Aphex Twin Failure Is an Option: Why Music Students Are Jealous of Aphex Twin

[marf]

you never know. I wish he'd grow up, Thats my only wish. It sucks being his fan

[ZoeB]

This is kind of the thing that I would actually like to see someone ask him in an interview... But this is always the problem with music journalists, they never ask the questions that are interesting to musicians.

 

Yes! It really frustrates me that all music journalists seem to latch onto is whether music is personal or not, and what the lyrics mean. When it comes to music like Richad D. James's, without any real lyrics, they don't seem to have any idea what to ask. So he just makes stuff up and they like that, so I guess it's fine, but it would be nice if he sat down for a proper interview for, say, Sound On Sound. Plus with musicians, it's easy to fixate too much on equipment used and not enough on the technique of actually using it.

 

The closest I've gotten to guessing how he approaches composing, is I think [Lichen] was probably a deliberate ripoff of Brian Eno's Discreet Music, at least in terms of the timbres used, as a sort of experiment to see if he could make something in the style of Brian Eno... but almost everything else I've heard of his sounds very much original. Using either sounds, rhythms or melodies as a starting point wouldn't surprise me, but he doesn't often seem too concerned about harmony (understandable for an acid fan, as by definition it's centered around a monophonic synth line), and I'm convinced he's unafraid to try things out, and that's one of the reasons his music is often so good.

[Guest ruiagnelo]

I think RDJ doesn't give a shit about technique or right/wrong moves on music. I really think it's all about talent, which he has and he definitely creates sounds exclusively by ear. It's possible to observe that considering all the information we have access to like interviews, videos, stories, etc.

 

But there is one thing that its important to have in mind: electronic music allows that freedom of experiment, because it's so sui generis genre of music. Classic music for instance requires much more than just talent, as you are limited and depedent on default rules and you need hours and hours of practice.

 

I really don't find anything surprising on richard having no musical training at all. He has a phenomenal ear and knows what sounds good. He just needs machines and everything is there so he can create his sound.

[marf]

I noticed when his mother sing "birthday to you" she shifts into the diminished locrian VII melodic modial commonly sung in the ancient northern anglesey county.

 

Stop me.

[marf]

I DO KNOW, aphex is a paranoid person. He thinks people want to kill him. Someone like that thinks people want to steal his ideas no doubt. So we will never get a true answer from him.

[Guest Masonic Boom]

Nope. I hope he never ever ever ever EVER grows up. I hope he stays like Willy Wonka and a Toys R Us kid and never grows up. And never stops being him, and never stops being childlike and playful and paranoid and weird and dumb and clever and insane and funny and annoying and frustrating and beautiful and genius.

 

No one wants to kill him. Honest. We just want to carry away small pieces of his DNA for sampling and experimentation purposes. (KIDDING! Jesus, I joke about this stuff in order to make light of the kind of OCD parts of fandom. But then again, fandom is the one place where *I* don't have to be grown up and responsible and I can act like an eternal teenager. That's the fun of it.)

 

it would be nice if he sat down for a proper interview for, say, Sound On Sound.

 

Or even better, if he did one of those Future Music video things where he sat down with his gear and explained how he actually *made* some of his favourite songs/sounds. Because that's the kind of thing I really love, where someone goes through a song, channel by channel and is all "ooh, that's the drum machine, I ran it through ...... and that's an MS-20 that I did .......... etc. etc."

 

But if he's paranoid and just thinks that people are gonna steal his sounds... oh for fucks sake. People can steal your sounds all they like but they are never really going to SOUND like you because music is so personal and melodic sense is so distinctive and if anyone could do an Aphex song, everybody would be. But they can't, and that's kind of the point. I wish he'd be more secure on that sort of thing, but hey, long-term cannabis users... EDIT: then again, with fans like us, who wouldn't be paranoid? Sigh.

