NOISE : Taste / Work / Talent

[Theodore]

Quite often i use the word Talent regarding good noise making. Thinking of it -X world's problems- i probably use it as a way to speak, for mutual understanding. Cause to my mind Talent comes third, not even needed. It's all about Taste. Then comes Work to perfect skills / know gear and method, experiment with ideas and inspirations, try-fail-retry. - Is that order correct ? I think so. A tasteless hard-worker will stand mediocre at his best. A lazy guy with taste may has a chance to come up with something good, less often than not ofcource, but even his failures we wont see them, he has taste, he wont let them out. Thus Taste is the absolutely necessary !

Talent how ? For new ideas ? Is there really a possibility for these ? - What i would call Talent is to reach equal results with less Work than someone with the same Taste as you. - Trying to convert abstractness to mathematics here, i know, but you got my point.

Anything else to be added in the equition ?

But what is Taste and how it is achieved ? Most [?] of us [?] will agree what's good noise or not, what's exceptional, we know [?] to tell upon listening. - In creation, Taste is Knowledge with Self-Criticism. Too much of the latter will lower the Standards of new available material. The Shameless will prevail. - The fine art of walking on the rope ...

[brutalist_tapes]

possibly not the most popular opinion but i think you need to have some kind of musicality to make good noise. i dont mean being able to play an instrument traditionally, but a kind of primal musicality is needed imo. if that isnt there, you know, some sense of dynamics, "rhytm", composition etc. - it could be good, but then its more sound art than noise music you know?

[host body]

Reading or listening to noise musician interviews I've come to the conclusion that the only thing you need to make noise, good or bad is the correct gear and some patience. No talent or vision required per se, just fiddle around with a tape recorder for long enough and you'll be abled to produce perfectly listenable arkinoise.

[Balor/SS1535]

I think I agree with the taste-->work-->talent progression, as I would like to think that someone with taste and a work ethic would be capable of producing something worthwhile---even if the result is technically crude or not "fine around the edges" or whatever.

I think, though, that when thinking about art generally, there is a place for works produced out of work/talent without "taste" (if talent, removed from taste, means something along the lines of natural proficiency or skill on a technical level?).  Sometimes if someone shows that something is technically possible, then someone with less talent can come along, copy the procedure, but then apply it in a way guided by taste to create something great.

[Commander15]

Reading or listening to noise musician interviews I've come to the conclusion that the only thing you need to make noise, good or bad is the correct gear and some patience. No talent or vision required per se, just fiddle around with a tape recorder for long enough and you'll be abled to produce perfectly listenable arkinoise.

I think that it's possible to do it like that in the arkinoise / harsh noise / shaker-box-and-DOD -context. But i think when it comes to industrial-noise or "weird noise", the difficulty level ramps up significally to do passable and personal sounding stuff with no vision or talent.

[Commander15]

I see the axis of 'talent-vision-work/skill' as an holistic thing. Every factor in that axis effects another and lack of one also effects the outcome depending on the context where the axis is applied.

[Theodore]

To clarify, by NOISE i mean all styles, variations, hybrids. - NOT music played by traditional musical instruments with traditional ways in traditional composition / arrangements.

i think you need to have some kind of musicality to make good noise

Maybe. Whether we like it or not, we, by nature or nurture, are made to react in certain things.

Reading or listening to noise musician interviews I've come to the conclusion that the only thing you need to make noise, good or bad is the correct gear and some patience. No talent or vision required per se, just fiddle around with a tape recorder for long enough and you'll be abled to produce perfectly listenable arkinoise.

You cant came to that conclusion ! What's the correct gear when Jerman drags leaf-branches or plays with stones ? Yes, that's Talent. And what a Confidence ! 'Sit, and listen to me playing with my stones.' - Even for harsh noise, you threw Man totally out of the window. Reduced to a chimp slaved to twist knobs and push buttons till ... Yeap, someone has to decide, this sounds good, i ll combined it with that, i ll explore it further, it's ready. The Man.

Sometimes if someone shows that something is technically possible, then someone with less talent can come along, copy the procedure, but then apply it in a way guided by taste to create something great.

Good point regarding the technical side of Talent.

-

I like the word Vision that is mentioned. I hadnt thought about it. I see it related to both Taste and Talent, but i cant tell to which is closer. - Vision could be guided by Taste, but also could be by pure Talent, the visionary / abstract side of Talent, not necessary by inventing something new, but by ... well, i cant explain it. See Jerman.

