ... The Beatles were extremely technically able.

Yes they were.. i meant in musical terms of 3-4 chord creative tunes vs. 20 mins tecnical wankery that goes nowhere..

A creative song sounds good irrespective of recording qualitity... a technical song.. to me..has to work harder.

MilanPan!c

Welease wrote: »

Yes they were.. i meant in musical terms of 3-4 chord creative tunes vs. 20 mins tecnical wankery that goes nowhere..

A creative song sounds good irrespective of recording qualitity... a technical song.. to me..has to work harder.

ahhhhh...

A better example might be:

The Velvet Underground v. Dream Theatre

Rockshamrover

Technical ability is wonderful if you have it but it's no guarantee that you'll create something better than a guy who can only play 3 chords.

Creativity will come out on top.

PMI

Creativity is where it starts and within that comes knowledge ie: know what violins are capable of, where they sit in the stereo spectrum of an orchestra, their clef/note range / capability etc.. etc.. and then with other instruments throughout the world and including theory. Then comes the tech side which i start by working out what humans percieve in regards to song / hooks / ear candy etc.. and how you can translate that within your track and then to the DAW or whatever

But you aint doin nothin without creativity

seannash

i only really deal with dance musi and i can definitely say its technical prowess that is more important.

some dance tracks are so very simple but sound great.i know how good a kick and snare can sound in a club when done right but find it very hard to get that same feel from anything ive done.

so many of my songs have been let down by me not havng the technical chops to make it sound good.it sometimes feels like im not progressing at all to be honest

MilanPan!c

seannash wrote: »

i only really deal with dance musi and i can definitely say its technical prowess that is more important.

some dance tracks are so very simple but sound great.i know how good a kick and snare can sound in a club when done right but find it very hard to get that same feel from anything ive done.

so many of my songs have been let down by me not havng the technical chops to make it sound good.it sometimes feels like im not progressing at all to be honest

It's funny, my counter example would be classical music, where technique is not optional.

seannash

MilanPan!c wrote: »

It's funny, my counter example would be classical music, where technique is not optional.

recording classical would take alot of technical skill id imagine

im not saying theres no creativity in dance music but if it doesnt hit hard on a dance floor it might not work no matter how good the idea is.

in my opinion of course

also its not really the job of the creatives to get the best sound,its down to the engineer i guess so the burden of technical ability is taken off them.

unless we were talking about creative studio techniques

but in reference to the OP i guess it would be down to if they were working alone or not.would it be acceptable to submit a **** sounding musically great piece or an great sounding musically average piece

Aridstarling

Always creativity, always.

Welease

I think it also helps to define in which area we are talking about...

I'd like the song writer/arranger to be more creative
I'd like the engineer to be more technical.

progsound

Someone who could do both well would be best and they generally are the best hans zimmer anyone??

If you have bag loads of creativity and no technical prowess find your oposite and work together. Most people fall into this categary id imagine as not everyone one can be great at both things in those situations two heads are defo better than one.

Anyway i dont think one is more important than the other i think they go hand in hand and work well together and your music will benifit from having both creativity and technical prowess, kind of obvious when you think about it.

dasdog

Effort/Work or whatever you want to call plays a part. Sometimes it's easy and instantanious to get something good. Sometimes that happens after spending hours tweaking filter drive/freq/res or whatever you do. Being in a good mood is the best starting point for being either creative or implementing your technical ideas. I much prefer the instant (creative) way but I wouldn't have todays song if I hadn't frustrated yet enjoyed myself spending hours messing with oscillators and filters. The creative moment sometimes happens after you've been down a road of doing technical things for what seems like a long time. I'm glad I don't do it for a living as I'm half exhausted from it right now (coming down from the hands in the pockets walk away thinking "okay, that's it" moment).

TelePaul

Creativity - the most oft-cited excuse for a ****ty sound.

bedbugs

TelePaul wrote: »

Creativity - the most oft-cited excuse for a ****ty sound.

For example?..

TelePaul

bedbugs wrote: »

For example?..

Pink Floyd - 'Dark Side of the Moon'. Prince - 'Graffiti Bridge'. 'Time out of Mind' - thank you Daniel Lanois. And possibly 'Trans' by Neil Young. Oh and the snare drum on Metallica's 'St. Anger'.

bedbugs

TelePaul wrote: »

Pink Floyd - 'Dark Side of the Moon'. Prince - 'Graffiti Bridge'. 'Time out of Mind' - thank you Daniel Lanois. And possibly 'Trans' by Neil Young. Oh and the snare drum on Metallica's 'St. Anger'.

