Hello, another one of my head scratcher questions. This time, I'm curious as to how you all learned about music, and how to make music. Did you just download a tracker and teach yourself, do you know how to play an instrument, did you learn about music in school or private lessons or books?
Me, I taught myself the basics, and learned the rest through composition books that I'm collecting. But I played the clarinet in elementry school for 3 years, so I have some musical history.
I played the recorder in elementry school, so I know about the classical bar-score and the notes.
Later I bought my analog synth, the EMS Synthi A. This instrument convinced me of the fact, that classical notations of the material were not sufficient anymore to describe the actual sounds and their 'notes'. It was only still relevant for maybe 8 percent of the actual material. Other, more mathematical, variables came into the focus.
At the same time, my musical preference to listen to was strongly in the jazz-field, so I needed rhythm and swing . .
This I found back on my first DOS-machines with FastTracker. Dealing with the MOD-format and introducing XM.
Teaching myself howto ? Checking the codes, and of course, DL a tracker of someone else and see how things are done.
Listening to the real innovators of electronic music. So not to the socalled pioneers like Stockhausen or Kraftwerk, but to Morton Subotnick, Jan Boerman. Or, more common, to Wendy Carlos, Tomita, Vangelis, or Tangerine Dream.
A great influence has been Miles Davis. Because he changed from acoustic to electric. Then from electric to electronic.
A broad interest in other musical cultures helped a lot too. Latin, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Aboriginal.
Mine started in the 5th grade when I was in choir until the end of my 9th grade year. Somewhere in the span of that last year I started to play the bass, and then I moved and I hadn't touched anything or looked aat a piece of music for a while. Then About 2 years ago, a friend of mine told me about Modplug and I became intrwested in it. From there I decided to get a guitar, learn how to play it, relearn the bass. Re taught myself how to read music. Overall, I have pretty much taught myself everything I know about music. With the exception of plugins, and that VoC taught me all about those.
I always had a casio around when I was growing up but only had a passing interest in creating music for myself. Around 1995 or so it finally hit me. I using a few junkstore keyboards and a tape recorder to make crappy underground rap tapes. A couple years later I upgraded to a Yamaha Djx and a karaoke machine. I didn't learn about computers until around 1998 after I got incarcerated. During that 5 years I read anything and everything on music and computers I could get my hands on. Late 2003 I was released and quickly got a computer and started with Rebirth-338, then Cooledit, and finally settling on FL Studio. I didn't get into trackers until last year and since then I've tried out just about any and every piece of music production software I could. As far as traditional music theory and all that goes. I can play piano a bit and read/write notation to an extent (I'm pretty rusty) even tinkered around with learning bass guitar. Pretty much everything I know I learned from books or taught myself.
I began studying guitar at the Conservatory, but soon start playing with rock groups (guitar, and then, bass). My main concern was always composition. After some years, I got interested on percussion, so I studied it at the Conservatory and played percussion in a medieval music group and accompanying an Iberoamerican Choir. Then, I left the bass for the piano, and played almost every kind of music (not disco). And, after some years more, I got married and left the music. Only in 2000 I returned, but this time not playing instruments, but just composing and using computers. I got involved first with midi, but then I discovered modplug... and that's why I am here.
i begam by studying Scream Tracker and things just started off from there :D
Quote from: "hematurge"I didn't learn about computers until around 1998 after I got incarcerated.
Damn...
Quote from: "rncekel"I got married and left the music.
Damn..!
I started interesting myself in music with a old Yamaha synthesizer. Later I got my hands on a C64 and was amazed that a computer could create so many interesting sounds. I've always liked odd sounds so I was particulary interested in "filtersounds". Later I got a Amiga and I was as so many others impressed by the audio hardware. I started with SoundTracker , NoiseTracker and then I settled with ProTracker for years. Also I actually wrote my own tracker called AdeptTracker who had a system GUI simmilar to ProTracker quite a bit slower tough... (if anyone is interested feel free to contact me for a copy). Anyway after some while I got hold of a PC and i've sticked to ModPlug ever since. :) oh and I don't know a single note - everything I know is self-taught.