[Heppakirjat]

I recorded about three tracks today. Cut up lofi noise on tape utilizing pause button molestation. One track became good. The other two suck ass. I would like to think that I have taste in the sense that I just know the two mediocre tracks suck. I can't really put into words why they suck - they just do and I don't think they were ment to be better, no matter the execution. Same technique, same equipment and same fucker behind the knobs. Still one just knows? Tehehhee - or at least I know what my taste is!

Regarding masterpieces I would like to think they happen almost by accident - when the stars align: guided by taste, talent or something... way more! I love passion, feelings and a sense of urgency in noise and music in general. To me a great album or track might have more to do with channeling an inner fire and necessity to create whatever is being created, than somekind of mastercrafted übernoise. On the other hand something like Lasse Marhaugs Quality control is just goddamn amazing simply because it's just so exceptionally well executed!

[Balor/SS1535]

I recorded about three tracks today. Cut up lofi noise on tape utilizing pause button molestation. One track became good. The other two suck ass. I would like to think that I have taste in the sense that I just know the two mediocre tracks suck. I can't really put into words why they suck - they just do and I don't think they were ment to be better, no matter the execution. Same technique, same equipment and same fucker behind the knobs. Still one just knows? Tehehhee - or at least I know what my taste is!

This also brings to mind a fourth factor: luck.  With noise especially, sometimes things just have to line up right---and that might not always be up to you!  Not to mention certain recordings being important because they happened to be first or appear at the right time.

[Andrew McIntosh]

Reading or listening to noise musician interviews I've come to the conclusion that the only thing you need to make noise, good or bad is the correct gear and some patience. No talent or vision required per se, just fiddle around with a tape recorder for long enough and you'll be abled to produce perfectly listenable arkinoise.

Likely, but just as likely it'll be boring, also-ran stuff. I've got nothing against what I call Average Noise, because sometimes you need that stuff. But in moderation. We're in an age of over-production and product saturation; I appreciate a bit of effort, at least, to do something slightly more personal.

[Andrew McIntosh]

I think a decent element can be simply just having a good idea for something. I don't keep up with Noise like I used to, but if someone comes up with some kind of nearly novel idea - anything from a sound source, to treating the sound, the concept or whatever - that can help. The problem there, of course, being whether the idea works, and whether it works as something that stands on its own and isn't just gimmick. Very thin, subjective lines, I realise. 

[Moran]

Even if you are well aware of what you like, you would need inspiration to consistently make good things. Understanding why you like the things you like can cause you to find generalities about your aesthetic intuition that can help you focus on the right ideas when wanting inspiration.

[n a a r a]

I think in any kind of artistic work you need to have at least some of each qualities named and almost everybody does. You need to have at least some kind of vision to start to make something and then you need to have the ability to learn the techniques to execute. After that, you need to have opinions on how to work further and the intitiative to work. Talent is a thing, after all, I guess. It is the combination of artistic vision/ear, the joy of creating and the wit to find th right ways to work and the right sources to learn from. Of course you can work with sound with little or no talent but why work your ass off if you don't have any opinion on your stuff and don't find joy in making it? I don't believe you can be an utterly terrible (noise) artist if you enjoy what you're doing in some way. In this kind of music/sound expression there is no universal quality. If something is made with a vision and drive somebody will hear it. I don't want to sort people to real artists and amateurs in this kind of setting.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Like few guys here are saying, I think talent is most of all the listening. Furthermore, like Heppakirjat says, not even necessary analytic listening, simply knowing when something works and something doesn't. Usually, this requires that one is a real noise fan. Furthermore, that there may be enough experience that one is not falling in love with the very first oscillation the generic gadget makes. Simply because it is "fun to play with it".

The more abstract it is, there may be big % of gamble. Like throwing paint to canvas, and it doesn't always work, but you do recognize when it does. One can't really separate this making of and listening to. While in music, you can have guitarists or drummers who lost real interest in music they play and they just repeat the patterns by muscle memory, in noise it would feel pointless. Many times you can recognize noise made by people who don't really listen to noise from perspective of noise lover or fetishist. Some guys will think any shoes will do it, but fetishist may know what shoes really hits the spot, heh...