Ha. Agreed. All very **** records. Not creative though. Not in the slightest.

jtsuited

TelePaul wrote: »

Pink Floyd - 'Dark Side of the Moon'.

????????:eek:

bedbugs

DSOTM is ****. Sorry. But it is.

bedbugs

In case that offends, I'd like to add "In my opinion, DSOTM is ****" and wish you all a nice Sunday.

TelePaul

bedbugs wrote: »

Ha. Agreed. All very **** records. Not creative though. Not in the slightest.

Two drummers tracking simultaneously isn't creative? Utilising the device intended for communicating with your cerebral-palsy afflicted child as a vocoder isn't creative? Attempting to record the snare drum of the worlds most highly-regarded heavy metal band without the snares engaged isn't creative? Hmmm.

TelePaul

jtsuited wrote: »

????????:eek:

More talked about than listened to I'm afraid.

Aridstarling

TelePaul wrote: »

Creativity - the most oft-cited excuse for a ****ty sound.

Technical ability - the most oft-cited excuse for a lack of imagination. Just saying.

bedbugs

TelePaul wrote: »

Two drummers tracking simultaneously isn't creative? Utilising the device intended for communicating with your cerebral-palsy afflicted child as a vocoder isn't creative? Attempting to record the snare drum of the worlds most highly-regarded heavy metal band without the snares engaged isn't creative? Hmmm.

If the end result is innocuous and, well, crap, then no, it's not creative in a musical sense.

Sorry I hit a nerve.

TelePaul

bedbugs wrote: »

If the end result is innocuous and, well, crap, then no, it's not creative in a musical sense.

Sorry I hit a nerve.

You didn't hit a nerve at all. Just not sure what you mean by the term 'innocuous' - if the end result doesn't cause offence, it's not creative in a musical sense? That doesn't really make sense (unless you're trying to put the Dead Kennedy's 'Police Truck' on one hell of a pedestal!)

Second, if the end result is crap, then it's not creative; how does that work? Something may only be deemed creative if it has mass appeal? Most musical break-throughs have been met with initial skepticism but that doesn't make them any less valid; digital recording, for example, has eventually found favour with the vast majority of producers and engineers.

TelePaul

Aridstarling wrote: »

Technical ability - the most oft-cited excuse for a lack of imagination. Just saying.

I don't think the two - creativity and technical ability - are mutually exclusive. Take George Martin for instance.

bedbugs

TelePaul wrote: »

You didn't hit a nerve at all. Just not sure what you mean by the term 'innocuous' - if the end result doesn't cause offence, it's not creative in a musical sense? That doesn't really make sense (unless you're trying to put the Dead Kennedy's 'Police Truck' on one hell of a pedestal!)

Second, if the end result is crap, then it's not creative; how does that work? Something may only be deemed creative if it has mass appeal? Most musical break-throughs have been met with initial skepticism but that doesn't make them any less valid; digital recording, for example, has eventually found favour with the vast majority of producers and engineers.

Ah Telepaul, relax!

I mean innocuous in the sense that the records, to me are boring, but not extraordinary in the sense that they would offend me by being impossible to listen to. Just a big yawn-fest I'm afraid.

Secondly, I'm not talking about mass appeal at all. Some of my fav records, creativity wise, would be MBV's loveless, Joni Mitchell's Hejira, Flaming Lips' Satellite Heart etc. None of which could be deemed mass appeal in the sense you seem to be talking about. What I'm saying is that using unusual approaches in music are pointless unless the end result is good. And don't get me wrong -I'm very fond of unusual approaches. Just the examples you cited are awful records. In my humble opinion of course.

PMI

TelePaul wrote: »

I don't think the two - creativity and technical ability - are mutually exclusive. Take George Martin for instance.

Hes got it both, but doesnt say much about it

rcaz

Aridstarling wrote: »

Technical ability - the most oft-cited excuse for a lack of imagination. Just saying.

This, especially with a lot of guitarists who can't think of any original way to structure their playing, and resort to practicing arpeggios and things faster and faster. Hello Dragonforce.

My opinion is that creativity is the most important, and as dasdog said, effort and work. But if you're serious about being creative, you'll put that effort and work in, and that effort and work, if it's aimed towards making a record, will probably go towards learning some basic, if not rudimentary/minimum technical abilities. If you think your songs are good enough to record, you'll learn about the best way to get them recorded.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

< jeremy clarkson > anyone who thinks Dark side is not creative ....
......is now on my ignore list
< end jeremy clarkson >

nyarlothothep

Creativity, however I technical proficiency can complement it very well, and the more you know about your instrument the more option are open to you to exerpiment with creatively.

