Is recording music in parts cheating?

State of Epicicity said:
That article is really interesting. That’s of course the problem of not editing your own writing. I know when I’ve written music with band mates in the past it’s involved just a ton of argument and editing with one person, but almost none with another. And I’ve found that in music I wish I’d hear a little more fanciful ideas and indulgence in tangents and weirdness. If everything is concise all the time, it starts to resemble a product or a briefing more than a work of art. Sometimes succinctness is essential to the art, that in itself should not be a goal, in my opinion.

And I think that poet also did himself a great disservice drawing these conclusions from such an endeavor. If you are on a board, reading through 800 literary submissions, you’re an editor, not a wide ranging critic, and the sheer volume will make it seem boring. It takes this sacred act of writing and turns it into something as dry as reading resumes, in my estimation. It’s an interesting conclusion regardless of this context, but I am dubious of it.

On the other hand, I see a parallel to modern screenwriting, which seems so focused on people in capes, so maybe he has a point haha.
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Isn't there an argument made about how ubiquity = the loss of the sacred, i.e., the loss of meaning?

As I recall, the argument goes that the more we are exposed to something----the more ubiquitous it
becomes----then the less impact it tends to have. Books used to be sacred, because they were rare.
Music the same way. Once upon a time all music was literally liturgical, kind of like all written words
and symbols used to be. They had native import.

Now... not so much. Now we have to work to ascribe sacred value and meaning to what once had it
inherently and innately..... just because it was NOT ubiquitous.
 
la noise said:
Isn't there an argument made about how ubiquity = the loss of the sacred, i.e., the loss of meaning?

As I recall, the argument goes that the more we are exposed to something----the more ubiquitous it
becomes----then the less impact it tends to have. Books used to be sacred, because they were rare.
Music the same way. Once upon a time all music was literally liturgical, kind of like all written words
and symbols used to be. They had native import.

Now... not so much. Now we have to work to ascribe sacred value and meaning to what once had it
inherently and innately..... just because it was NOT ubiquitous.
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Could that be a good argument for why many feel today's music isn't as good?
 
TSJMajesty said:
Could that be a good argument for why many feel today's music isn't as good?
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That is a fantastic analysis, and an interesting way to look at it. I do disagree though, partly. I guess I can see it as everyone being able to release stuff, like when I look up a song on YouTube and I find three million people in their bedroom covering it with no emotion on their faces; that definitely has no meaning. But I know Dave Mustaine said something along these lines, that basically having to compete for a label that could make you known meant something, and brought something out in people. I'm on the fence, because of course more ambitious acts were not promoted most of the time. To me though, I just find other factors to be even more of a problem, not to minimize ubiquity. All of the guitar world online seems saturated with the obsession over gear above all, almost to the point where it feels like a substitute for music. And that's the thing, if you feel compelled just to make music, you will, and you can release it all over the place with no label, and that's awesome. But, and I may totally be reading this wrong, but I feel like the love of the passion and frenzy and crazy and weird and brilliant that makes music great is being supplanted, in large part, by bland gear reviews and just an emotionless approach to put every aspect of musical instruments under a microscope, absolutely demolishing the forest for the trees. Again, I may totally be wrong, but I feel like crazy, weird, unstable personalities who are likely terrible people make for music that inspires, and if, en masse, musicians become gearheads over being artists, music will suffer.

I hate to say that as a blanket statement, because of course it's not true of every instance, but this is just my perspective, admittedly not being a very functional person, so I could just be projecting a ton, so what I think may be bullshit. Take it with a grain of salt.
 
State of Epicicity said:
That is a fantastic analysis, and an interesting way to look at it. I do disagree though, partly. I guess I can see it as everyone being able to release stuff, like when I look up a song on YouTube and I find three million people in their bedroom covering it with no emotion on their faces; that definitely has no meaning. But I know Dave Mustaine said something along these lines, that basically having to compete for a label that could make you known meant something, and brought something out in people. I'm on the fence, because of course more ambitious acts were not promoted most of the time. To me though, I just find other factors to be even more of a problem, not to minimize ubiquity. All of the guitar world online seems saturated with the obsession over gear above all, almost to the point where it feels like a substitute for music. And that's the thing, if you feel compelled just to make music, you will, and you can release it all over the place with no label, and that's awesome. But, and I may totally be reading this wrong, but I feel like the love of the passion and frenzy and crazy and weird and brilliant that makes music great is being supplanted, in large part, by bland gear reviews and just an emotionless approach to put every aspect of musical instruments under a microscope, absolutely demolishing the forest for the trees. Again, I may totally be wrong, but I feel like crazy, weird, unstable personalities who are likely terrible people make for music that inspires, and if, en masse, musicians become gearheads over being artists, music will suffer.

