An interesting quote, with thoughts on technology

[JHCC]

Just ran across the following quote from musician Jack White of The White Stripes:

“Technology is a big destroyer of emotion and truth. Auto-tuning doesn’t do anything for creativity. Yeah, it makes it easier and you can get home sooner; but it doesn’t make you a more creative person. 

“That’s the disease we have to fight in any creative field: ease of use.”

I would expand on this slightly, to suggest that any technology that minimizes the need for aesthetic judgment, technical skill,  and feel for the material is to be avoided as detrimental to both the art and craft of blacksmithing. 

This is not to suggest, however, that technology as such is to be avoided. Quite the contrary! Advanced technology — whether for ease of moving material, as with a power hammer, or for fully developing its metallurgical potential, as with a precision heat treatment oven — certainly has its place. Indeed, in the absence of the muscle power of a crew of apprentices, a power hammer may be the only way for a smith to execute their more massive designs.

Such technology, however, must remain the servant of craft rather than its master. Where it expands possibilities and creates new avenues of creativity, it may safely be adopted, but where it engenders a boring sameness, its temptations must be avoided.

Thoughts?

[Steve Shimanek]

I concur; also, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it.

[George N. M.]

Technology, a bigger hammer, precise heat treating, water or plasma cutting, or Mr. White's auto tuner must always be be means to creativity rather than the end itself.  Just because you can do something with a bigger or newer piece of equipment does not make it more creative or beautiful than what you could do previously, just larger or faster.

I have seen a LOT of blacksmith "art" which could be characterized as "an explosion in a spagetti factory" school of art.  It seems that the artist was so taken with the ability to bend a hard medium like steel with the application of heat that the technique took over any considerations of composition or beauty.

I assume that Mr. White auto tuner is something to tune a guitar which, IIRC, has 5-6 strings.  He might appreciate the ability to tune faster if he played the lute which has 15-24 strings.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[JHCC]

11 minutes ago, George N. M. said:

I assume that Mr. White auto tuner is something to tune a guitar which, IIRC, has 5-6 strings.

Auto-Tune is a processing technology used to correct off-pitch singing. Since the singer doesn't have to worry so much about hitting the notes precisely, they can just get "close enough" and know that the recording engineer will fix it later.

One effect is that it makes everyone's singing sound more or less the same. 

[George N. M.]

OK, thx.  It shows how little I know about professional music.  I never thought that being on key or in tune was much of a concern in rock 'n roll. (I'm assuming that White Stripes is a rock band.  Am I correct or not? I've heard the name but it is not my genre of music.)

[JHCC]

Yes, The White Stripes is an Ohio-based band, and quite good. 

And yes, while some varieties of rock have little concern for proper intonation (hardcore punk rock, for example), it's very important in most others, just as in any other genre of music. The whole point of Auto-Tune is that rather than spending a lot of money on getting all the musicians (singers, instrumentalists, backup instrumentalists, percussionists, backup vocalists, etc) all singing in the same key with the same rhythm, you just need to get them "close enough" and then fix it later. Since one guy with a computer is cheaper than twenty people with instruments, it's very easy to sacrifice the quality of a good, tight performance for a more affordable (and less artistic) expediency.

[rockstar.esq]

This line of thinking is similar to the people who argue about how language is ruined wherever popular word use conflicts with tradition.  The "truth" they seek to preserve is their vision of some arbitrary moment in time.  Definitions and usage change to reflect the popular usage.  Otherwise, dictionaries wouldn't actually help to define the language in contemporary use.

Relating back to Jack White's comment, there was probably someone who complained that "emotion and truth" of a harp was stripped away by the invention of the clavichord.  This is provably incorrect for anyone with even a passing familiarity of Beethoven, Bach, or Mozart.  While I think Auto-tune sounds robotic, I think it's hardly reasonable to pretend that this musical technology is actually stripping "emotion and truth" when there are entire musical genre's where small recordings of other people's work (samples) are repeatedly played.  In the beginning, there were lots of traditionalists "tut-tutting" about the death of music, yet millions upon millions of people relate to the emotion and truth in this music.

Were Stephen Hawkings words less emotional and truthful because they were synthesized and pitch-corrected? Would it have been more truthful and emotional if he were left mute?  Would it change your mind if you knew that he refused to switch to a more natural sounding system when technology reached that point?

