Errikos:

"Back to the software. fatis12_24918 said the pyramid is based on rhythm, then timbral colours, then melody, then harmony and finally counterpoint. This only applies of course to this Trailer park "music" this software facilitates. Music, in the western world at least (and orchestral music was born there), began with melody/rhythm (we'll never know which came first), then counterpoint, then harmony, and finally timbre. And it was always sophisticated; as sophisticated as it could be at any time."

Sorry but it's a great misunderstanding of my post. I talk about perceptive layers... the amount of instinctive vs. rational involvement requested to "understand or enjoy" a musical content. It has nothing to do with history/chronology or culture, the opposite it's some how ancestral and human.

(this rating is based on some ethno-musicology and anthropology studies and musical theory speculations, beside some neuroscience studies etc. but it's also a way to approach music "components" of several didactics, and not by chance... but in my opinion it's also self-explanatory and evident: people love the sound of something (a nice ring instead of a brutal noise etc.) before it become music, and people recognize and enjoy rhythm even when they are poor in intonation, they can't sing, or they come from a totally different melodic culture. Melody start to be more challenging and more culture-related. Then harmony and counterpoint are really educated expressions, that can deeply characterize a style, an age, a culture, and ethnicity etc.)

Fatis, if that's really the basis of your creative musical endeavours, would you mind awfully if I avoid your music like the plague? It's nothing personal.

Hope one day you'll acknowledge (at least to yourself) and perhaps understand the ghastly effects that the absurd and grotesque over-exaltation of rationality in modernity and modernism have had on all the arts especially, and on our cultures more broadly. In Europe and (at least western) Russia it appears we're at last approaching some sort of resolution or settlement of the cultural turmoil of the 5 centuries of our era of modernity. China struggled with similar cultural dichotomies more than two millennia ago - Taoist versus Confucianist mentalities - although it does seem they've been revisited by some of those issues during the past 80 years or so.

If music isn't to a great extent intuitive and subconscious - regardless of however long it takes novice music-makers to struggle consciously in learning its ways at first - then it just does not and cannot serve as a cultural language.

It seems you're advocating that music-makers, armed with 'advanced knowledge' and 'rational methodology', can and should consciously contrive their productions such that 'targeted' (and lower caste) listeners are receptive in an intuitive and unconscious way and never suspect that they've been manipulated. People who do or try to do that sort of thing were called "cunning meddlers" in ancient China; these days we Occidentals could call them propagandists, among other, far less polite names. (See also NPD in DSM-IV.)

Are you seriously claiming that in this day and age it's alright for music to be weaponised and for audiences to be abused in this way? Truth and honesty no longer matter in the soul-to-soul communication medium of music???

Macker: I appreciate the cheer!

fatis12_24918: I see. Be that as it may, I am not wrong in what I said in the context I established, I believe. As far as the anthropological/neuroscientific studies are concerned, I agree that the more basic the musical element, the more common it will be cross-culturally (much like the ring vs. the brutal noise). The same could be said of phonemes. Vowel cries on their own are probably shared amongst people on all continents. And then, as language/musical language develops into more sophisticated expression, we notice significant differentiation across cultures - for example, you mentioned melodic culture. It is because we were talking about orchestral music, I thought you meant instrumental timbres/colours as your second element and that's probably where the misunderstanding occurred, as this aspect of orchestral writing is one of the more recent developments, i.e. a more recent rung in music's evolutionary ladder.

Insofar as Orkestral music is concerned, since it has chronologically "developed" after the most sophisticated orchestral possibilities (let alone form, harmony, polyphony, etc.) had been invented, its primitivistic features are not merely a step back, but leaps back. Hence, logic dictates that if it is true that people prefer Ork music to Debussy or Stravinsky, it is because their musical cognition and appreciation stems (pun intended) from a chronologically much earlier stage of mental/chromosomal development. We -as a symphonic culture- have planted our flags on the highest peaks. Are we to compromise and sit on mole hills, simply because this kind of orchestral writing is more "inclusive", as everyone and a trained monkey are capable of such tripe?

The last thing I'd want as a consequence of this discussion is for any kind of dampener to fall onto VSL's business - indeed I want the opposite.

It so happens that I not only prefer but also admire VSL's approach to the hugely expanding market associated with all kinds of music-making using sampled orchestral sounds. In particular the whole business of making "programme" (as distinct from "absolute") music is now of course of the greatest interest, and VSL are addressing that interest in their own inimitable and most highly creditable way.