 

But hey, I cannot stand how people go on about how it's all "just talent" and that electronic music doesn't take years and years of practice and getting to know your equipment and know your stuff. I mean, it's not called "Selected Ambient Works 85-92" for nothing. He spent SEVEN FUCKING YEARS learning how to make that stuff. But people tend to discount the hours and hours spent mucking about in bedrooms making Moogs quack like a duck because hey, it's fun, and electronic music is just INTUITIVE shit that anyone can do because it's easier to believe that than accept that it takes time to learn the craft like any other craft.

 

But hey, if he wants to take the attitude that electronic music *isn't* something you talk about, it's just something that you do, and that you listen to (as he's said in interviews) well, that's his right. But it'd be pretty boring on this forum if we never talked about anything but his pretty hair.

[Guest Al5x]

But hey, I cannot stand how people go on about how it's all "just talent"...But people tend to discount the hours and hours spent mucking about in bedrooms making Moogs quack like a duck because hey, it's fun, and electronic music is just INTUITIVE shit that anyone can do because it's easier to believe that than accept that it takes time to learn the craft like any other craft.

You know maybe I've been lied to my entire life but I always thought the concept of talent was based around the fact that not everyone had it and that it WAS special. I understand the fact that lots of people don't take in to account the thousands of hours of studying equipment and toying around it takes to even come close to Richard's level of expertise, but "talent" implies more heavily than anything that NOT just anybody can do something.

 

On the subject of talent I've always thought it was just the combination of a massive ego/love for yourself, not being afraid of wild experimentation(I'm on topic now!), and being able to look at your own knowledge of your craft objectively, rather than some kind of other worldly, unnatural artistic instinct that makes you a genius at something you're not even biological predisposed to understand. I've heard a lot of people say things like that about Richard and other weird geniuses, like they're in tune with something that regular people are not (synesthesia,lol) but I think that's just silly. Honestly I think anyone could be a Richard D. James if they were as dedicated, or had the same attitude as him about music, but most people just don't strive for that kind of unique perfection. So I agree with the article completely, I guess.

[marf]

aphex gets help. He gives help, but not as aphex. As an anonymous user on forums. Im sure. Or as a peer to other established musicians. I like how he weaves music together. He has total control, but seems to use a bunch of gear which is easy to lose control over. That is what Im interested in. How he controls it all. The melodies are the easier part.

[ZoeB]

Apart from anything else, even though he may not have started out knowing what he was doing, you don't make music for 25+ years at the intensity which he has, without learning what you're doing. (vis a vis the whole Malcolm Gladwell idea - naive talent plays its part, but it's probably overrated. What makes a difference in what we think of as "genius" is the sheer volume and intensity of practice.)

 

Yeah, Outliers was an Interesting read, and This Is Your Brain On Music looks set to be the same, although I've only just started it. RDJ's clearly improved a lot over the years, I just wasn't sure if it was due to formal learning or simply lots of trial and error. Either seems like a valid way to learn when it comes to something as subjective as music.

 

Given that he comes from a Welsh background, and grew up in a Welsh family - it's unlikely that he grew up without being exposed to vast amounts of musical training and knowledge...

 

Well, for the record, my mother's Welsh, and although her mother in turn played the piano well, my mother herself never did get into music at all, so it's not exactly a requirement. :)

 

Alot of aphex fans seem to perpetuate (or fantasize) the idea that aphex doesn't understand music theory at all and only programs the melodies he wants, but he may just as well well be very technically proficient. he played the piano at an early age, he knows chords and how to play his synths (based on analogue haven posts) and there's alot of slick little tricks throughout some of his more advanced work.

 

i did a few scale analyses once (and posted them here) and I quickly noticed he's very fond of A# phrygian. not that it means anything except he's not doing anything technically "incorrect" and certainly not by random. whether it's due to the brains natural affinity for musical order or classical training can be argued.

