MikeRobinson

Music is a business. It takes money to produce those recordings, to manufacture those CDs (maybe), and to do everything else that is associated with the process. And, "this money has to come from somewhere." If this were not so, the only music you'd get to listen to was that of your "crazy uncle," whacking away on his guitar.

Entiendo lo que dices, pero no lo que preguntas. "I understand what you are saying, but not what you are asking."

Simply remember that "there is no 'I' in 'AI.'" We have no idea how to make a computer "intelligent." This marketing-driven term refers to a class of computer algorithms which are designed to be self-adaptive and self-tuning. They make heavy use of pattern-matching, and they seek to find useful patterns in [great masses of ...] data which might not be readily apparent to more-conventional approaches. And, in that limited respect, they are a very exciting development with great potential value. But the "Achilles Heel" of computer programming is definitely true for these: "Garbage In = Garbage Out." The algorithms can produce nonsense and they can even be intentionally "gamed." The outputs produced are entirely dependent on the data that is fed in – but it is not always possible to determine what the ultimate effect of "the data" will actually be. (Every [gigantic ...] tranche of "data" is also very much "a mixed bag.") The models might produce something that is very useful, or they might produce something that is worthless. (P.S.: "I'm a Geek.")

Also remember that this never happens: "Suddenly, the heavens open and a beam of light shines down from Heaven as the Angels are up there, singing to you the Perfect Song, so that all you have to do now is to record it [and retire]." Don't "keep starting over," because if you do, you won't "do" anything. Instead, keep every version of everything that you write, and don't be afraid to let someone else hear it. (Especially in a safe place like "right here.") But also, don't find yourself "craving 'affirmation.'" When a song sounds good to you, it is good. "Creativity is not deterministic." There is no "right answer." A song is never truly "finished." And a significant part of the process is – frankly – "trial and error." Or maybe just "trial." "Experimentation." The person who finally hears "the song that you decided to release" never hears, and probably never suspects, all of the stuff that you didn't decide to include. "To them, it simply sounds 'inevitable.'" The decision-making can't be seen ... and you probably should prefer it to be that way. (Just tell 'em that it's magic ...) But to this I would add one more thought: "don't 'discard' anything." What didn't work on this one might be perfect for the next one. Newspapers used to keep what they called "the morgue," where they kept the stuff that they didn't use. Because, every now and then, they'd go back to it and find exactly what they [now ...] needed.

Now, let me also interject this angle ... In most of the "grand old times" that we are still talking about, the only way to get your music out to the masses was to have it pressed onto a vinyl disc. Thousands of wannabe artists spent fruitless dollars with musical "vanity publishers" only to see their musical aspirations turn into dust. But also ... and I actually have a bit of family experience with this and still a few royalties ... even the "biggest stars" spoke of "flinging songs against the wall, to see which ones will stick." Many of the "big hits" were surprises. Plenty "better songs" pancaked. Today's music market is "crazily different." Suddenly, there are no technical obstacles.

Actually, it's very interesting to listen to the very different ways that these artists have re-approached their original works. Please look them up.

"Does anyone else spend more time faffing with guitars and vst amp settings than actually playing???" 😀 You said it yourself: "Just play!" Because the only thing that your audience actually hears is you ... not any group of metal strings nor any piece of wood. There definitely is such a thing in this world that is called "analysis paralysis." Where you spend so much time agonizing over "what is the 'right' thing to do" that you don't do anything at all. In music, at least, there is no "'right' thing." And, no way to know what "the 'right' thing" turned out to be, except in hindsight.

If there actually were a "formula" for "writing a hit song," (1) everybody would be a bezillionaire, and (2) nobody would be listening to [the radio], because there wouldn't be anything interesting to listen to. 😀 On the one hand, a "fairly mechanical" music-production industry is always looking for "fairly mechanical," very formulaic "hits" which [of course ...] don't actually last very long. These songs are their product, and they have developed a fairly consistent machine by which to produce them. "True creativity," on the other hand, is a very curious thing: you usually don't know that you have "an enduring hit" until you do. And, when you do, the craftsmanship of your invention is largely unappreciated.

That's an absolutely terrific! cover of this song! Very excellent music and video production.

What has always struck me about this video is that, when Rick plays the actual music of each piece, it sounds much better than the published recording. And, beyond that, he's basically right: "there's nothing there." As Lucy told Schroeder in the Peanuts comic strips: "Did you know that Beethoven now comes in spray cans?" Yeah. It used to be what broadcasters were the most afraid of: "Dead Air!" The "AutoTune Buzz" that Cher championed in "[Do You Believe In] Life After Love?" becomes the "new normal," and the entire sound is as though it was squeezed through a toothpaste tube. Each of these songs could have been so much more, if they had only taken the time and not resorted to an empty formula. I simply do not like to hear: "musical tropes!"

But you know, "being an artist" only goes so far. There's only so much "inspiration" that you can take from a millionaire who "made it" – from a person who doesn't even know that "David Bowie®" is a registered trademark. I think that you have to decide for yourself who you want to sing to, why you want to sing it, and why should they care. You should also strive to think about "what would be the highest-quality product to present to them," even if you realize that you don't yourself have everything that it takes to do that.

Reality: "Songs are written by a team, no matter who the actors(!) in the resulting song might be!" "A song" is "a work of fiction." It is not real. Bilbo Baggins never existed. Neither did Captain James T. Kirk. Nor the protagonists of "Black Velvet" nor "Fancy" nor "Does He Love You" nor "The Legend of Wooley Swamp" nor any of the rest of them. And you could probably never name the names of the "royalty collectors" who actually wrote any of them. Whether they be male or female, as the case may be. The fictional characters and scenarios who populate a particular song are chosen for the occasion. They have nothing to do with the creators, nor their physical genders. The actors are placed on the stage as the musical playwrights direct, and they sing their parts as they are told. In due time, a "song pitching" competition begins, as songwriters seek to convince artists to "play the parts" that they have written for them.

Not ready yet. Sorry.

Welcome, and good luck on your dissertation! However ... "what the (!) is ... 'negative harmony?'" Please give us a nice summary paragraph – or two or three or six – which carefully presents to the rest of us what you have spent so many months of your life focusing upon. First, tell us what the subject-matter is. Then, "in layman's terms," introduce your thesis. Next, tell us exactly what input you are looking for. Finally, present your survey. Only then(!) can you reasonably expect your "survey results" to be meaningful and therefore useful to you. You can't simply "throw a baseball to us" and expect us to ... well, anything at all, except to say "ouch!"

I'd definitely chime in here that the notion of "mastering" – which certainly exists today – has altogether to do with concerns of final delivery. For instance: "XM radio?" "Earbuds?" "MP3?" "AIFF?" "Vinyl, when it actually mattered whether your song was the 'outermost' or the 'innermost' track on a stamped LP because of the physical speed differences caused by the disk's diameter?" You might have had this experience yourself when you submitted your song to [any ...] public repository or streaming service – (hopefully, "privately" at first) – and then listened to what "their algorithms" had done to it. Most of these algorithms have to do with compression. They want to make the file as small as possible. They want to conserve satellite bandwidth. A very informative first step – if you can stand to do it – is to download "the resulting file" into your DAW as a new audio file. Now, use the various analytical tools (histograms, waveforms and so forth) to analyze your original submitted project against "how they butchered it." You will for example immediately see that "your beautiful waveforms" just went to boot camp and got a buzz haircut.