I think the vast majority of us interested in this topic can readily agree that there are far, far more people currently engaged in various stages along the very long journey of learning the crafts and arts of making programme music for media, than there are adepts who have arrived at top-class professional mastery - and I don't suppose any of those adepts would say they've stopped learning!

So I regard any products that really and honestly encourage, facilitate and assist this colossal learning (including the crucial so-called "reverse engineering" aspect of learning) are not only perfectly valid but also most welcome. And I'm in no doubt that VSL's latest offering in particular (the Capricorn BBO chapter expansion) qualifies not only as valid and welcome, but also as highly desirable for many potential new customers eager to learn. Because then, as is the way of smart young creatives, once they've clearly understood the way it's been done, they'll go ahead and do it their own way. (It can be easier to break a 'rule' in music if you know what that 'rule' is).

VSL's BBO products let anyone learn the way it's been done, and then of course other VSL products are ready for those BBO 'graduates' who know exactly what they want to do and try out next in their own, original way. It's the functional transparency and clarity of BBO (including provision of the score of riffs and other recorded phrases) that helps enormously in this learning and creative development. Certain other brands seem to be catering more to those who really aren't creative but are just happy to "get with the program".

For me, the honesty and integrity I sense in VSL's approach to the market make all the difference in the world. Looking at VSL's promos for their latest offering is a breath of fresh air, in marked contrast to the nauseating and demeaning experience of being subjected to certain other companies' devious appeals mostly to base and crass motives, and to the lowest possible common denominator. (But regardless of all that, I just do not like what the Aw-Castrator appears to be about). I don't regard this difference as a snobbery or elitist thing; I firmly believe it's an honesty and integrity thing.

@Macker said:

Fatis, if that's really the basis of your creative musical endeavours, would you mind awfully if I avoid your music like the plague? It's nothing personal.

Such a sad example of the modern communication of self-referential sarcastic attitude.

I don't pretend my Ital-English is crystal clear but it's quite obvious that for bad was my language you didn't pay attention to anything more than 2 out of 100 lines of my posts, but you take the time to write an almost offensive answer directly to me... wow, kudos.

I actually make ancient music,  acoustic and in live performance, so don't worry you don't have the risk.

@William said:

Anand posted an excellent statement as he always does.  I find his perspective as a musician and scientist very valuable.    Macker and Errikos - I had decided not to post anything partly from being permanently banned on another forum but you kept tempting me with your deliciously sarcastic dialogue.  I was enjoying immensely  your mutual, uncontestably valid dismissals, but avoided, - somewhat like a Freudian patient desperately attempting to stop the eruption of repressed contents of the Id -  posting anything here for a while.  I have annoyed VSL enough over the years and have tried assiduously to do more of the same recently.  

But then it was unavoidable after fatis posted a statement that seemed to support the creation of musical idiocy.  Because  - as fatis implied - dumbasses like it.  So music is good if complete idiots like it (?)   

Apparently I was wrong about that though  - fatis is simply expanding awareness of stupidity in music (?)  Or what is he saying? I don't know.   Right now he seems somewhat incomprehensible.  Perhaps he wants to put in a good word for musical carnival barkers.  Which is what Errikos was originally pointing out...

William your fair feeling is just due to the mess that having a complex conversation about complex matter across different posts with different writers references and different focus is unavoidably creating 😊

Despite the wonderful and intriguing topic, the mess is so deep that Macker is convinced I make this type of music, even if I never stated that and even if I wrote the opposite, and even if he knows absolutely nothing about my background. The good and the bad of Forums all in one place 😛

It was probably enough to read my very first sentence to avoid following misunderstandings, so I re-post it here to close the discussion. I think we are all in agreement about it, (...and if we are not, then we have to stop talking about LOL 😃 ):

Fatis wrote at the beginning: "- as you all stated art is art, and tools are tools. Without talent there is no tool that can transform you in a genius and if you are a genius, there is no need of special tools to show it. This is the bitter and obvious reality. "

Bye guys, peace and love, and make some good music in the spare time, whatever the tool, even glasses and coins, since good music will always be good music, and that's all.

fatis, I can assure you that I've made, as is my habit, considerable efforts to transcend language difficulties. You make your snarky little personal insult and falsely accuse me of jumping to (adverse) conclusions without having read what you've said (I read every word of your posts, matey); you haven't attempted to answer (to me) anything in the main body of my post to you; and now I see that in your post to someone else you're attempting to smear what I've said to you,

I'd say that's all pretty sad and offensive of you. And I'd also say your evasiveness and semantic acrobatics have nothing at all to do with linguistic difficulties. The pattern is obvious now. William's first response to you was spot on. But no matter, I'm not in the least bothered. You carry on, chum.