I hate to say that as a blanket statement, because of course it's not true of every instance, but this is just my perspective, admittedly not being a very functional person, so I could just be projecting a ton, so what I think may be bullshit. Take it with a grain of salt.
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Yeah.....I honestly believe that the more indie-possible situation we're in is better. It's still hard to find great music, but there is a lot of it out there. And it is possible to "make it" more or less by yourself.

The gear obsession does piss me off. You do need some gear. And it needs to be "good enough". And some gear definitely can inspire creativity. But, I find it really hilarious the things that people obsess over and how the silly influencer marketing seems to make people think that they can't record/produce/mix/master/whatever because they don't have a crap ton of money to drop on whatever the hot gear is.

That all being said, I do think a part of this gear obsession is just from blurring the lines between artists and engineers. The fact that you can do everything yourself shouldn't necessarily mean that you have to. When I was interning at a studio, a lot of the engineers were obsessed with gear and enjoyed music. Most of the artists were obsessed with music and couldn't care less about gear outside of their instruments and maybe amps. They liked paying other people to worry about the gear so they could just show up and play.....the middle-of-the-night sessions when the studio time was cheap were a lot of fun.
 
marsonic said:
That all being said, I do think a part of this gear obsession is just from blurring the lines between artists and engineers. The fact that you can do everything yourself shouldn't necessarily mean that you have to. When I was interning at a studio, a lot of the engineers were obsessed with gear and enjoyed music. Most of the artists were obsessed with music and couldn't care less about gear outside of their instruments and maybe amps. They liked paying other people to worry about the gear so they could just show up and play.....the middle-of-the-night sessions when the studio time was cheap were a lot of fun.
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Oh Man, I love the idea of musicians and engineers as separate things. I love audio engineers, and I think engineering is an art unto itself. You're so right that the equating of the two worlds sucks in many ways. My ex girlfriend was a writer, and she told me, "You don't choose writing. Writing chooses you." I think there's something so beautiful in just being who you are as an artist, and not wasting your time trying to master every related art.
 
la szum said:
Holy f**k me!
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Yep. It’s a shame. If you can’t hit the high notes anymore, transpose them sing the parts, hang it up and find somebody who can. People pay for live music, not miming or lip-syncing.

Edit: the notes weren’t even that high compared to other lines he’s sung.
 
ruso said:
This is cheating:

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I NOTICED THAT!!
I was watching a few vids from their current tour, and noticed a vocal line that didn't seem to be coming from LaBrie. It just went by me. But come to think of it, yeah, I did think maybe they were using a backing track, cuz Petrucci doesn't sing that high. And he was the only other one on the mike at the time.
 
Even though this is happening, I don't fault the band. How would you like to be faced with the march of old man time (we all are, of course), yet you still want to continue touring because it's one of the things you love to do, and you still have fans that want to see you? Do you sit down with the guy who came into the band at a time when they were so frustrated they were thinking of throwing in the towel, and say, "Look dude, we love ya, but we still want to tour, but something has to change with the vocals"?

Well, I guess, to a degree they've already had these types of discussions. But at what point do you consider a replacement?

Like Neil Peart wrote in Losing It: "Sadder still to watch it die than never to have known it."
 
TSJMajesty said:
Even though this is happening, I don't fault the band. How would you like to be faced with the march of old man time (we all are, of course), yet you still want to continue touring because it's one of the things you love to do, and you still have fans that want to see you? Do you sit down with the guy who came into the band at a time when they were so frustrated they were thinking of throwing in the towel, and say, "Look dude, we love ya, but we still want to tour, but something has to change with the vocals"?

Well, I guess, to a degree they've already had these types of discussions. But at what point do you consider a replacement?

