Do Lowered Barriers to Entry Lead to More High Quality Music?

Or no?

What do you reckon??

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No because talent isn’t being suppressed and technology isn’t necessary for making music. A great talent can make music with just their voice or a thrift store acoustic guitar. People have been making their own instruments from bamboo, wood, and skin for millennia. And people whose talent stands out get recognized and get opportunities to access technologies they otherwise couldn’t afford like going into a studio.

Edit: just want to note that the thread title was changed and originally said something about “suppressed talent” being unleashed by access to technology.

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Yes as a function of scale, although a worthy context and opportunities are not guaranteed by tech availability.

Assuming the talent got a chance to develop and be nurtured, no?

In an ideal world everyone with a talent gets to grow it to its maximum possible level, right?

Despite the promise of technology, far too much talent gets wasted along the way for various reasons. There are children who will never get a chance to train their voice or their fingers from a young age, no matter how much idealism you throw at it, their talent will never blossom cause maybe they were born in the wrong place or to the wrong parents and so on.

So yes, one could argue that talent is in fact being suppressed by the oppressive economic system we were born into which limits every one of us to chance.

Meritocracy is a lie.

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Yes I mean if someone dies young due to war or spends their whole life suffering from hunger and illness, we don’t know what talent they might have had if it was never allowed to blossom. But clearly even some of the poorest places on earth still have music and a lot of great music has emerged from people living in poverty and oppression. The answer to those problems isn’t to send them a free Digitakt though because technology isn’t the limiting factor.

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musical talent isnt particularly rare in any case

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Talent, technology, talented technology, technological talent, is there a link?

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Then they’re going to come on here and complain about the resale value.

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‘Suppressed talent’

Please explain whose talent is being suppressed?

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I would argue that since our use of technology can alter brain function over time, increased technological availability might also be suppressing talent (in favour of something else)

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In my experience, creative folks find interesting solutions when constrained, not when all options are available. Or they invent the technology they need to solve the problem.

I don’t think broad technology availability hurts, per se, but plenty of folks aren’t going to do anything of consequence with all the available tools. YMMV.

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on a massive scale? no. does it democratize things more than say 300 years ago? sure. but the fallacy of the “this technology will mean X more Mozarts in the world” is there just aren’t as many Mozarts in the world regardless

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Youse do all know what suppress means right?

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Broad access to artmaking tools generally benefits the state of said art over time, yeh.

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I actually prefer this to the original. This is a counterpoint, it depends on the individual nature of the tech. Usually, if it’s by big tech, it’s designed for engagement and profit maximization over creativity and talent.

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Chemicals or malnourishment could suppress talent. I think it’s free to riff on this one, near-free association on the availability of music tech.

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Let them eat DT1

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What a waste of talent and technology. :joy:

It would be cool if a bunch of newcomers without considerable financial means…snatched up all the available OG DN and DT and made kick-ass music on them. I somehow doubt that is going to happen on any significant scale, however.

The introduction of the newer models has taken the shine off the OG models. The originals are now defined by their deficiencies in relation to the newer models. If I were a newbie, lurking on this forum, with no experience on Elektron boxes, I would likely be dissuaded from buying a used OG Digitone.

Yet the OG Digitone, I know from experience, fits my purposes almost perfectly. Granted, I put all my drum sounds on one of the four tracks. Not sure what low rung of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that places me (somewhere under the self actualization achieved by DNII users, I suppose).

Side note: How many my setup pictures do you see any more displaying the OG Digitone?

Now, to answer the thread question: I think the opposite can happen, specifically for those able to buy the latest, greatest gear. Users frequently refer to “options paralysis”. I am sure that’s a thing, but a larger issue, in my mind, is the effect that many options/features/techniques have on the music-making process. They guide us down a path of making music focused on the sum of its parts, rather than the product. Tactics rather than strategy.

Spoiler alert: A lot of music I hear, it sucks! Great art is the product of its parts, shitty art is the sum of its parts. More features, I suppose in the right hands, can be leveraged towards the production of great art. But the greater danger, IMO, is that it leads us down a path of novelty-seeking. Like a collage artist wishing for a larger stack of used magazines.

The music I make on the OG Digitone is pretty simple. But the thing that keeps the device fresh, for me, is the endless variation of interplay among the parts.

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