Yep, why it’s best not to worry about it!
I don’t consider myself a musician but a music maker, a musician to my mind has musicianship - talent for playing an instrument, I don’t. But I have made and produced music which has been perceived as music by others.
I don’t consider a DJ a musician necessarily either, although they can be, and I do consider turntables able to be used as musical instruments. I personally don’t DJ and have no interest in doing so, but a good DJ is obviously musically talented.
I think for dance based music it is imperative to have knowledge and the chops to know what a DJ wants, I’d argue it is much more important than having (anything more than a basic) knowledge of music theory.
You can be a producer without writing music, and you can be a producer just .producing your own music, although you will look a bit of a knob calling yourself a producer without any actual productions released. IMHO
‘Beatmaker’ makes me cringe but is probably useful- a more accurate description of what many people do than ‘musician’ or ‘producer’. Or at least, more understandable by the average person, who has a vague idea that beats are made on machines and computers by people with some amount of musical and technical ability, who may or may not be a ‘musician’ in the traditional sense of having an instrumental skill.
In my opinion, all these titles are derived from and mainly apply to the professional world. If a pro musician has to call him- or herself a producer, a songwriter or a multi-elemental wizard of sonic witchcraft to get noticed out there in the “free” market, that’s the way it will have to be. I am content to have been a hobby musician for 30 years
This is interesting - the idea of musicianship. To me that’s about working with others. And music is a language, particularly two instruments working together or playing off of each other, that, if u don’t know that language, it can be difficult to collaborate. Like knowing scales. Like, if u start playing with someone who has jazz capabilities and you don’t, it could be difficult.
But electronics can remove a lot of those barriers - like scale modes. Rhythm is something a lot of people understand, so I think in this way electronic musicianship can focus more around timing and rhythm, and doesn’t have to be as ‘melodic’ as classical or jazz based modes.
So many barriers get removed in this way with electronics that can enable collaboration through listening and reaction, instead of having to worry about what key you’re in.
People like being siloed I guess. Be part of something.
I don’t care. It’s music.
DJs are just smart shoppers. And at times get the unfair advantage cuz shops put new releases aside for them to browse first. At least that’s how it was in the record shop days
it’s just practice first and foremost. Everyone can learn an instrument
First of all, don’t bother caring about the label someone gives/or is referred to. It means nothing.
DJ - mixes music via vinyl, computer/controller, or CDJs, typically in clubs but sometimes in a bedroom/basement.
Producer - oversees the recording and composition of a song. In electronic music, this person is also often times the mixing engineer. Additional occasions may see this person also performing the mastering engineer’s duties.
Musician - Plays instruments. They may be involved in the writing and composition of the song.
DJs are often called producers (and vice versa) in the dance music world because many do both. DJing is a way to get your name out there, play your own music, (mixed with others) and truthfully, most people don’t make much money on the songs they produce. Many DJs wind up eventually producing as well. Some were musicians, some were not, and thankfully so - or we may never had found acid. DJs know what type of music works on the dance floor, know the structure of the songs and what it takes to make them such that they can be mixed together with other dance tunes. So it’s a natural progression for them to start making the songs to be played for the dance floor.
Musician? If the shoe fits…I tend to think you need to be able to play an instrument in order to call yourself (or be called) a musician. Even writing songs, without being able to play anything other than a piano roll, is not a musician IMHO. It doesn’t detract from your ability to make a great song, but songwriter would be a better term to use in that scenario.
I say this as someone who took piano lessons for years and taught for a year and a half or so, someone who DJs vinyl records mostly in my basement (because I don’t actively search for gigs - I’ll do a gig if it falls in my lap) and someone who produces, mixes and masters my own music. (though if I were to actually release something, I’d have someone else master it)
I normally think of DJing as playing other people’s material. …but DJs can also be producers and vice versa.
I have in the past, been not-too-happy when someone (promoter in a few cases) has described me as DJing when I’ve lugged racks of synths and effects onto a stage, with keyboards, guitars etc. Not a deck of any kind in sight.
An interesting subject and I’ll give you my two pence worth:
I would say that there is some nuance to the classification.
There are some who found their way to music making/production through DJing.
Some of these people are still better known as DJ’s despite releasing tracks and starting labels (Sven Vath etc.).
Some have outgrown these routes and are now known as producers (Jeff Mills etc.).
Things have changed due to the democratisation of the music making process. Younger people do not necessarily need to go through the ‘joy’ of lugging vinyl around and dealing with dodgy promoters. They have made a name by producing tracks and have then come to DJing to make some money (as it hard to make money from music alone).
They can now carry some usb sticks and deal with dodgy promoters.
There are also those who are known almost equally for both where their name doesn’t need classification by these means: Masters at Work, Derek Carter + countless others.
DJing is an art form in itself. From Disco DJ’'s using reel to reel tape edits and trying to create seamless blends; Hip Hop dj’s using the same equipment to focus on the breaks; to turntable-ism, Vinyl die-hards playing techno to hybrid DJ sets. There are so many flavours of this form that it is hard to generalise about the art of playing other peoples music.
Some end-to-end their tunes and rely on selection and t
Your right
What if someone plays multiple instruments?
I think I’m going to claim to be a bassist/synthesist/samplist/sequencist
My settled self-description:
“I compose and perform dance music taking my entire studio with me on stage”
Sidenote: No self-respecting artist should ever refer to what they create as “content”. That’s like a chef introducing himself by saying “I process and arrange edible mass”
We need as many quantifiers as possible to attempt to fill in the void. You could conceivable pack a pothole with enough lucky charms to make it seem like a smooth surface, for a little while…
A multi-instrumentalist, of course!
Yeah, I get how someone can feed the dark Youtube algorithm gods and be more prolific but “content creator” is still a little squicky-sounding.
What would be wrong about creating “content”? It is a creative activity, with the potential to earn some decent money. What do you call loops in a sample library? Are they technically not “content”? Do DJs not also process “content” and transform it into music?
As for the chef analogy, some chefs are specialised in what is so horribly named collective cuisine, the business of transforming something into an edible mass and serve it to the masses in a canteen. They are still chefs.
There’s nuance, I do watch more Youtube than television these days.
But the “content creators” I follow are making more than content to feed the algorithm based on what people are searching for.
I don’t think describing work in technical terms is wrong either, just as games can be art but include “collateral” files.
But why not elevate things? Fast food has a value and benefit. “Content” suggests thoughtless low quality to gain clicks by appealing to low quality reptile-brain triggers.
It’s not that less traditional media are illegitimate, it’s that algorithms necessarily reward persons who make ugly thumbnail photos, have over-long videos, release content thoughtlessly based on SEO results, and are constantly bouncing between shilling scams, appealing to children of advancing age, and I suppose to that end take a look at the most successful sort of personalities who can survive on ad revenue alone.
You can consider someone a “YouTuber”, but unless you focus on the type of content, you’re going to lump in great art and entertainment with like, videos of people abusing their kids for ad revenue or whatever content farm faking recipes for “viral” content, or people gibbering while driving poorly.
Take the frustration not on the low quality individual contributor so much as the algorithmic garbage optimizing for low energy noise. That is the definition of “content”, the minimum energy that will keep someone locked on for hours. And hooee, there’s a lot that’s unhealthy to not want to identify with when the laissez-faire market defines content for you.
I refer to them by the instrument they play with me, or the proper term multi instrumentalist.
I don’t make up words, nor change meaning to suit my opinion. A dictionary should be a top the reading list for many. All this hypocrisy about labels not mattering, followed by a strick opinion about what labels mean or don’t, begs the question of equal logic:
What kind of cheese goes best with a balloon jacket?