 

I believe he's got a proficiency with the keys and at least some awareness of music theory and the tools you can use, mostly because of the fact that basic music theory is very easy and saves alot of time if used as a tool for your own expression. some of the more extensive experimental stuff becomes a pain in the ass if you don't know how to keep a harmony between your various voices and chords. QKThr was played live because you hear the timing and action of the harmonium and it does not have midi.

 

What nailed my impression for me were the extended chords and chord substitutions in the tuss material, two music theory tools that are very simple but only obvious when you read into it, and usually only pleasant sounding if you know how to use them.

 

Now this is the kind of thing I didn't realise. In that case, it sounds like he does indeed know what he's doing in terms of theory, in which case it's just that he's not afraid to break the rules, in spite of knowing them. When I've got a bit more spare time, I'll update my essay accordingly to point out that he's not afraid to break the rules, in full knowledge of what they are. Thanks!

[Guest Masonic Boom]

Oh no. I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were half Welsh.

 

I'm afraid I can't speak to you any more, now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(kidding! )

[marf]

hes used ircam's open music in the past. Its a musical theory program. Why do I know this? I'm a nerd

[Guest Masonic Boom]

Actually, I just realised what was bugging me about this scenario, and why I think the Twinny one is lying.

 

Serious question: how many "completely non-musical families" do you know that have a piano in their home?

 

I mean, pianos are kinda expensive to just purchase on a whim as an accessory for the 70s home. They're also really hard to move around, difficult to keep in good nick, and not something people tend to have lying around unless there's someone that's interested in playing the damn things.

[soundwave]

musical institutions are entierly self serving and althougth some (often useless) academic excellence is achived to boost the ego and grab the educational money market and by its very nature the creative factor normally is totally absent

 

on the other hand getting the academics chin wagging about your music is a good money spinner for the long term and herds in more sheep from this field

 

Eno did this years ago with 'ambient' yet the academics still don't realise in hindsight that it was an abstract sales blagg and still regrd it as some kind of manifesto

 

RDJ has also dabbled in this with the Cage esque stuff on Drukqs and Phillp Glass involvement

 

Autechre just get on with it and let other people do the ranting even if the music flies over and under quicker than they realise

 

musical education is good if you want to join an orchestra or jazzband but not really essential for abstract experimental electronic

 

musical institutions are entierly self serving and althougth some (often useless) academic excellence is achived to boost the ego and grab the educational money market and by its very nature the creative factor normally is totally absent

 

on the other hand getting the academics chin wagging about your music is a good money spinner for the long term and herds in more sheep from this field

 

Eno did this years ago with 'ambient' yet the academics still don't realise in hindsight that it was an abstract sales blagg and still regrd it as some kind of manifesto

 

RDJ has also dabbled in this with the Cage esque stuff on Drukqs and Phillp Glass involvement

 

Autechre just get on with it and let other people do the ranting even if the music flies over and under quicker than they realise

 

musical education is good if you want to join an orchestra or jazzband but not really essential for abstract experimental electronic

[perunamuusi]

backdoor berbew is good though

[ZoeB]

musical institutions are entierly self serving and althougth some (often useless) academic excellence is achived to boost the ego and grab the educational money market and by its very nature the creative factor normally is totally absent

 

musical education is good if you want to join an orchestra or jazzband but not really essential for abstract experimental electronic

 

Thanks, this is largely what I was trying to say... from what I've heard of universities, they teach you how to read sheet music, and teach you the (admittedly valid and useful) rules but don't teach you to break them, and generally seem to give people anxiety about composing, whereas before they may have been misguided but at least they weren't afraid to try new things out for fear of being "wrong".

 

I think someone calling himself welcome to the machine said it better than I did though, and mentioned a really nifty looking humourous, non-pretentious guide to music theory to boot.

[Guest Masonic Boom]

Thing is, if you're actually interested in making pop music/composing as a "career" or whatever that is, you're far better off going to art school than music school. That's the kind of place where they teach you about creative rule-breaking. Hence the long (British at least) tradition of art school bands, etc.