I rest my case.

@Errikos said:

Macker: I appreciate the cheer!

fatis12_24918: I see. Be that as it may, I am not wrong in what I said in the context I established, I believe....

In my humble opinion you believe it right. I think we are almost totally in agreement and had just some language issues to properly follow the logic of our posts.

In general I think that we may be proud of passion for traditional and original composing. ( I say we, because yes believe it or not I'm a graduated composer, musicologist, early music passionate and I was studying teaching and performing as much as I can. What I'm not, and I will never be, is a professional producer, soundtrack writer, pop-music maker or similar. Then perhaps I'm not really entitled to represent that category at all).

What i always recommend by the way, is to be open minded: a composer MUST know and take care of the psychology of audience. The whole theory of music and composition is about that, and if few of us love and understand the Music (with capital M) and millions don't we should try to use our knowledge to understand, and analize, and learn from the events, instead of being self-satisfied by just "avoid others music like a plague" in a selfish and arrogant way.

That's the attitude that kills the tradition and makes educated composers appear as outdated useless self-referential niche of gurus... It's not the service great music deserves, and we ALL agreed on this point and repeated across all posts.

Spread the love for the quality, invite sceptical people to experience the power of good music, contribute to musical education, and so less people will buy music made with ork- estrator, and more people will understand and enjoy your fine music instead.

@Macker said:

fatis, I can assure you that I've made, as is my habit, considerable efforts to transcend language difficulties. You make your snarky little personal insult and falsely accuse me of jumping to (adverse) conclusions without having read what you've said (I read every word of your posts, matey); you haven't attempted to answer (to me) anything in the main body of my post to you; and now I see that in your post to someone else you're attempting to smear what I've said to you,

I'd say that's all pretty sad and offensive of you. And I'd also say your evasiveness has nothing at all to do with linguistic difficulties. The pattern is obvious now. William's first response to you was spot on. But no matter, I'm not in the least bothered. You carry on, chum.

I rest my case.

I reply just because it seems you were taking it seriously, and you were expecting some more detailed answer.

I apologize for being concise before, but I think it's easy to understand that starting a post with a direct sarcastic prejudice about my music (that by the way I'm wondering why you assumed has anything to do with the object of discussion) was not inviting to a friendly conversation.

Finally you had provocative statements about my supposed underestimating of good and educated music and my supposed proposal of replacing it with the clone-crap, with even some kind of political and philosophical reference. I never wrote anything about, so what can I answer? 

That was a bit off-topic, because I was just analysing with some academic and neutral point of view the facts, inviting to fight the ignorance with the musical education, and inviting to understand the reason for some sad modern music trends, instead of just blaming them with disgusted surprise.

That's all.

Did someone squeak? Nah, must've been a glitch. Lol

Fatis,

You have handled yourself admirably in spite of the childish and petty behaviour of others.  Thank you for sharing your insight and regardless of whether or not your views are shared by others, your ability to stay grounded in the face of such intellectual arrogance, reflects on your character, as their posts reflect on theirs.

Much respect,

Dave

There is nowadays a disturbingly gross inflation of the presence and influence of memes - not only as visual images and spoken phrases, but also musical memes and behavioural memes. This inflation is now obviously far beyond the natural needs of a healthy and robust culture.

Cui bono? Who benefits from masses of people all perceiving, feeling and acting so uniformly and predictably? Yep, narcissists do. Control is their big thing. They do not want people being naturally independent, dynamic, authentic, imaginative, creative, and hence less easy to predict and - above all - control. Narcissists, great and small, are today's worst enemies of any living culture.

Small-time narcissists make up the great bulk of what recent academic studies have posited as an epidemic of narcissism. It's now like dealing with flies - whack one and straight away there's another in your face; and more in the human sphere, they can be very tribal - kick one and they'll all limp, lol. But seriously, we can and should use whatever skills we can muster in lively, robust, genuine and accountable criticism of the misdeeds of narcissists, and in scotching their endless attempts to direct - i.e. to mislead - dialogue and narrative.

Speaking of the product named in the title of this thread, for me it reeks of narcissism in both its origin and intended market. Anyone who uses it is of course not automatically the antichrist, lol, but we might well want to carefully consider their motives - not that getting honest answers from 'suspects' is in any way straightforward!

Is this stance too draconian? Certainly not in my book. I happen to love and care about my culture and will go to great lengths to protect it from harm. But I also go further - I'll back others outside my culture as far as I can, in their love, care and protection of their own culture, wherever this insidious kind of incursion is in progress.

