The answer to that question is, yes and no. First of all, electronic music often has a negative connotation. Some people argue that it is not like the artist play an actual instrument but just press buttons. I agree with that statement, sadly enough in many cases “musicians” in the electronic genre craft their songs together by using samples which they loop and combine. As an example they do not have to worry about chord progressions and rather get a pre-done one and create their song with preexisting material. To me this is a lazy approach, in my opinion this does not require a lot of talent, maybe some sense of rhythm. However, electronic music goes way further than building songs out of sample packs. To me the probably most fascinating part is, that in electronic music you can craft any instrument you want, there is no limitation what so ever. With electronic synthesizers sounds can be designed. Whether those are hardware or software based, there are no limitation nor rules, and sounds can even transform into others, shift in many directions, as an example start soft and become an aggressive growl.
I started making music because I liked so many different genres, sometimes just elements of those. I personally do not like having boundaries in music, I like to design my sounds and combine what sounds good to me, rather than following rules just in order to fit a genre. I am working on a couple of new things and will make another post soon.
MRN
Hi Kenny!
Nice short article! I study at UCLA extension too, I’m in Robert Scheid’s class.
I’m more of a pop/hip-hop fan but electronic music has inspired many popular artists in that genre like Nicki Minaj or Will.I.Am maybe 8-10 years ago… Today, people like Kaytranada manage to marry both quite well without being too cheesy and cliché in my opinion.
Kenny Stadelmann
Thanks for your comment 🙂 I actually grew up listening to hip-hop and I’m still influenced by it when I’m creating music. However, I did not know the artist Kaytranada and just checked him out. I really like his style, and I agree with you that he does a great job in creating an interesting mix of multiple genres.
Mayu
I agree with you. I have never made my music by myself, but I can imagine electronic music has its own difficulty. Though it might be a little different, I know many Japanese vocaloid songs, and I understand there is no limitation in such an electronic music since vocaloid music has tremendous kinds of tastes depending on each song. Even if it is easy to imitate, it seems that true musicians never stay lazy and try to create something new.
Kenny Stadelmann
Yes you’re right there is indeed a tremendous amount of tastes and I strongly believe that electronic music can always be re-invented in creative and unique ways.