While all of my friends were attending music school I was sitting in front of the PC playing games, learning the hardware and system in-depth. While all of my friends were playing their guitars in their band I was sitting in front of the PC administrating and learning programming in-depth. While my friends were sitting in front of the computer learning the system and other things I was still sitting in front of the PC and writing my own music.
Sure, it's a joke, but close to reality. Most of my friends have musical education. I don't. On the other hand, they agree that if I attended music school with them I wouldn't then be so good at computers.
I started learning about making music on PC to show my friends that it can be a useful tool in their band. MPT was my first and it is currently the last. I didn't read any books. At first I didn't even listen to other's mods. First year was full of just-for-fun experiments. False notes, annoying sound, etc.
Everything I can now is self-taught. Making music doesn't play key role in my life. It's my hobby for absolutely spare time. And I like the way of learning it "inside out", step by step, feeling by feeling.
And what about my friends? They find me a good teacher when I teach them to track or to use FL Studio :)
My family introduced me to music.
My dad had this electronic organ (he actually still has). He played on it and I watched him play. I really loved it when he did that. When I was about 5 years old, I just tried to figure out how it works and managed to play a song on it.
It was about 4 to 6 years later when my brother introduced me to modules. He brough them home from school and eventually he got fast tracker 1 and digitracker and those. It was about 3 years after that when I actually got to work with Scream Tracker. I've watched him work with it, so I got to know the basics, but I kinda learned tracking myself. He told me how to load in a sample and how to start a new song, and I kinda experimented from that.
<>
This has become a very nice topic. It adds some personal properties to the members, so it can help to see the replies on some topic in a clearer perspective.
An addition on my previous post : Way in the past I followed for a year some lessons on playing the indian Tabla's.
This teached me a whole new view on the structure of rhythmical patterns.
Nostalgia ~ For anybody looking for the old DOS-tools, I have some of them still available on my site :
FastTracker II - Cubic Player (tracker too) - Inertia Player (http://www.louigiverona.com/webarchive/samzen/links.html#mods)
Another way back thing : Since, as a small kid, I played some tune for the family by ticking glasses with different volumes of water, I am aware that any object can be used as a soundsource for a compo, not only the regular ones.
i think the very first thing i tried to make music in was fasttracker in about 97/98 but it totally confused me and i gave up after getting the very basics and no more. i'd been making sounds in cooledit for a while before that tho' and when cooledit pro came out i tried using that to make actual multitrack songs, got frustrated then started using modplug in about 98/99 and have used it pretty much every single day since! i have no music training apart from recorder at school and about 12 piano lessons when i was 12 or so. i learnt almost everything about tracking and music theory by working it out myself and still feel like i know very little!
well... infected by the hardcore virus in the early 90s (1993 i suppose)
i started creating some happy hardcore & gabber tunes in 1995
together with a friend in "sound club" (http://www.bluemoon.ee/history/scdos/index.html)
1997 my friend went to X-tracker, but i didn't like trackers at that time, so i stopped till 1999
then in 1999 i finally decided to learn the use of fasttracker II.
through the years my taste in music changed a little
so most of my tracks at that time were speedcore from 350 - 1200 bpm ;)
2001 i switched to MPT and stayed till now 8)
didn't really learn any physical instruments...
just basic musical things like reading notes at school
i always wanted to play drums, but my parents denied it
because they though it would have been too loud...
Started to mess with FT2 back in 2000 for fun and now I find myself five years later wondering what the fuck happened.
I've been playing my violin for about ten years. I've been playing with crappy MIDI sequencers for as long as I can remember, and started tracking with IT back in 2000. I "upgraded" to MPT later.
:) I have played drums since i was 8 yrs old. Self taught. Followed through in high school marching, concert and stage band. Played in my brothers band in FLA. Now, I can't play at all because my present job of 20 years has ruined my hands. I discovered MPT back in 1999 as I was searching for a midi sequencer, fell in love with it and discovered I could still play drums with out using my hands. MPT music is my hobby, I don't put much out there that I write because I am still learning and like I said, it is a hobby and not something I want to compete with other people.
I have tried other trackers and still find MPT easier and better.
