Tophat665

Second first: I play bass guitar, badly.
First second: There is no sharp line between musical talent and technical skill. There is a fuzzy grey line between them. Perhaps the argument I should be making is not so much between techical and musical as between composition and performance. I don't really know how to go about making that argument: I can't figure how it relates to the debate at had. So that is a given. Now, what's the difference between them: I can only define it by analogy, and I am absolutely certain I display a certain degree of ignorance when I do so (willful ignorance at that - not enjoying the style, I don't know as much about it as I would need to to argue as forcefully about it as I feel it warrants.) It is the difference between composition and montage (still a fuzzy line, but a bit sharper), between creation of a new whole and juxtaposition of exisiting pieces. Ultimately, to me, it is about the complexity of the component pieces and whether or not they are hand crafted in motion to a rhythm or machine turned piece by piece and snapped together at the end to give the illusion of rhythm. A single note on a flute you play on the one hand, a tape loop of 12 bars of drumming someone else did on the other. Play the next note and the next and the next at the right time in the right order on the one hand, repeat every 10 seconds with the pitch falling within the envelope defined by the following equation on the other. Is all techno made that second way? Of course not. Is some? Surely it is. Could I tell the one from the other? Unlikely. Hence, a reason to dislike the lot of it. (For me. Reasonable people will differ. I do feel strongly about it, though, so I find it difficult to kep to a purely intellectual argument.)

Now, turntables. You and guccilvr and locobot have convinced me that turntables have evolved into an instrument. I had been beginning to lean in that direction, but I agree that all the elements, both the complexity and the simplicity, are there that one can play a turntale as more than a pure, improvised percussion instrument. To pull an analogy, though, the LP on the turntable is like the reed on a woodwind. If you have a crappy reed, you will make crappy music. For my purposes, if you have an LP of someone else's work, and you play large, recognizable chunks of it, then, IMNSHO, you have a split reed.

Now, I have said it before and I will say it again: Reasonable people will disagree. At the base of it this is a matter of taste, and taste informs the argument.

Guccilvr - can you throw some suggestions at me of techno that I cannot use these arguments on? Specific songs so I can P2P them and see if I would be interested in exploring further and, perhaps, even revising my opinion. (I have done so with Country and Rap over the years, and it could very well be that I have only heard crappy, insipid techno.) Feel free to PM, and you would have my thanks.

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