I know that there are many of you out there who had a younger life totally involved in making music but for one reason or another exchanged that life for other pursuits. Those pursuits were valid and valuable and probably enriched your life in a way that gigging with a band never could have.
I also know that many of you now have kids that have grown up and moved out. Maybe you’ve retired or just quit the corporate job because you can’t take it any more. For whatever reason, you now have a lot more time on your hands and the music in your soul is rattling the cage to get back out.
Now that you’ve taken the leap and have decided to start making music again, you have to grapple with the fact that the music you made back in your ‘glory days’ has changed so much and the way it is recorded and consumed is completely different. It’s a whole new and different world and you might be wondering if you are still viable as a musician, songwriter, producer. You wonder if it is even possible to jump back in to this new world of sound and technology.
The answer is a resounding YES!
In fact, today’s music needs you more than ever. As we continue spiraling out into a world of constantly changing technology, ever expanding social media presence, faster streaming and instant access to everything, we are losing the value of human interaction, the musical conversations between players, the organic fun and creative exploration of jamming, the very soul of what making music is all about.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the music being made these days. There are amazing songwriters and creative artists creating brilliant performances. The new beats and recording techniques are innovative, and, for the most part, well produced. That being said, I also feel that modern pop music tends to be void of the depth and nuance that existed before the digital revolution. Producers these days seem to eschew the valuable lessons learned over the decades preceding today’s modern technology when musicians had to play their parts live and interact as a band rather than sitting at a computer and typing the notes in.
Organic performances by musicians playing together, with the occasional overdubbing of course, have been replaced by the desire to produce perfect recordings quickly. Drum machines, to a large extent, have replaced real drummers. Synthesizers record MIDI notes that can be manipulated later on instead of recording live keyboards and guitar. Digital audio workstations have the ability to modify tempo through quantizing, control vocal pitch and edit the music down to the sample. The majority of music these days has the life sucked out of it because of the heavy handed implementation of this technology.
I liken the digitally produced music of today as compared to the music that used to be recorded onto tape in the ‘old days’ to the difference between a lab grown diamond and an organic diamond pulled from the earth. They can both be beautiful on the surface and shine like a.. well, you know, but lab grown diamonds lack the depth and the subtle imperfections that make natural diamonds so much more valuable. Lab diamonds can be created quickly and on demand while natural diamonds take a long time to grow. It’s the imperfections that make them so unique and wonderful.
Getting back to the point of this, we need all of you, shall we say, seasoned musicians to get back out there and rejoin the music scene. Your experience will provide today’s music with the depth it has been missing. We need a cross-pollination of musical disciplines to create the next evolution of music – where the old blends with the new and creates something perhaps deeper than both. New music is precise and focused while the older vibe is more about the performance and interaction.
That is why it is important – no, essential – that all of the older undiscovered musicians, songwriters and producers need to come out of your cocoons, build home recording studios and get back to work! Embrace the new technology. Install a digital audio workstation on your computer, buy a decent microphone and an interface to connect them together. Watch videos and read books and articles on the new production techniques.
The old and new together will pave the way for a new musical genre where modern technique blends with musical spontaneity, interaction and freedom of expression.
So all of you old rockers, plug your guitars and keyboards back in! Get some new sticks and skins for your percussion. Start making music again! And avoid relying on the quantize buttons and pitch correction tools. Play from the heart and let your creative juices flow.
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