Quote from: "reno373"I don't put much out there that I write because I am still learning and like I said, it is a hobby and not something I want to compete with other people.
I'd like to make a comment on the previous assumption. People that upload their music, do not do it to be better than others. They upload their music so that alot of people (especially those with musical knowledge themself) can listen to it, and give you feedback in how to improve your music.
Before I entered this scene, I had been tracking for about 8 years. In the year after that, I have grown in skills about 60% of that what I did in those 8 years. That means that its more than 400% improvement. Why? Because the people here, do know what they talk about, and its alot easier if someone else points out how to improve than to critizise your own music and find out by yourself. Why do I say this? Friends who usually listen to your music, only say: I like it, and usually also when they don't like it that much. They are friends and don't want to hurt your feelings.
In the community, we are also friends (atleast thats how I see it) but since the feedback from others is so much appreciated (even if they're a bit harsh) it's being seen as a good act, instead of a bad act.
There's no way we compete with eachother. There are other communities in the trackers scene where you get a ranking etc, and yes, there is a competetive mood, but not here.
Quote from: "LPChip"There's no way we compete with eachother.
Especially since MPC doesnt have the ModPlug OHC anymore :(
Quote from: "Squirrel Havoc"Quote from: "LPChip"There's no way we compete with eachother.
Especially since MPC doesnt have the ModPlug OHC anymore :(
You've got a point there. There are events in which we measure our skills, but uploading your song doesn't put it in one of these events. If this ever may occour, then it must be because your song is good enough, which is a compliment in the first place :)
I do miss the OHC's too, but I don't have the time anymore.
Before I entered this scene, I had been tracking for about 8 years. In the year after that, I have grown in skills about 60% of that what I did in those 8 years. That means that its more than 400% improvement. Why? Because the people here, do know what they talk about, and its alot easier if someone else points out how to improve than to critizise your own music and find out by yourself. Why do I say this? Friends who usually listen to your music, only say: I like it, and usually also when they don't like it that much. They are friends and don't want to hurt your feelings.
I just felt like pointing out that gaining what people call skills often imply your abillity to immitate others. Often (but not always) this can restrict your own musical nature. Music is after all a way of sharing feelings. Imagine someone learned you how you should feel about a certain thing surpressing your own ideas - this may be more common than many of you realize (maybe I'm doing it now). Please don't get me wrong and don't take this as criticism but bare in mind that earning skills is not the same as gaining popularity. One can easily be to focused on making music in a certain style just to "become popular". But sure feedback from others is always welcome and very valuable to most of us. But please remember that it's often the most "original" who get's first price :)
Some nice points have been made here about imitation, integrity and following one's own mind.
A story : 30 years ago I was a member of a trio with various kinds of analog electronic equipment. We once would play a concert and one of us had trouble with his soundsystem, so we couldn't start. This took quite some time, some 20 minutes, and during this the other two players were tuning their synths, testing setups, etc., so produced sounds.
After that concert I heard people say : wow, great, I've never heard anything like this ! Other people : Dreadful !
This shocked me then, because apparently with electronic things it showed possible to fool people, so they think they are listening to some deliberate composition, just because they hear something.
The same once happened to Ravi Shankar. He got an applause after he was ready tuning his sitar. .
That's fantastic =D
When I was still in school I learned the piano, violin and (the staple of all UK schools) the recorder. I was competent but not particularly good at any of them - it did get me interested in music, though.
I had been writing my own music at a basic level for a while, with notes drawn out onto manuscript paper for the piano, and later using an appalling MIDI sequencer that came with my sound card.
Oddly enough I didn't get into actually listening to music until my last year of school - I hadn't heard anything that I actually liked, but by chance I then discovered Iron Maiden and other bands that wrote music primarily based on melody and harmony.
I discovered Modplug while looking for programs to make music for Megazeux, a game creation system that used MODs. At the time I didn't think I would use it to make songs in their own right, but six "albums" later, I think I was wrong.
I began my journey into music when I was 7, picking up the violin complete with slap my hand with her bow when I made a mistake violin instructor (back in the early 80's that was still PC)...bitch.