[ZoeB]

Thing is, if you're actually interested in making pop music/composing as a "career" or whatever that is, you're far better off going to art school than music school. That's the kind of place where they teach you about creative rule-breaking. Hence the long (British at least) tradition of art school bands, etc.

 

I am interested in making music, and preferably continuing to profit a little from it, but way back then I was dealing with personal issues so I couldn't really concentrate on my education. I'd be happy to read any books you'd recommend or take any advice you have to offer, though. Thanks.

[ZoeB]

OK, here's my revised essay. Thanks for the spot on advice, everyone!

 

 

 

I've never been to a university, so I'm merely speculating about what goes on within their walls. Listening to my girlfriend describe her experience in music lessons in high school, however, it sounds like, at least at that level, they've got it all backwards.

 

Schools teach you to make music that's technically correct. The private sector -- record labels -- want you to make music that will be popular. Schools therefore have it backwards when it comes to training people to service the needs of the industry.

 

This is understandable. It would be very difficult to objectively quantify how catchy a piece of music is. You could get a bunch of volunteers to -- in isolation, mind -- hum the piece afterwards and you could tally up how many notes they got roughly right, but such a scientific approach would be a waste of everyone's time. So schools focus instead of teaching students how to make music that's at least technically correct, even if it is boring.

 

Now listen to a few different pieces of music by Richard D. James, AKA Aphex Twin. Some may be great, and some may be dire. I'll wager that none of them are boring, however. When he makes a bad piece of music, it's really bad, and when he makes a good piece of music, it's really good, for one simple reason: he's not afraid to fail. He experiments. Sometimes those experiments come back negative, so to speak, but it's better to try out new things and get some hits and some misses than to be afraid to try anything at all and make bland music the rest of your life.

 

In high school at least -- and I'd be interested to hear from someone who studied music at univeristy to learn if it's the same there or not -- you're taught to pick some chords that follow on from one another well, and then to compose a melody that's technically correct when pitted against the backdrop of those chords. That's terrible advice.

 

As Jason Blume points out in his illuminating book Six Steps to Songwriting Success, the melody's everything, so it should be your starting point. It's what people hum in the shower. No one hums chords. If your melody's good, you can work out the backing later. If it's bad, you have to change it. No one will choose to sit down and listen to a bland melody, and they sure as hell won't pay for it. I'm paraphrasing here, of course.

 

James takes the opposite approach to the music students who have been scared into the straitjackets of chords. If he knows formal music theory, he seldom shows it. Perhaps he's spent decades honing his skills with trial and error, or perhaps he's spent that time learning formal theory. His fans haven't reached a consensus, which is unsurprising given how much he lies.

 

Either way, what's important is that if he knows formal music theory, he only lets it guide him, he doesn't see it as a rigid set of immutable rules. He doesn't care whether his music is technically correct or not. He only cares about whether it sounds good. As many professional musicians have repeatedly said, in music, whether something sounds good or not is all that matters.

 

Listening to tracks like Backdoor.Berbew.Q, I'm not even sure if James knows the theory behind which notes go well together to form acceptable chords. But why should he? Even if he hasn't learnt music theory, his mind, like everyone else's, has still been shaped by listening to music his whole life. He has pretty much the same sensibilities when it comes to which notes sound good together and which don't, and if he chooses to play something that sounds hideously out of tune, it's probably on purpose.

 

On the other hand, if he has learnt music theory, then it's probably helped him out, but only because he doesn't let the knowledge of what works well paralyse him with fear. If that's the case, then when he chooses to play something out of tune, it's definitely on purpose.

 

So the real difference between James and music students is that when making music, and working out which elements to keep and which to throw away, he seems to judge something's worth by how good it sounds, whereas they tend to judge it based on if it's "right" or not, something the listening and paying public doesn't care one iota about. If he wants something to sound scary, he's not afraid to break the rules in order to achieve that effect. If he wants something to sound pleasant, it may take him a little longer to work out how to do that, but he certainly gets there. And his music is never, ever bland. Sometimes painful, but never bland.