@Macker said:

There is nowadays a disturbingly gross inflation of the presence and influence of memes - not only as visual images and spoken phrases, but also musical memes and behavioural memes. This inflation is now obviously far beyond the natural needs of a healthy and robust culture.

Cui bono? Who benefits from masses of people all perceiving, feeling and acting so uniformly and predictably? Yep, narcissists do. Control is their big thing. They do not want people being naturally independent, dynamic, authentic, imaginative, creative, and hence less easy to predict and - above all - control. Narcissists, great and small, are today's worst enemies of any living culture.

Small-time narcissists make up the great bulk of what recent academic studies have posited as an epidemic of narcissism. It's now like dealing with flies - whack one and straight away there's another in your face; and more in the human sphere, they can be very tribal - kick one and they'll all limp, lol. But seriously, we can and should use whatever skills we can muster in lively, robust, genuine and accountable criticism of the misdeeds of narcissists, and in scotching their endless attempts to direct - i.e. to mislead - dialogue and narrative.

Speaking of the product named in the title of this thread, for me it reeks of narcissism in both its origin and intended market. Anyone who uses it is of course not automatically the antichrist, lol, but we might well want to carefully consider their motives - not that getting honest answers from 'suspects' is in any way straightforward!

Is this stance too draconian? Certainly not in my book. I happen to love and care about my culture and will go to great lengths to protect it from harm. But I also go further - I'll back others outside my culture as far as I can, in their love, care and protection of their own culture, wherever this insidious kind of incursion is in progress.

It's a very interesting point of view, even if I'm not sure if I get the link between narcissism and the topic.

But to mutually share our points of view, I'm not going to use the Orchestrator for any of my projects, because I make a totally different type of music. (I just own it due to subscription, because I use the Choir, and I hope the new player will make it work better).

Being a musicologist I had the "professional deviation" of analysing trends and facts, and I found some academic and social explanation for the trend object of this topic, that correlates with education and business.

I'm not really feared by this type of tools being produced and sold to any type of musician, because I think that in the hands of good composers whatever the tool makes good music, while in the hands of poor composers it will only produce ridiculous and cliche crap.

I suppose that some clever artists will be able of earning work and money with a clever application of the tool, and that some poorly educated and instinctive audience will perhaps enjoy the result: 

in my opinion we don't have to be sad for that, but we may ask ourself some questions and if we think that it's a pity that the audience waste time on this music instead of listening something better and more elevated from spiritual and artistic point of view, we have to fight on the field of education and be ambassadors of the great western tradition of educated music that is the legitimate mother of the majestic sound of the Symphonic Orchestra. 

I hope it clears up a bit the previous set of misunderstandings.

@Acclarion said:

Fatis,

You have handled yourself admirably in spite of the childish and petty behaviour of others.  Thank you for sharing your insight and regardless of whether or not your views are shared by others, your ability to stay grounded in the face of such intellectual arrogance, reflects on your character, as their posts reflect on theirs.

Much respect,

Dave

+1

Those of you who have already purchased Opus I am wondering about the rest of the Opus player whether they have increased the number of keyswitched instruments compared to PLAY or not?  I guess this forum is not really the right place for that question though.

Honestly, I have very little use or interest for this Orkestrator thing...though if I were in the business of cranking out quickly-done work for a living, I would probably feel differently about it, its just a tool like any other, but I feel tools like that will lower the bar when media producers realize for a fraction of  the price some kid with a laptop can crank out something that is "good enough" for nearly free.  but the truth is that much of the intended audience won't care about that either...so...a tool like this lowers the cost...but also lowers the bar for what people can expect.  Just my opinion... sorta sad...but that's progress I guess.

I don't do this for a living personally, so its of no use or interest to me.  How much fun is it to play some chords and render out a bunch of easy stuff?  Fun for about 5 minutes and then quickly becomes boring.  FWIW I never found much interest in arpeggiators and other such devices for the same reason.  

But anyway, there are some interesting tools like Synfire, RapidComposer and so forth that are kind of interesting to explore and perhaps can even quickly render some sections here or there, some typical repetitive ostinato sections or whatever...save some time...I'm fine with that.  By the way, VIPro has had this kind of capability already for years already!  Doesn't get used by me pretty much ever.

While I am not taking any sides with the interesting and valid view points here, I was thinking that I will probably never buy this software. Thats just my choice.

