Do you ever question the genre you are producing?

The Lounge General Discussion
#42

Well it’s difficult to quantify really.

I’ll usually judge my tracks based on how good the mix is, how many mistakes I made during the recording and if they kill the mood, how close did I get to what I set out to do, that sort of thing. Technical shit, mostly. Of course the best way is to put it out in the world and see how people take to it, as there’s no better judge of turds than my fellow elektronauts. For this, you need to be ready to realise and not care that most of your tracks are probably shit.

You’re right though, the fact that my tracks are basically just semi improvised live jams and I’m pretty time limited means I don’t really have the headspace to give a shit about much more than whether a track bangs or not.

I hate UK garage, but if I made a UK garage track that banged hard, I’d be well happy about it.

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#43

I am not a fan of the genre thing. It got too granular and people’s ideas of what sound goes with what genre has such a wide range that a lot of the time it just doesn’t fit.

I’m from a time when it was rock, country, classical, electronic….very general genres.

I just say I do electronic music. I can’t fuck up there :slight_smile: [tho, I wouldn’t call what I do music, so…]

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#44

Discernment. Which comes from taste. Some people have it, some dont.

I reckon its more about creating your own aesthetic. Then your art either meets that aesthetic or it does not. If it does not, its shit. Doesnt matter how technically perfect it is.

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#45

media-2

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#46

I never managed to come close to a genre. Maybe I’m just untalented. Is there a name for that kind of genre? Noobstep?

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#47

I’ve not released anything (yet) and I think the biggest hurdle is not thinking your own shit is shit in my opinion.

Ona scale of 1-10 how happy do you need to be to drop it on Bandcamp say? Obviously this is personal to you.

#48
  1. It either makes the cut or it doesnt. Now there’s nothing stopping me changing my mind later of course. I usually listen back years later and think, well that track sucks. That’s life though. Nothing stays the same.
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#49

Yeah that’s what I’m sort of afraid of happening but like you say that’s life.

I guess it’s a good way to gauge how you and your music has grown over time.

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#50

I tend to go through sort of short “seasons” of creativity. I’ll have like a week or two where I’m just dropping nightly bangers. I’ll put them on my phone and listen to them a bunch of times in the car and whatever and if I don’t think they’re shit after a week or two I’ll put the ones I like together and release them on bandcamp.

My YouTube and SoundCloud are much more stream of consciousness, I pretty much just put everything up on one or the other, as even the turds help me to be better. I’m really disorganised though, so housekeeping isn’t really a thing.

My tracks are kind of better than they were a year or so ago, but I can listen back to some tracks from then and think “shit, that’s pretty good”. Most of my old tracks are shit though.

I really don’t think quality matters that much unless you’ve already got a pretty high profile and have to deal with audience/label expectations, which I imagine sucks most of the joy out of it.

There are tracks I don’t share publicly, but not always because they’re shit, sometimes they just feel too personal for you bastards.

Sometimes I’ve put out tracks that even I think are shit and someone’s given me great feedback on it because they liked it, which is always nice.

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#51

Too many genres ossify into painfully predictable forms. In the extreme form, you end up with blues, hardcore punk, house, trance, reggaeton—if you’ve heard one song, you’ve heard them all. Historically, the most interesting music is made at the point when the conventions of a genre are still undefined or at the moment when practitioners are transcending a given genre’s limitations. Think of progressive rock, jazz fusion, post-punk, post-hardcore. In their earliest moments, those were almost nameless offshoots of something much more predictable and straightforward. I’m interested in these moment of transgression more than in music that stays within the general confines of a stylistic safety zone. When people mainly adhere to a formula, the end result is formulaic. Life’s too short to make or listen to music that barely deviates from an established rulebook. Make your own rules (and break them, too).

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#52

I, unlike apparently most people here do care about genre, and I think about it from the onset of every track I start writing. I have a specific taste and set of vibes I want to convey and want to do that fit well within the genres that i like the most. Working within the confines or limitations of a genre is actually not limiting at all as many here claim. While I don’t think my music sounds formulaic, many of you genre pusher savants here might think so, :man_shrugging: but in my opinion, if it works, sounds good and makes you want to dance, I’m golden.

For years I was just making tracks without worrying about specific sub genres; they were a weird thing that wouldn’t really fit on any label, and I ended up with a bunch of tracks that didn’t make much sense together. They were all within the umbrella of one of the big genres but it was all over the place.

Regarding a point OP made that I haven’t seen anyone touch upon: yes, techno sounds different and feels different on a big system and it is made for the big system, and that’s one of the challenges of making it in a different space. It isn’t easy to figure out what works and what doesn’t when you are making it in studio monitors since that music shines in a totally different acoustic environment.