In my experience, technology is absolutely irrelevant to the presence of truth and emotion.  However, I have encountered quite a few pretentious pretenders who assume the mantle of "traditional" to draw attention from the banality of their work.

For what it's worth, I've also seen examples of where people who were famous for their vapid and seemingly limited talent utterly blew the audience away with a humble demonstration.  Steven Tyler, lead singer of Aerosmith once did a GAP commercial where he was sitting at a snare drum.  He had a drum stick in one hand, and a harmonica in the other.  Joe Perry was on guitar behind him. Even with the backing of a guitar legend, it's obvious that Steven was the star performer.  What's more, the combined effect was easily identifiable as Aerosmith.  The first time I saw that, I had no idea that Steven was that talented.  

[Anachronist58]

rockstar.esq,

"This line of thinking" may be applicable to a given demographic.

I do not believe, however, that it is applicable to JHCC's position (who can, of course, speak for himself).

I agree with Jack White's concerns in that pre-packaged goods may have their downside.  I custom crafted a dinner salad for Mrs. Taylor this week - Incomparable to dumping a bagged supermarket salad on to her plate, on a number of "levels".

Naturally, language is continuously evolving, and I accept this with some irritability. We almost all contribute, to these perturbations.

I will not relinquish my passion for old ways, nor for new technologies.

Let us relish, each of us, our broad and varied perspectives.

Robert Taylor

[George N. M.]

There has to be a balance of tradition and innovation.  Without some generally accepted "rules" things can get pretty chaotic.  If someone says, "Me go store." he has conveyed accurately who is going where but his lack  of syntax and grammar will communicate more information, intentionally or unintentionally, about the speaker.  If someone on IFI speaks of holding hot iron with a grabber and hitting it with a pounder instead of tongs and a hammer we will probably not give his or her opinion as much value because the generally accepted rules of nomenclature are not being followed.

That said, language, music, ways of thinking and doing things, evolve at a greater and lesser pace.  That is the natural order of human affairs.  The rate of change will vary and sometimes for no obvious reason.  We could intelligibly speak with someone from the court of Henry VIII of 500 years ago but the Tudor courtier could not have made himself understood with someone 150 years before his time.  Why? No one has come up with a convincing explanation of why Middle English shifted to Modern English in just a few generations.  You will see similar jumps and rapid changes in types and styles of music.

This does not mean that change or tradition is good or bad in and of themselves, just that it happens.  The subjective value of changing or not changing is personal.  I may think a particular change is a terrible thing that is an indicator of the fall of Western Civilization or I may embrace it as something much better than what has gone before.  Those millions of individual decisions are what makes up the decision of a society of whether to change or not.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[ThomasPowers]

Have you read any of Randall Munroe's "Thing Explainer" which explains concepts using only the 1000 most common words?

Personally I prefer Bach; if I could design and  forge like Bach composed; well I'd be worrying where to park my collection of Jumbo Jets...

[rockstar.esq]

21 hours ago, Anachronist58 said:

rockstar.esq,

"This line of thinking" may be applicable to a given demographic.

I do not believe, however, that it is applicable to JHCC's position (who can, of course, speak for himself).

Robert, I agree with you, and certainly didn't mean to come across as though I was criticizing JHCC personally.  My comments were directed to the Jack White quote which I took at face value.

I might not have been too successful earlier, but my intent was to convey that people will always value the truth and emotion in a particular work, regardless of the technology used to manifest it.

George, I think the semi-universal "human connection" to worthwhile things tends to force that balance better than anybody wants to admit.  At any point in history, we've had geniuses who went undiscovered because the trendy scholars and experts were "protecting" the world from unworthy work.  Eventually, the genius of the work was discovered by people unfettered by pretense and anachronistic prejudice.  That balance often takes several lifetimes to resolve itself.  My point, is that none of us will be around to "settle the score".  If we focus on making things worthy of appreciation 100 years from now, we'll be pointed in the right direction to do the most good.

[Anachronist58]

rockstar.esq, perfectly understood now. Me get confused. I find your last paragraph to be accurate and in line with my understanding of things.

me go store George. Me get Book.

Thomas, methinks you more a Piper Cherokee type (Antlers and Lederhosen?).  Perhaps that would ease the parking dilemma.

Robert Taylor

[ThomasPowers]

If I could forge like Bach could compose I could use jumbo jets as hangers for my piper cubs...