I recently read in a magazine called Rinse (dnb rag) a producer, somewhat well known named Gridlok, draw a connection between the craft modern producers take in constructing their tunes, and classic composers (bach, handel, debussy, etc) composing their opera's, symphonies, requiems, etc.

He's not trying to say the musical genius of the classical, symphonic, orchestral composers had hundreds of years ago....is on par with electronic music producers, but the connections in the writing of the music are definitely there.

Both rely on certain instrumentation for a piece to be accomplished, the only key difference is Mozart writing a piece calling for a certain set up of clarinets, harps, strings, etc......and a modern producer collecting and utilizing all the instrumentation available of the programs they use to produce.

A band is definetly doesnt have that connection, nor a solo singer....all the music, and the expansion of the sound never is taken up by one person.

.....make sense?

Um, I hope not. I've heard a lot about D-n-B producers with delusions of grandeur, and yeah, occasionally some of them are doing something as complex as a composer. But most of the time they're still just making repetitive dance music and citing Steve Reich, as if knowing who he is makes them his bastard heir.

I mean this:

is just not true.

Basically, most "pop" musicians make music as innovative as composers were in, like, BC times.

I wasnt saying that was all Mozart was doing, I'm simply talking about the use of certain instrumentation, the volume and tempo and every other factor that could be considered.

and of course there are one-dimensional electronic producers, plenty of them, but that shouldnt exclude those who produce fantastic, inventive stuff that you can just....hear, how much work went into each track. Those are the ones that take the...(not trying to sound pretentious here)...the art of making music, with the same scope that many composers had.

I know there is a difference between some guy in front of a computer using Reason, Cubase, Logic, etc to make music and someone dealing with actual instrumentation, but I think there is a connection.

very much so.

i don't know how a solo singer or band wouldn't have that role. i compose all of my music myself, and speaking from experience, it's much easier for me to write a three minute pop song than it is for me to write an interesting ten minute piece for two clarinets, a flute, and a saxophone (and yes, i've done both).

basically i don't really see what this is getting at other than that the electronica guys do everything by themselves - and to that i call bullshit on the connection to the classical greats.

EDIT: i was writing my post while you posted yours. i still don't see why it's important to establish that electronica artists do that when plenty of others do too.

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Raise the dead on your turntable.

Yeah, what I'm saying is that "classical" music is a lot more complex. It's not just about arranging. I mean, Bach was writing music where you could play the sheet music upside-down and it would come out the same. There's just a lot more to the role of the composer than just arranging a tune for instruments. The tunes themselves are a lot more involved. Stockhausen is another one that D-N-B dudes like to cite, but again, he's doing infinitely more complex work.

My objection was with the idea that the use of an orchestra rather than synths is the only difference, because it really, really isn't. It's not like composers don't use synths too nowadays either.