Friday, April 3, 2009
Cream Do Rules Suck, or Do They Rule? (Music Dogma)
Posted by Steve Haruch on Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 10:42 AM
Someone on a site I sometimes read recently linked to Matthew Herbert's recording manifesto, which I remember seeing a while back in a magazine I sometimes read.
Herbert's manifesto lays out some rules for recording music--like no drum machines--and dictates that all keyboard sounds "must be edited in some way: no factory presets or pre-programmed patches are allowed." What's more, Herbert's view is that you're supposed to fuck up, or at least let yourself fuck up:
The inclusion, development, propagation, existence, replication, acknowledgement, rights, patterns and beauty of what are commonly known as accidents, is encouraged. Furthermore, they have equal rights within the composition as deliberate, conscious, or premeditated compositional actions or decisions.
I suppose that's different from fucking up on purpose. Like the Dogme 95 manifesto, this is purism meant to make an artistic statement. In Herbert's case, it comes across as more personal, as a set of restrictions set up to spur on creativity. Boundaries, after all, are useful--essential, even. At some point, though, they can become needlessly restrictive.
After all, you can make great music with drum machines (or samples of pre-recorded drums), if you have the imagination to do so. Just as obviously, a drum machine may be a good substitute for a drummer, but a poor substitute for rhythmic ideas. The rule itself to use or not use drum machines is immaterial--it's the end product that counts.
Right?
As a listener, I've made rules, or at the very least guidelines, for my music consumption in the past, though I never wrote them down (that I remember). I went through a "must be really, really fast" phase back when I listened to Minor Threat and 7 Seconds almost exclusively, had a "no guitar solos" phase, and am still more or less in a "no saxophones unless it's jazz or Morphine" period--Duran Duran get a pass courtesy of "Rio." I don't know that I've ever had a rule about how an album was recorded--partly because much of that information is unknown when you start listening.
And really, I don't care that Herbert followed or didn't follow his own rules when recording Michachu and the Shapes. The record's fantastic either way.
Comments (9)
Showing 1-9 of 9
Can I add "Walk together, Rock Together" and Youth Brigade's "Sink with California" to the Best Hooks Ever List?
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My main rule at the moment is that if I have to think of a reason to like it, I don't like it.
"drum machine may be a good substitute for a drummer, but a poor substitute for rhythmic ideas."
ummm... squarepusher?
a little bit of midi mapping and a creative mind can get you amazing results with pre-recorded single hits. anyone who's been interested in electronic production and opened your average daw can tell you that.
and saxophones are awesome.
just listen to
EOTS - We Are the People (Jimmy2sox Remix)
its sampled sax from a classic tune adding a new breath to an other wise over-remixed anthem.
or
Mr Oizo - Cut Dick
the shitty logic 8 sax does wonders on that tune. i love the way that guy's mind works.
Justin, I agree with what you're saying but I think you're misinterpreting the quote. He's not saying that the drum machine isn't a fine conduit of rhythmic ideas, he's just saying that if you don't HAVE any ideas, buying a drum machine won't fix that.
Drum machine + drummer = big fun.
Rules are kind of 'eh' though. Lemondrop nailed it.
I've got to ask. What's the problem with saxophones? There appears to be an unspoken assumption in the original post and the comments, and I'm not entirely sure what it is. Saxophones make a song sound too MOR? Saxophones make everyone sound like a second-string Springsteen? Saxophones are too hard to play? Saxophones are bourgeois and decadent?
Saxophones, not guitars, were the focus of early rock and roll. I'm talking early 50s here, of course--not post-Elvis white rock and roll (i.e. rockabilly). People played saxophones in all sorts of tone colors and levels of virtuosity, lyrically or cacophonously. Listeners probably played air sax. The sax was where most of the fire was.
I do realize that in Nashville Cream the discussion is usually implicitly limited to what one might loosely define as post-Beatles rock.
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