Like Neil Peart wrote in Losing It: "Sadder still to watch it die than never to have known it."
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I don’t know. I saw video of Tesla live, and they were downtuning so Jeff Keith could hit the notes. I think that’s a cool way to do it.
 
I’m really enjoying this thread and where it’s gone. I’m super busy at work right now so I owlish I could add more.

I really loved the thoughts about how with home recording we individually have to take on all these roles. Playing guitar is still my primary love. Sometimes I record covers of songs just for myself for the fun of it. Doing the guitars is always my favorite part. It gets to the point where I start to run out of steam when trying to do a bass part or program drums.

To make yet another reference to the Get Back documentary there is a part where Paul comments that he doesn’t know what the switches do on his Hofner. His focus was the music and the arrangements and the vibe etc. I can’t imagine Paul McCartney as a YouTube guy making gear videos.
 
State of Epicicity said:
I don’t know. I saw video of Tesla live, and they were downtuning so Jeff Keith could hit the notes. I think that’s a cool way to do it.
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That's another band that sounds horrible because of the vocals, down-tuning notwithstanding. Jeff Keith sounds nothing like he used to.
Besides, down-tuning only assumes 1 or 2 notes are the problem. And that's not the issue. At least in DT's case, LaBrie isn't hitting his pitches. And that's not something that just started, either.
 
Cheating, no, and that comes from a guy whose first recording medium was a 4-channel tape recorder so no real capability of doing things easily. Four-five minute piece? Great, you've got just one channel for the guitar (you need the other channels for the drums, bass etc), play your thing flawlessly from start to end or keep trying until you make it happen. One take only and that's it no matter if it's the 1st or the 55th. Back then I was considering myself a "live player".

Still, there are two sides of capturing your artistic desires.

- Studio recordings: this is the best time to use whatever technics, mediums and tricks to paint your canvas the way you've got it in your head. Don't think "live", think "unlimited" (nowadays) resoursces and freedom. This is not a "real-time" process, you've got as much time as you like (if you are not a pro and you do everything in your home studio) or as much time you can afford (if you are a pro so you do pay for a studio) So, "cheat" as much as you like, it's the final result you should be focused on.

- Live (recording or performance): well, this is it. You are on your own, no cheats and tricks, you are naked to the public. Live performace of a piece should be different than the studio recording (otherwise what's the bloody point, just playback your CD and call it a day), a piece should be keep evolving as long as you are keep playing it but what do I know...I was brought up listening to and admiring "live" musicians such as Hendrix. Now, If you've really "cheated" on the studio recording (say, recording note by note a solo you couldn't actually play as it should in real life) then good luck with that, live performance means you are "naked" in front of your audience. The only cheat I can think of is to modify in any way (other than soundwise) a live recording or if you playback anything during a live peroformance that a musician pretends to play real-time.

But hey, that's just me, YMMV.
 
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I have read many band biographies where they explain how they cut and paste parts in the actual tape for many purposes, one of them have the best takes. So I assume it is and has been a common practice.

What I think is an epidemic is so many perfect solos on Instagram or YouTube, made out innumerable takes, and or comping of also many attempts.
 
grandinq said:
I’m really enjoying this thread and where it’s gone. I’m super busy at work right now so I owlish I could add more.

I really loved the thoughts about how with home recording we individually have to take on all these roles. Playing guitar is still my primary love. Sometimes I record covers of songs just for myself for the fun of it. Doing the guitars is always my favorite part. It gets to the point where I start to run out of steam when trying to do a bass part or program drums.

To make yet another reference to the Get Back documentary there is a part where Paul comments that he doesn’t know what the switches do on his Hofner. His focus was the music and the arrangements and the vibe etc. I can’t imagine Paul McCartney as a YouTube guy making gear videos.
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Yup. They (The Beatles) were so not into gear. They didn't care----except when everyone else tried
to get Paul use a Bass other than Hofner. Please, Paul. It sound like arse. Paul didn't care. :)
 
Mohi said:
What I think is an epidemic is so many perfect solos on Instagram or YouTube, made out innumerable takes, and or comping of also many attempts.
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This also happens frequently on recorded tracks. It's not new with social media...

See above reference to David Gilmour.
 
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