Making Music That isn't Electronic

[Cryptowen]

Anybody here into it? I useta be all about weird noises but over the last few years I developed quite an interest in less planned, rawer stuff. I write a lot of songs with words in them & play them but haven't released any because they feel more personal in a human sort of way than my techno funtime party music. Alls I got up is this one banjo instrumental I sort of did in 1 minute for a picture. Not really a good representation but O WEL

 

http://soundcloud.com/cryptowen/banj-its-for-an-art-thing

 

But yeah, I'm thinking my next album should be more free formular lyrical stuff, but with weird industrial sounds & recording methods & shit so I don't have to grow an ironic beard & take photos of myself with an old polaroid camera lookin all twee

 

Discuss your experiences with non-electronic music here. Note that you can have electronic tracks with no synths in them (like that weird treated guitar ambient stuff people do), & vice versa (because even them singer songwritery types love them some beep boop on occasion). Basically we're talking music that makes you feel things by how it's played, & not by how it's atmospherically affected. Ya dig?

[Guest mischjok]

Hmm if I use some sort of DSP to compose a soundtrack, am I making electronic music? There are lots of music genres where you´ll hear synthetizers, even if they are doing the simplest things imaginable.

 

I am actually a metal guitarist who likes electronic music as well. I like that combination. I wish I could make more of it, though.

[Guest Lucy Faringold]

Yeah I mostly use acoustic instruments when I do stuff. I usually use a bunch of subtle processing and a sequencer to cut togethter beats as well but I have made the occasional pure acoustic track like this one (more of a sketch really):

 

http://soundcloud.com/f_r_n_g_l_d/breezyjam

 

But yeah, I generally find making sounds with my hands more satisfying than fussing around with DAWs, but I do use them (mostly Reaper).

 

Good luck with your project!

[YO303]

I used to make folk music with this girl but then she turned into a tree.

[modey]

http://rooftopaccess.bandcamp.com

Mostly post-rocky guitar stuff. I've kinda burned out that side of my composition ability for now though. The classical guitar stuff was a good direction for the latest album on there but i think the next non-Pselodux music i'll work on will be Coldplay-influenced dreampop/shoegaze stuff. Pop songwriting is hard! I can churn out nice ambient meandering post-rock guitar stuff all day but when it comes to using those sounds to construct a concise pop song it's really fucking difficult. At least for me anyway.

[Friendly Foil]

"I'm thinking my next album should be more free formular lyrical stuff, but with weird industrial sounds & recording methods & shit so I don't have to grow an ironic beard & take photos of myself with an old polaroid camera lookin all twee"

 

lol

[Guest ryanmcallister]

Yep, here's some excerpts:

 

http://soundcloud.com/ryanmcallister/2011-indie-previews

 

edit: sorry i'm probably doing that weird treated guitar ambient thing you were talking about but whateves i don't consider this stuff electronic music.

[foresense]

I have a decent cheap accoustic guitar.. I can't really play, but I sometimes make recordings plucking little melodies.. and lol improvs, wandering for hours - ok minutes.

[Guest kokeboka]

I play guitar in a rock band. I've been finding it a bit boring if I don't make myself use the instrument in less conventional ways - everything's been done on electric guitar, from Lee Ranaldo to Kevin Shields to all the shred-meisters. That's one of the reasons why I'm considering leaving the band (that, hipsterism, and unrelated personal stuff); I'm getting bored of coming up with riffs and conventional song structures. I'm not even remotely a technically gifted musician, which some say is good thing because it forces one to reinvent his approach to avoid limitations. I've found that I really enjoy playing slow, simple, repetitive patterns - I used to be into percussive, fast, call-response interaction with the rhythm section, which ended up treading too closely to math rock in a way that I don't like.

 

Acoustic music can have an organic element that I often miss not having in my own electronic music, though. I wish I could play bass like Squarepusher, or have the music theory know-how to write for horn sections.

[Guest ansgaria]

I guess I both do and don't.

 

I've made some pieces that aren't in the same vein as electronic music, yet it is of course electronically mastered and pieced together. Drums are sampled, guitars are bathed in reverbs, distortion and delay.