 

So why are music students jealous of Aphex Twin? Because, in the same way that Fight Club's narrator is jealous of Tyler Durden, Richard D. James is free in all the ways that music students are not. They are jealous of him for being able to create any music he likes with a total disregard as to whether or not what he's doing is technically correct.

 

If you've learnt music theory formally, how should you fix this? Disregard your painstakingly taught notions about using chords as starting points. Focus on the melody. By all means remember the rules, but remember you can break them too.

 

Whether something subjectively, to you, sounds good or not should be your sole criterion for keeping or destroying it. Save yourself from a career making substandard, but technically correct, background music for travel shows and toilet roll adverts. And please, let me know how you get on, so I can shut up if I'm wrong and it backfires.

 

Have the courage to break the rules; acquire wealth.

[marf]

musical institutions are entierly self serving and althougth some (often useless) academic excellence is achived to boost the ego and grab the educational money market and by its very nature the creative factor normally is totally absent

 

on the other hand getting the academics chin wagging about your music is a good money spinner for the long term and herds in more sheep from this field

 

Eno did this years ago with 'ambient' yet the academics still don't realise in hindsight that it was an abstract sales blagg and still regrd it as some kind of manifesto

 

RDJ has also dabbled in this with the Cage esque stuff on Drukqs and Phillp Glass involvement

 

Autechre just get on with it and let other people do the ranting even if the music flies over and under quicker than they realise

 

musical education is good if you want to join an orchestra or jazzband but not really essential for abstract experimental electronic

 

musical institutions are entierly self serving and althougth some (often useless) academic excellence is achived to boost the ego and grab the educational money market and by its very nature the creative factor normally is totally absent

 

on the other hand getting the academics chin wagging about your music is a good money spinner for the long term and herds in more sheep from this field

 

Eno did this years ago with 'ambient' yet the academics still don't realise in hindsight that it was an abstract sales blagg and still regrd it as some kind of manifesto

 

RDJ has also dabbled in this with the Cage esque stuff on Drukqs and Phillp Glass involvement

 

Autechre just get on with it and let other people do the ranting even if the music flies over and under quicker than they realise

 

musical education is good if you want to join an orchestra or jazzband but not really essential for abstract experimental electronic

/

 

You can say that again!

[marf]

so, my understanding is that scales are just divisions of the frequency spectrum and different divisions produce a different note combination and some people in a white tower decided what notes sound good together and called them the rules?

[marf]

I think you have to have fun. The process has to be enjoyable. The ergonomics of how you work with the equipment. Gear that gets you excited. Always make it fun.

[vertsk8er419]

backdoor berbew is good though

drums and bass

 

DRUMS AND BASS

 

DRUMS AND BASS

 

 

i love the drums and the bass in that song, shit creeps up on you

[soundwave]

 

 

You can say that again!

 

bladdy Opera10 on my mobile

[Ragnar]

uh has anybody like, made a sound or put some effects on a drum in a certain way and just did it based on what sounded good and only realize later it makes some kind of chord or whatever and start putting in new parts around that and you only really think about the musicality of it later

 

well I dunno I think the fact that it's not obvious either way whether he does or doesn't know music theory is saying something. Venetian Snares kind of seems like he HAS to but aphex's stuff always seemed like maybe he heard some horrible brake-squealing sound one day and subconsciously realized the musicality of it and went home to reproduce said sound/built a song around it

[Guest Rabid]

guide to music theory

 

The Aphex Twin has his fair share of quite chromatic melodies and chords—or maybe it’s just that he

doesn’t bother staying in the same key for more than a second or two at a time because he never

learnt about proper music theory. (Philip Glass said so.) Still, he's got a tank and lives in a bank, so i'll

shut up.