About 2 years into the violin and humiliating schoolyard remarks about being a sissy for playing it, I began to get more interested in percussion. Afteral, all the cool kids were doing it in the school band. Additionally, the bounce and movement really captured my senses at the time. For my 10'th birthday I was rewarded with my own five piece drum set. A Black entry-level CB-700. I still can remember the smell of the wooden shells and oil of the hit hat. The squeak of the bass drum pedal.
In about another 2 years I became more interested in music composition itself. (somehow I find drumming lends itself to that) We had a family piano and organ and I simply sat down and tinkered away. Tinkering led to playing little self made tunes and melodies. The bass pedals of the organ taught me about the importance of laying down a root note.
I stayed with the piano/keyboard for quite awhile, ultimately creating rhythmic piano compositions much like Tori Amos. I got on offer to play with a touring band, but I got cold feet and turned it down, afraid I wouldn't be able to handle it. what a dumb ass
It wasn't long after that I met a good friend who played the electric guitar. When I heard him playing a very warm blues lead, I wanted to harness that for myself.
Good lord, I think it was Jimi H. that really propelled me to buy my first guitar. A Black Fender Squire Strat. I bought it without knowing too much about how to actually play it. But, it wasn't soon after I started to once again, tinker that I was starting to play those smooth blues leads better than my friend.
It was during this time I was introduced to the Amiga 500 (then later 1200). I got myself a free copy of OctaMed Studio (which oddly resembled MPT) and I thought at that time I died and gone to heaven. Here was a tool that would allow me to record my guitar, violin, piano and keyboard (I sold my drum set) and arrange it all into compositions of my liking. And that's exactly what I did. Even then I was making custom 8 bit samples. Those little Amiga's were amazing.
With the guitar and a tracker to help me make more sense of orchestration, I was naturally lead into joining countless garage bands, purchasing rather large amps, and tearing up perfectly good pairs of jeans. Afterall, grunge was just starting to hit the radio waves and I wanted everything to to with it.
Ahoy, but even bar chord heaven turned into bar chord bore in time. Sure the music was fun, bouncy and I was 101% rebel come what may, I didn't give a f*c*! But it quickly became somewhat of a bore and I found myself advancing musically, this style and musical outlook had its limitations for me.
I put the tracker away for quite some time.
This prompted me to discover other styles. Alternative, Jazz, Folk, Funk all became a further invested interest. I felt like these styles had a lot of expression and freedom. I tinkered. Had a few bands, did some gigs.
I even joined the all black Sunday Gospel band in which I stood out like a soar thumb. But we rocked and the people tided.
After this point I began to somewhat get burned out. Mainly because it was hard to find other musicians who shared my insane enthusiasm for music or drummers that didn't constantly flake out of practice.
Also, by this time I had two children. Enough said.
About 6 years ago I did a internet search on tracking, to see if was even still around. Much to my surprise, not only was it around, it was alive and huge. Definitely bigger than the beginning days of tracking. I was once again hooked like a sucker fish.
I did a little stint on TiS known as UU, later Modplug Central, even my own Tracker site called Projekt Fokus, a site to feature some of the best trackers known to date, some of you out there were actually members. :wink:
Due to a lot of complications in my private life aside from music, my presence in the tracking community has been sporadic. I still track like the dickens, sometimes for professional contracts. But I seriously lack the motivation I once had to share my music. As a composer, I'm finding music had become a very personal and crossroads experience.
I no longer crave the attention I once assured myself my music would gain. Instead, I write because it's simply a part of who I am. It's my language, my roots, my drive in life. It's both my escape and my crowd.
Currently, I'm taking up the Indian Flute. I would love to get my hands on a sitar and santoor. I'm getting into the exotic sounds of traditional Indian music. Very expressive and passionate.
Quote from: "Sam_Zen"Some nice points have been made here about imitation, integrity and following one's own mind.
A story : 30 years ago I was a member of a trio with various kinds of analog electronic equipment. We once would play a concert and one of us had trouble with his soundsystem, so we couldn't start. This took quite some time, some 20 minutes, and during this the other two players were tuning their synths, testing setups, etc., so produced sounds.
After that concert I heard people say : wow, great, I've never heard anything like this ! Other people : Dreadful !
This shocked me then, because apparently with electronic things it showed possible to fool people, so they think they are listening to some deliberate composition, just because they hear something.
The same once happened to Ravi Shankar. He got an applause after he was ready tuning his sitar. .
Hehehehehe you gotta love it.
With Ravi Shankar, he does a lot of traditional bends, which to the unkonwning listener can sound very simular to tunning.
Hehehe but it still cracks me up. :P
The division of twelve tones within an octave is just a choice.
I discovered real music (Prog, Krautrock, Jazz Fusion) about 3 years ago and was inspired. Started from there. I used to use MPT to make music for games, now I'm doing some serious projects.
Quote from: "Gaspy Conana"...real music...
Could you give the definition for that?
I usualy claims that The Crystal Method - Vegas (album) is perfect music and should be used as a reference for all other kinds of music ;) However I would like to know if it's real or false music ;D
You like the Vegas album? I'm more of a Legion of Boom guy
To me the Crystal Method sounds like fake Chemical Brothers. ;)
Quote from: "Relabsoluness"Quote from: "Gaspy Conana"...real music...
Could you give the definition for that?
I'd say that real music is music that's written with some sort of talent, and not just as a vehicle for the promotion of an image, if that makes any sense.
I'd also like to take the opportunity to mention that Gaspy Conana's name is suspisiously familiar to me.
Quote from: "Wong"I'd say that real music is music that's written with some sort of talent...
Fascinating view - with such it might be that the music I(and many others) have done is quite unreal :)
Quote from: "Relabsoluness"Quote from: "Wong"I'd say that real music is music that's written with some sort of talent...
Fascinating view - with such it might be that the music I(and many others) have done is quite unreal :)
Dittto, but I doubt anyone would call my music "real"
I consider music as real when I listen to it
You know what's funny about this, is that some people don't consider music made on a computer real, because you don't have to know how to play an instrument. So it's kinda funny that us trackers are talking about real music and all
A composer doesn't have to know how to play an instrument either, but its still conciddered to be real music. (like beethoven etc) they let an orchestra play his music.
Quote from: "Squirrel Havoc"You know what's funny about this, is that some people don't consider music made on a computer real, because you don't have to know how to play an instrument.
Doing computer music can be quite difficult, if one doesn't know how to 'play' any 'instrument', like OMPT :)
Learning how to play or make some significant music on a PC, or an acoustical instrument, not differs much. A matter of an instrument, offering certain variable controls to change the output. To be able to perform what you finally want, there is no difference in efforts and time, learning how to play the clarinet part in a score of a symphony, or a tracker, arranging the samples in the intended order under the intended circumstances. And is fine-tuning it.
A major difference between acoustical (manual) and electronic (autophonic) instruments is simply : the energy.
If nobody blows air in a flute, it doesn't make any sound. If the blown air stops, the sound stops too.
An electronic instrument does have this energy all the time. The player doesn't have to provide that by some physical action. So in fact the control is changed. Without any faders or switches a connected synth makes noise all the time.
me... i played a game called jazz jackrabbit 2. i told my friend to remix a song for me... and it didnt work in the game properly, it was supposed to though. so he gave me the prog modplug tracker. i figured, hey, y not? so i asked him for a few tips, and after a year... i FINALLY learned how to put samples into the song :P and i jstu practised.... also... i played the recorder in elementary... and trumpet in middle school:P
as i am new here, i'd like to introduce myself the same way...
i never had any classical music education, i just started doing music by getting fasttracker2 packed with three disks full of samples (ripped from the usual MODs and some newer EuroDance-crap) back in 95.
there were some attempts to switch to the trackers of my amiga, but i didn't enjoy the "guru's meditations"...and i never felt sorry to stay with msdos.
a very deep friendship with FT2 arose & we're still together, though i am using hardware and other software (and at least post-msdos-programms) too
turned out after 3-4 years that i slowly got bored with the structures of (conventional) dance music, and after trying to build up rave, techno, some ambient alike drones and some rare (goa) trance XMs i started to turn into a noiz-maker.