 

http://soundcloud.com/styrbjorn/twangdreams-demo

 

This piece/sketch is one of my first ventures into post-rock'esque sound.

 

I,too, used to be a more rock/metal fan than electronic music, which has drastically changed throughout the years, and even though I still listen to a lot of rock, I only listen to a carefully selected group of metal acts.

[Guest couch]

I've only ever made "non-electronic" music. But electric bass and electric guitar are technically still...electronic. I do have some synth pedals that can make drone-like noises on their own though. They aren't really practical in a live setting.

 

I'm in two bands right now. My more serious one is uh, heavy blues rock I guess. Most people say it sounds like Sabbath but not as riffy. I would say it sounds like Sabbath (first album) + The Black Angels and maybe some Joy Division. Um. The other band is a grindcore band.

 

Basically we're talking music that makes you feel things by how it's played, & not by how it's atmospherically affected. Ya dig?

I have no idea what you mean by this though. Do you mean music that's played on legit instruments and not instrument imitators?

[Hautlle]

I think I'm gonna buy some strings for my guitar today! I've had this acoustic for about a year now but when I got it (left at a house I used to live in by a previous tenant) it only had 3 of the 5 strings. IDK how to play guitar for real, but I sampled some shit from it.

[Braintree]

I started a hardcore band recently.

[Dan C]

I'm in a black metal/grindcore band because i'm hardcore.

[rixxx]

I sing in the bath.

[Dan C]

Don't forget the goth band

[rixxx]

Yeh and I'm in a goth band with Dan C

[zkom]

I am trve kvlt. I play this.

 

 

Ahh, I just had a nightmare couple of days ago that a string snapped on this beauty. Just remembered it now.

[chim]

In early 2009 I studied at a school that had a somewhat basic but fun studio, with a piano, guitars & amps, basic drum set and various fun percussive instruments. It also had a big cello with copper strings (or something, for bass plucking). I managed to hook the studio's mixer up to my computer and have some fun in that studia. I've never had regular access to a piano and guitar so I was never really that good, but at this time I practiced pretty much and thought I was decent enough to record something, or at the very least have some arrogant fun.

 

In my first attempt I played the piano, the cello and various percussive stuff. There were several mistakes and problems with this recording, mainly that I recorded the rhythm percussion last and not first, and my computer handled overdubbing very poorly with lots of latency, which I didn't compensate for. There was also an accumulation of background noise with the summed overdubs, so the whole thing ended up into a out of sync trainwreck with lots of bg noise. I still kind of like it for the rare opportunity to compose a dark acoustic track with a piano and a cello. A friend of mine described it as wandering in sahara without water, which was kind of exactly the feel I was going for.

http://soundcloud.com/derelic7/csm-smygande-fara

 

Over my period at the school I had some fun practicing with guitars and I jammed alot on the bass guitar with some cool folks, one time after we had jammed, I stayed behind with the equipment for a new attempt. I basically just went wild singing silly tribal stuff with the microphones, played psychedelic guitar licks and bass. Also some congas & percussion. I threw in a digital drum track to have something to sync after, and compensated as well as I could for the latencies, so it turned out pretty cool... even though the singing was kind of embarassing! I also had a cold so there's a few coughs in there.

http://soundcloud.com/derelic7/psyche-rock

 

I also recorded an indie(?) rock trak with a female friend providing vocals. Every guitar bit is treated acoustic guitar, the bass is the same acoustic guitar digitally turned down an octave. The drum track and some synth bits are digital. Very likely the best out of these.

http://soundcloud.com/derelic7/damnation

 

And that's about the extent of my experiences with making non-electronic music.

[kinski]

i was playing guitar and singing ("singing") in loads of crappy jam/krautrock bands for years. i even made a indie outsider noise folk album in 2009 on my yamaha tape 4-track portastudio when i was going through my jandek/syd barrett phase (called "the acid house", funnily enough). i nearly got it released but the label folded. but playing like that is a pain in the ass. you need a rehearsal space for drums and all that crap, and if you don't want a touring band you end up like a poor man's nick drake or some noise weirdo.