Aridstarling

TelePaul wrote: »

I don't think the two - creativity and technical ability - are mutually exclusive. Take George Martin for instance.

Didn't mean to suggest they were. All great artists are wonderfully creative, not all are technically brilliant. The best tend to be both, for the reason nyarlothothep just mentioned.

eoin5

El Pr0n wrote: »

This, especially with a lot of guitarists who can't think of any original way to structure their playing, and resort to practicing arpeggios and things faster and faster. Hello Dragonforce.

Off topic, but I listened to a track off the last album and the guitars had no balls. 'Cuddly' would be a good word I think. Anyways if youre trying to emulate then technical ability is a must but creating new music just needs creativity really.

Rockshamrover

Here's a controversial point on this subject:D

Would you agree that a person can become technically able if they practice their thing ten hours a day for five years?

Would you agree that how creative you are is like the colour of your eyes, something you are born with and can't change?


<Runs away laughing hysterically>

madtheory

Yes, Garder's theory of multiple intelligences, which is taught in pedagogy at uni but is contentious.

IMO, everyone is creative at birth, but it gets beaten out of most people by societal norms. Musicians seem to have different brain function compared to most people. This could be nature or nurture, it's still being researched. Very contentious. Oliver Sacks writes well on the topic. I'm a fan of nurture. Nurture can do amazing things for people (and also animals). The Beatles were right- All you need is love.

MilanPan!c

People are def not all born equally able to be creative or technically competent.

But.

People can, however, become more creative/compotent with practice!

ZV Yoda

Interesting discussion… the reason I asked was that I recently got a few emails about iPhone apps that can be used to create loop-based music. Also, I was watching some You Tube tutorials on sampling over the week-end. It struck me that you really don’t actually need to be able to play any real instruments anymore… and that’s not just confined to dance music. I’m sure this in no revelation to most folks on here, but struck me as kind of sad.

The more I learn on the loop/midi/programming side of things, I’ve realised that if you really know your way around this stuff, you can easily “create/construct” quite complex pieces of music very quickly. Here, I define “complex” as something that would be technically challenging/impossible for one person to play by themselves using “real” instruments.

Maybe it depends on what you’re doing musically…. but for a songwriter who wants to create a finished song containing multiple instruments, then 24hrs spent learning how to cut & past loops & program samplers is a lot more beneficial (and less expensive) than spending 24hrs learning to play all those parts on “real” instruments.

So, in summary, I suppose the real answer is that you’ll always need creativity – but depending on your musical style/genre, you can make up for a lack of technical ability as a player by developing your technical ability with a mouse (even if you can’t actually “play” all of it live!)

Granted, all that technical ability is feck all use if you have no musical creativity to begin with.

TelePaul

Incidentally, I taught creativity to Paul Brewer. Fact!

jtsuited

madtheory wrote: »

Yes, Garder's theory of multiple intelligences, which is taught in pedagogy at uni but is contentious.

IMO, everyone is creative at birth, but it gets beaten out of most people by societal norms. Musicians seem to have different brain function compared to most people. This could be nature or nurture, it's still being researched. Very contentious. Oliver Sacks writes well on the topic. I'm a fan of nurture. Nurture can do amazing things for people (and also animals). The Beatles were right- All you need is love.

ah i've read that Oliver Sacks book too (Musicophilia i think). great book

what is definitely known is that musician's brains definitely have a different structural make up. as you say whether this is nurture or nature is the contentious point.

To be very very unscientific I can bring up a few interesting anecdotal pieces of evidence.

Obviously I'm at least a bit musical (as in I've been able to play every instrument I've tried up to a professional/semi-professional standard), and on one side of my family, music as a profession is the rule rather than the exception (in all areas of music i should add- pianists/violinists/engineers/composers/yadda yadda).

But my sister who started piano even younger than me (and did a lot better than me i may add) is completely amusical (is that a word?). She can't play by ear, and music really has no part in her life whatsoever. She excelled in sports and academics but has no aptitude for the arts in general.

