Quote Originally Posted by dirty_bass
Quote Originally Posted by Francisco Scaramanga
One other thing - this business about techno being tight - what and classical music isn't? I'm sure those musicians are playing to a metronome, only they are good enough that its in their head, and they can no doubt stick to that as well as a drum machine can, because to play serious classical music you have to be that good. I have never heard of any orchestra that prides itself on the looseness of their musicianship, and most of the truly great pieces require an immense amount of precision timing, there is no room at all for looseness, if you arent bang on you screw the whole thing up.
Well, I have a very good mate who composes and conducts.
So we talk classical a lot.
Essentially the conducter is the metronome, but his job isn`t just to keep time, he reads the mood of the music as it plays, and adjusts acccordingly. If a performance is sublime but seems that it needs to slow down slightly then it will do so, and so to speeding up.
Of course you have to be good, because you have to play in unison, and to change tempo in unison, and be fluid takes more skill than just being rigid to the beat.
Thats why people have preference to different conductors and to different orchestras. It`s all about the way the dynamics work together.
Techno isn`t about that at all, it`s a rigid beat, with possible repetative swing to the groove. It has to be, otherwise DJ`s would be crying all over the world.

I`ve got plenty of contemporary classical music that I`ve tried to sample so I could wack it into a tune, but it is impossible, as the beat shifts (albeit imperceptably until you wack a metronome to it).
Well, we're in agreement with regards to the playing/conducting of classical music then. But I still fail to see how techno is all that different (theoretically speaking anyway). I'm not really into contemporary classical though, I prefer the older stuff. Which does include some cosmic changes of tempo and strange time signatures and that, but it is surprising how much of it is actually 4/4 dancefloor stompers. Beethoven was tearing up dancefloors back in the day, and some of it was even approaching techno sort of speed. And I have successfully lifted large chunks of it and put it over beats, and the timing is perfect, as if it was played by James Browns band or something.

Heres a thought, when discussing a conductor, I would go farther than to say he is like a metronome, because he also acts as a mixing desk really, by getting the right mix of the various sections of the orchestra, bringing bits up and down as the situation requires - this is a stretch but it just popped into my head - sort of like a DJ playing records, the DJ uses the pitch control to match the beats, but also if the set is a little flat, then maybe speed the set up, or slow things down if the dancefloor is looking cained, and then use the mixer to get the right mix of everything, levels and eq's. And of course some people prefer the smooth blended style, others like the fast and aggressive style, and I'll bet both of those ideas could be used to describe conductors as well.

I've had many discussions about this sort of thing with my dad who is a musician and for many years made a living playing with numerous symphonies around the world, and although he doesent like techno as such, he is forever pointing out the similarities to me between his favourite classical bits and my favourite bits of techno.

At any rate, I like it, you dont, and we both have our reasons, so fair enough.