To sum up, op, do what you like and don’t think about genres. I do think about genres because what I like fits within genres and that’s the sound I want to achieve, but you don’t need to. It sounds like you don’t find techno production exciting, do you find the production aspect of any other genre exciting? Do you want to go freeform? Whatever it is, do what you like best and the results will show for it.

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#53

Ah, taste. Impossible to quantify but clearly measured out unevenly at birth.

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#54

I don’t really think any genre is ever completely defined. Everything changes constantly, music more than many other artforms since it’s so easy to make with limited equipment. Hardcore punk has branched from the basically fast rock and roll of the late 70s / early 80s to everything from youth crew to his hero is gone to disclose, all bands that sound drastically different but fall under the same genre. Same with blues, you can go from early Delta to Chicago to Hill Country and end up with something like A Ass Pocket Of Whiskey, which is as somewhere between noise rock and chicago blues. Even something as niche of a subgenre as death metal has huge variation, black metal even more so.

Electronic music is the worst though since genre not only has a strict BMP limit but also the drum beats or rhythms are pretty much pre set, often the type of sounds you can use as well. Yet there’s a huge variation in genres that seems very limited on paper, like drum and bass.

If your music is generic, don’t blame genre limitations. The culprit is looking at you from the mirror.

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#55

Maybe it’s about beeing more traditional or more ready for new stuff?

If somebody wants to reach out for many listeners, its definitely much easier to get there, if their expectations are fulfilled, which means staying inside a genre.

It’s my impression that only a few listeners love, if an artist or act is breaking out of those boundaries and tries her or his own thing. The risk of beeing unnoticed and not successful is quite big. But sometimes such an outbreak can become a “new genre” by itself, if enough open minded people like it. Hopefully this will happen from time to time to keep it interesting.

This said … I love classic music as well as modern electronic music. There is something within us, which loves tradition and I think, this is a good thing.

Now let’s create some new sub-sub-sub-genres :wink:

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#56

I remember Pink Floyd being bored of trad 60’s stuff. Then they changed. Nothing wrong with being bored. Its the transition period every creative artist whether painting, music or poetry etc. faces. Enjoy the transition.

#57

But I’m Count Dracula and there’s nothing there :slight_smile:

#58

Suggestion for reading on genres and genre evolution in music:

“[W]e define music genres as systems of orientations, expectations, and conventions that bind together an industry, performers, critics, and fans in making what they identify as a distinctive sort of music. Given this definition, genres are numerous and boundary work is ongoing as genres emerge, evolve, and disappear (Lamont and Molnár 2002). Musicians often do not want to be confined by genre boundaries, but, as Becker (1982) notes, their freedom of expression is necessarily bounded by the expectations of other performers, audience members, critics, and the diverse others whose work is necessary to making, distributing, and consuming symbolic goods.” (Lena & Peterson, 2008: 698)

Lena, J. C., & Peterson, R. A. (2008). Classification as culture: Types and trajectories of music genres. American Sociological Review , 73(5), 697-718.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/000312240807300501

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#59

I completely lost track of (sub)genres. To me, it’s still either Techno, House or Trance :grin:

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#60

Overall, no. I produce and participate in various music scenes either as an artist or musician (Jazz, R&B, Techno, etc.). However, in regards to electronic music, I question whether I still enjoy the sub-genres that I loved in the past: Deep House and Techno. In their modern state, I am not a big fan. However, I still find a new underground gem every now and then to keep me interested, but its becoming more rare as time moves forward.

#61

There is a dimension to music that I am constantly thinking about because I produce/create music for myself, I produce/create music for others’ enjoyment and I produce/create music specific to another artist’s requirements.

All of these fall somewhere on that dimension of a slider that goes from “music just for me” to “music just for someone else”.

Sometimes music just for me will resonate with others and that’s great. More often, music that mixes in elements that are “just for someone else” makes the target audience or artist happy.

I have found that my personal sweet spot is somewhere in the middle of that slider. Creative elements that make me happy on a personal level can be combined with more “calculated” elements that get butts moving on the floor or make an artist say, “That’s just what I wanted!”, but with the artist still appreciating what I bring to the table.

So often, the requirements of the song and the target audience will dictate the genre. There are exceptions. I’m working with an artist right now who gave me acoustic/vocal demos of the songs, and I came out of left field with the idea to work them up as techno-funk and related genre tunes. Because of the blend of that melodic “coffee house” songwriting from the artist and the adaptation to the completely different genre, these songs are turning into something really special.

Sorry, I just realized I’m going off on a tangent here. I’ll come back to this in a bit and try to wrap this up into a cohesive thought or two. :wink: