Programmer - Musician

[Waxhead]

maybe a lot of trackers are missing the point?It's a good question to ask ones self at any rate.

Many "proffesionals" have also "missed the point" at least the way I se it. To much music made today is sometimes composed in a certain way to imitate whatever is top of the list. This makes ofcource more money but it doesn't neccesary boost creativity for either the composer or the listener. Perhaps a bit sad but it makes it even cooler to be "underground"

[Sam_Zen]

Too much music made today is sometimes composed in a certain way to imitate whatever is top of the list. .. Perhaps a bit sad but it makes it even cooler to be "underground"

Right on, this observation. But in the meantime "underground" has become a label or category too, with its own charts.
So far, I prefer the distinction between making pieces for the Musical Industrial Complex, or for art.

[DustWolf]

However, I think there's a simplicity that gets lost with trackers from all backgrounds. Most in my experience and even with myself, tend to get wrapped up in the technical aspects of tracking, rather than learning how to transcribe music itself into this form of fashioning it. I see far more emphasis on code than music. This left me thinking that I may be missing something, or vise versa, maybe a lot of trackers are missing the point?It's a good question to ask ones self at any rate.

IMHO, programming can be described, but music itself is best heard.

Since making the music is all about transfering that idea from your mind into a form that can be heard, it would be unnecesary overhead to attempt to describe it in words too... well at least for those of us who have no musical education whatsoever, other than working it out with immagination and a tracker program.

I don't know what's the general idea with learning any other means of making music (for example mastering physical musical instruments), but it seems with tracking the hard part are the technical parts, the point that you are capable of figuring out how use your immagination to make music sound musical is taken for granted as... why would you want to be involved in making music if you can't?

Just my 2 cents.

[PPH]

I don't think programming is something useful for a musician, unless this musician makes a kind of experimental electronic music that requires him to make software to implement his composition techniques (for example: algorithmic composition, making your own synths, etc). This kind of music is a very small subset of all music.

So, if you find programming a bore, don't bother. You can make excellent music with the newest technology without programming at all. Moreover, programming technology develops in such a way that programming is getting easier as time goes by. Common operations are pre-programmed and embedded in the languages so that they can be reused and programmers love these languages. Technology is not heading to a point where you will have to have programming skills to deal with it. Rather, it will evolve so that people who do not have prograving skills or who have little programming skills will be able to make things that only programmers were capable of doing before.

I'm a programmer, so you can trust me.

[Squirrel Havoc]

I'm a programmer, so you can trust me.

Me too, but I don't like so called "High Level" languages. Other than scripting languages, C is as high level as I go. I prefer to do things the hard way, it's more fun. I had to spend years learning how to program, and thanks to "languages" such as DarkBASIC, game programming is too easy that the people who have no experience are getting the jobs! I have tried game programming in C, and would like to try again, but I make old skool 2D games, then some joe nobody makes the next UT in some high level language and no one cares about what I do.

Can you tell im just a little bit bitter?  :lol:

[Sam_Zen]

Maybe one could see "programming" in a broader perspective. If I'm editing a pattern of a tracker module, strictly spoken I am programming, because I add some codes to a file. While reading that file, the interpretation of it is leading to some commands, causing some sounds to be heard.