Which is sort of the norm in the other side of my family. Lots of very driven and intelligent people but no artistic aptitudes at all (and a good bit of tone deafness runs rampant too - when the sing-songs happen at family events jesus it's excruciating).
Now what I'm getting at here is that the two of us had almost identical early formative years regarding music. We were exposed to it in pretty much the exact same way.
So the nurture side of this experiment if you will, has a control if ya get me.

My theory is she got the sort of 'artistic mind genes' from one side of the family and I got them from the other. Personality wise, it's pretty much the exact same too.
Which leads me to believe there's a definite genetic predetermination, which is most likely an in utero coinflip between which parent you inherit your musical genes from.

To use another anecdotal example, I had a friend growing up who was adopted. We were in bands together, and he was very talented in all areas of music (great guitarist, drummer, etc). Basically, he was officially musically talented. His brother however (not blood related as they were adopted from different parents), was completely tone deaf and was almost a polar opposite of him (was into sports in a major way and basically a lad's lad).
They also had almost identical formative environments regarding music but one seemed to have all the musicality in the world and the other had literally not a note in his head.

These two examples makes me lean toward musicality being a very very very very genetically predetermined thing.

Or something like that.

Rockshamrover

jtsuited wrote: »

ah i've read that Oliver Sacks book too (Musicophilia i think). great book

what is definitely known is that musician's brains definitely have a different structural make up. as you say whether this is nurture or nature is the contentious point.

To be very very unscientific I can bring up a few interesting anecdotal pieces of evidence.

Obviously I'm at least a bit musical (as in I've been able to play every instrument I've tried up to a professional/semi-professional standard), and on one side of my family, music as a profession is the rule rather than the exception (in all areas of music i should add- pianists/violinists/engineers/composers/yadda yadda).

But my sister who started piano even younger than me (and did a lot better than me i may add) is completely amusical (is that a word?). She can't play by ear, and music really has no part in her life whatsoever. She excelled in sports and academics but has no aptitude for the arts in general.

Which is sort of the norm in the other side of my family. Lots of very driven and intelligent people but no artistic aptitudes at all (and a good bit of tone deafness runs rampant too - when the sing-songs happen at family events jesus it's excruciating).
Now what I'm getting at here is that the two of us had almost identical early formative years regarding music. We were exposed to it in pretty much the exact same way.
So the nurture side of this experiment if you will, has a control if ya get me.

My theory is she got the sort of 'artistic mind genes' from one side of the family and I got them from the other. Personality wise, it's pretty much the exact same too.
Which leads me to believe there's a definite genetic predetermination, which is most likely an in utero coinflip between which parent you inherit your musical genes from.

To use another anecdotal example, I had a friend growing up who was adopted. We were in bands together, and he was very talented in all areas of music (great guitarist, drummer, etc). Basically, he was officially musically talented. His brother however (not blood related as they were adopted from different parents), was completely tone deaf and was almost a polar opposite of him (was into sports in a major way and basically a lad's lad).
They also had almost identical formative environments regarding music but one seemed to have all the musicality in the world and the other had literally not a note in his head.

These two examples makes me lean toward musicality being a very very very very genetically predetermined thing.

Or something like that.

Very interesting stuff.

I can see it here with my own kids. There's all sorts of musical instruments about the house and they have unrestricted access to them.

They never touch the stuff and have zero interest in learning to play any of it.

madtheory

Rockshamrover wrote: »

Very interesting stuff.

I can see it here with my own kids. There's all sorts of musical instruments about the house and they have unrestricted access to them.

They never touch the stuff and have zero interest in learning to play any of it.

Beat it into them (joking!!!)

MilanPan!c

My mom in law is a music teacher and extremely involved in kids in music (co-founder [I think] of the Dublin Youth Orchestra, so).

She tries to get all her grand kids into playing music... there's no clear answers... out of five, she's got three playing piano, out of those, two play in orchestra and one is creative.

It's complete... and those are three kids from two families...

Two are brothers, their sister is tone deaf, can't keep a beat and only likes glamorous teen singers...

There's NO proof at all that everyone can play music, though the MAJORITY def benefit from having music in their life.

madtheory

I think he was mostly a twit, but Nietzsche once said "A life without music is a mistake". He was right there

MilanPan!c

madtheory wrote: »

I think he was mostly a twit, but Nietzsche once said "A life without music is a mistake". He was right there

and above the twit, Über-twit

madtheory

MilanPan!c wrote: »

and above the twit, Über-twit

Also sprache Zaratwitto?

Rockshamrover

madtheory wrote: »

Beat it into them (joking!!!)

It would give them a sense of rhythm if nothing else:D