Culture and Creativity: Karaoke Culture and Korg DS-10

[Nevsky]

Hey there. I recently wrote an essay with the title 'Culture and Creativity: Karaoke Culture and Korg DS-10' [http://wildtyme.blogspot.com/2009/01/118-culture-and-creativity-karaoke.html]. Basically, it covers a lot of angles and debates.

It started off as a mini-review of the Korg DS-10 app that came out last year. I was stirred by the potential it had for creativity, being on a portable, successful console. But it had me thinking, especially in the light of public, hyped games like Little Big Planet. How much can gaming stimulate creativity?

This is especially intriguing when you start bringing in issues related to accessibility and 'fun'. Especially regarding music. LBP and other games manage to make level-creating easy to pick up, but when it gets to the Korg, and the Music Studio in GH:WT, will most players be put off by the relative complexity, and reliance on pre-learned theory and technicality?

What do you peeps think? Will there ever be a Little Big Band?

If you're interested in reading the essay, it's up over here - http://wildtyme.blogspot.com/2009/01/118-culture-and-creativity-karaoke.html. I ended up turning into something much more sociological, bringing in general theories about culture and music in society. I'd appreciate your thoughts!

 

[AuntyEthel]

Programming real synths and writing music from scratch is something difficult that requires practice and a certain amount of knowledge, time and dedication. It would be near impossible to produce software that is user-friendly to people who nothing about what these involve. Anyways, wouldn't a program that assisted people with the writing of music be a bit against the point of the human creativity?

 

[Nevsky]

Programming real synths and writing music from scratch is something difficult that requires practice and a certain amount of knowledge, time and dedication. It would be near impossible to produce software that is user-friendly to people who nothing about what these involve. Anyways, wouldn't a program that assisted people with the writing of music be a bit against the point of the human creativity?

Fair point. I'm not talking of a program that 'assists' in the writing of music, more something which worked as a hands-on tutorial. I'm pretty sure that even people who have learned traditional music theory will be daunted by the sequencer/sampler/synth heavy set-up of the GH:WT Studio.

I agree that it is about practice, though. When I first started messing with such programs on the PC years ago (must have been an early build of Fruityloops or something), I found that simply messing around with all the settings and effects was more educational than reading the documentation. Although, of course, manuals help.

 

[AuntyEthel]

Fair point. I'm not talking of a program that 'assists' in the writing of music, more something which worked as a hands-on tutorial. I'm pretty sure that even people who have learned traditional music theory will be daunted by the sequencer/sampler/synth heavy set-up of the GH:WT Studio.

I agree that it is about practice, though. When I first started messing with such programs on the PC years ago (must have been an early build of Fruityloops or something), I found that simply messing around with all the settings and effects was more educational than reading the documentation. Although, of course, manuals help.

I haven't played GH so I couldn't comment on that, but I've also been using Fruityloops since near the beginning. The only way to really learn those programs is to sit on them for hours and hours. Though they are complex, the results yielded are far more professional than what one gets from simple, people-friendly programs.