Even if I spend a lifetime learning how to orchestrate  (i.e. ,train my ear using "old fashioned" methods), I would be happier than having a tool do it for me. For one I think s software tool cuts down the most fun part of making music, which is learning the craft and letting your brain work wonders and know that the music is entirely your own creation. After all, as I often like to say, the brain is the greatest sequencer. We just need to compare the music of Ravel, Prokofiev or any other great master of orchestration, or even todays John Williams, to what is produced today with the most sophisticated computers and software (which I am not against as I do use them for scientific work). The former is done purely with the brain, pencil paper, and the latter with software. Of course they could serve different purposes. But I choose the former approach even if I may never grasp it for the rest of my life. Again thats just my choice.

I just find it utterly fun and fascinating how the craft of orchestration was built over centuries and provided us with the most powerful sound ever created.

As Bill was saying earlier, I do find this process fascinating as a physicist, since the methodology of orchestration is highly systematic just like the scientific method. Except in music, there are no laws that cant be broken, only rules which are guidelines and hence flexible. So its even more fun!

Anand

My conclusion, part 2.

The traditional word "fidelity" (not to be confused with "fealty") denotes the normal human inclination to shape one's own conceptions, feelings, judgments and acts of will, in light of those of another. Society's fundamental coherence and form have always depended crucially upon fidelity.

Fidelity can in some cases extend to the ability to see 'through' the eyes of another and to hear 'through' the ears of another. This is where the fine arts come fully into play.

Fidelity depends entirely on the normal human ability to form, develop and maintain subconscious 'models' of others. This is thought to be precisely where narcissists and psychopaths are disabled (e.g. A. Damasio, 1994).

To use today's parlance, narcissists are incapable of emotional empathy. So how can narcissists engage in music creation? Obviously, they can't - not in any normal, healthy, honest way.  That's why I advocate seeking them out and wresting their hands off our music, by whatever means possible. They just do not belong in music making of any kind.

Likewise, as neurologist Paul D. MacLean lamented, long-term over-exaltation of the intellect can lead to very similar empathic blindness; the resulting ineptness is what we typically mock and shun when nerds and geeks candidly try their hand at music-making. (Indeed MacLean speculated that since the human intellect is so prone to to this functioning-in-isolation issue, perhaps the human brain is destined to be a Darwinian blind alley.)

So in this day and age, when "the rise of the small" is all the rage and all kinds of moral and social dysfunction are touted as the new norms, it's no surprise to find that narcissists, nerds, geeks and "the new helpless" not only can hide in plain sight, but moreover are busy infiltrating many kinds of computer-based music-making endeavours in which they can masquerade as being musically competent. 

Inevitably, since the highly-mechanised tools now available can - to a limited extent - stand in for and cover up gross incompetence in music-making, programme music for media has become what it is today.

Also, even today, centuries after super-geeks Descartes, Locke, Hegel, et al. blathered their barmy bilge in praise of the seeming sovereignty of the intellect, we still find those who advocate "educating" audiences in order that they may better understand, appreciate and enjoy the utter tosh dished up as "educated" music by academic geeks. Oh dear God Almighty, it's as if nobody's learned a damned thing from the abject failure and collapse of the dreadful Marxist-Leninist experiment in designing utopia. (Marx had been one of Hegel's students at Berlin University. Hegel was an intellectual fraud who plagiarised - and fatally bastardised - the ancient Oriental Taoist understanding of the dialectic, and peddled the result as his own doctrine of "the Absolute".) 

If I may offer this as general advice (and if the vast majority of adept musicians will forgive me for stating the bleeding obvious, lol): it pays to bear in mind that no matter how much it may seem to be,

the intellect is not sovereign within the human organism.

...

Thank you to everyone who participated in this discussion and offered their considered viewpoints, one always benefits from learning something new - I, for example, was unaware of VapidComposer...

Observing the international cultural milieu and the denizens' "musical" preferences in the 21st century, I am so genuinely and happily surprised that the entertainment industry still elects to employ symphonic forces for its films and games, albeit in the puerile manner explored in this thread. So long as the industry keeps sustaining all those musicians and recording studios, we -others- will continue to enjoy the great benefits of the development of great sample libraries and sophisticated notation/recording software, that allows us to compose and record our own work. 

And who knows? Even against great odds, we can still harbour statistical hope for the future.

P.S.: I am not writing this to provoke further discussion, as welcome as it would be, I wasn't planning this, but I just happened upon the following:

Basically, all the Oscars for music 2000-2020 in one short video. Some good ones, many repulsively politically #motivated, but in any case so great that there was no chance for any of the soundtracks of the first three Harry Potter films or the three Star Wars prequels... And on a couple of those occasions, I would personally have presented the award to Hans, compared to...