8)
now i am sometimes running 3 PCs with three different fasttrackers simultaniously and enjoy the feeling, the rhythms and the frequencies.
Quote from: "Sam_Zen"I consider music as real when I listen to it
The best defenition so far ;)
I'd wanted to play the keys since I was really little, and finally decided to take lessons when I was thirteen (in 2000). My parents got me an awesome keyboard and I took lessons for three years but I wasn't really into it at that time. I also didn't know how to work some of the great features it came with (mixing, etc.) so it seemed like an electronic version of a piano.
I got a Stratocaster in 2003 and took lessons for that for a while, but that was truthfully less interesting than the keyboard. So I stopped taking music lessons that year.
Learning to read music, and learning all the chords and scales and what-not had bored me to tears. What I really wanted to do was make the kind of music I heard in some of my all-time favourite video games and I didn't know how to go about doing it. So I did nothing till mid-2005 when I went looking for ways to make some electronica-style music. I tried the FrootyLoops demo but for many reasons it was definitely not suitable for me.
Then I found the MODPlug Tracker sometime around August last year. I had been listening to the music from Deus Ex using MODPlug Player for a year or so beforehand and was surprised to find out that the main purpose of MODPlug was actually making the music. I found the tracker method of making music the best because it showed everything I needed to know in simple ways. Reading 'C#-5' is so much easier for me to understand than what I suppose you'd call 'conventional' sheet music.
Then I did some research into my favourite artists, particularly Alexander Brandon and Michiel Van Den Bos, who did the music for Deus Ex - exactly the kind of ambient electronica I wanted to make. Man was I pleased when I found out they did it all with a tracker.
Since then I've been playing around, looking at other peoples' modules, lurking here, and all the time still learning. I've sworn more coherently learning MPT than any other program and this is good because it means I'm making progress. I'm having a blast.
PS: Hi.
Quote from: "MT"
Since then I've been playing around, looking at other peoples' modules, lurking here, and all the time still learning. I've sworn more coherently learning MPT than any other program and this is good because it means I'm making progress. I'm having a blast.
PS: Hi.
Hi MT,
Yeah. MODPlug is a nice place to learn about music and stuff. You do have a little advantage by the fact that you've learned to play the piano and the stratocaster (although im not exactly sure what that is :P) If you'll come in a later stage in music development, you'll want to play on your keyboard in order to see how you play certain melodies. Tracking them that way will make them sound very realistic.
Quote from: "speed-goddamn-focus"To me the Crystal Method sounds like fake Chemical Brothers. ;)
According to Kazaa, what's the difference? Ever song in the world was written by both. lol
And, no. I hate kazaa.
Great discussion. I discovered modules a few years before the new millenium. At first I was convinced that I'd never learn how to compose such good sounding music.
However, I came up with an idea. I was desperate. I admired the authors of the music. I thought that if I chose a module I liked, and made a copy of it (in which I removed all the notes), I could LOOK at the original song, while typing in the notes from that song in the - now empty - file. This way I learned how the tracker thought. I re-created his/her work (and then deleting it), and saw how the process worked.
I think that's what got me started really. I learned some things by this. Then I continued experimenting on my own. I actually made some experimental (still very amateur) but sincere pieces, before I more or less quit.
It was all very spare-time oriented. Never attended any music lessons.
Then I bought a guitar in 2002. After learning it, MODplug tracking came a lot easer and was interesting again. THEN, I learned music theory, and now everything makes sense. Still, I haven't uploaded any music for review, and I have been very on/off regarding tracking. I think it's the last year or year+few months I've created quite some tracks.
Quote from: "Bubblenugget"Quote from: "speed-goddamn-focus"To me the Crystal Method sounds like fake Chemical Brothers. ;)
According to Kazaa, what's the difference? Ever song in the world was written by both. lol
And, no. I hate kazaa.
To me it's two dirrent styles of music even if they are close :) Anyway my personal favorites from both of them are The Crystal Method - Keep hope alive and The Chemical Brothers - Setting sun!
Damn I'm off topic again... :oops: