I don’t think Deane
and Brian are worried that this will disrupt the musical elite (if I misread
your comment, I apologize). I think the problem with this is that it may lead
to a lot of people thinking that they are now composers, arrangers, orchestrators,
etc and if it catches on, no doubt there will be, somewhere, some producer
who’ll get someone to score their film using this instead of getting a composer
who actually knows what they’re doing. 

I see this as a harmless piece of software for folks
who aren’t serious about music to play around with. I’m all for more people
having the chance to play around with whatever musical abilities they have. However, if
someone ever comes up to me and says something like “Look at the film
score I wrote! I did it with UJam!” I will laugh in their face. 

I think the guys are more worried about the worst ways
in which this could be used, not about how many more people get to make
music. 

Also, I must disagree with your “[you
need a] computer science degree or [to know] Simon Cowell.” comments. 

There is no way, NO WAY that anyone born after 1985
will have any trouble using some of the simple recording software out there. If
you’ve ever operated a stereo, you should be able to figure out your basic way
around something like garage band. STOP, PLAY, RECORD. That and how to plug in
a cheap mic to your computer is all you need to know if you really, really,
really just want to get a tune out of your head. Iphones have voice recorders
for God’s sake!

If you really can’t operate (or be bothered to learn) some of the basic, simple
recording software out there, then you’re probably not good with computers to
begin with. Either that or you’re just lazy in which case, you should just find something else to do.

Hey Russ,

I completely understand where you are coming from, and if the context was paralleled from both our sides, I might even concur. However, I think you are widely missing the point that Brian were making in this episode. Neither of us believe that technology advances are bad or detrimental to any industry, musical or no. Nor are we coming from a place of, as you put it in another comment, “ignorance of history, forgetfulness of our own journey of growth and a fear of the future.” Not in the least bit. I think if you listen back to the history of SCOREcast, you’d be operating out of a sense of ignorance to suggest such a silly thing as it pertains to what Brian and I both stand for. Clearly we understand the history of film music (which is the platform from which we both are speaking) and we both hold a healthy anticipation for what the future holds for our industry.

I won’t speak for Brian (although I know I could in saying this), but what I believe is so telling and educational in *your* statements is the fact that you insist on presenting scenarios that assume a baseline knowledge of whatever craft or specialty you are arguing in favor of. For example, you ask in your follow-up comment to Derlis below  “Is an accountant who uses a spreadsheet a cheat? Or a professor who uses a calculator lazy?” In these scenarios, you are assuming that the accountant knows how to “account” or the math professor knows how to “identify numbers”. Spreadsheets used without a baseline knowledge of organization of information are useless, as are calculators used by someone who does not know a “2″ from a “5″. Likewise, what Brian and I are saying is that a person who is going to simply fire up UJAM and start cranking out noise is fooling themselves by thinking they have any “talent” at all—at least, as defined by the traditional trends of film music creation—UNLESS they first seek to understand even the most minimal basics of what they are doing to create that sound. To take it a step further (and more in the realm of what we mentioned on the podcast), to use such an instrument or device to create a score for a motion picture requires so much more than is even available in the software to begin with, which was the impetus for our inquiry as to why Zimmer is involved at all. The first point being: In this day and age of filmmaking where a “talent of speed” is the demanded specialty, we personally long for filmmakers to continue regarding it as such: a specialty better left to specialists. The second point being: Is Hans interested from a benevolent “musicality for all” approach, or for what he’s been arguably accused of over the course of a very distinguished and progressive career in filmmusic… the tendency to employ “paths of least resistance” to achieve award-winning soundtracks.

Lastly, because you decided to slip a “barb” in there about our knee-jerk reactions based on “arrogance”, I’d like to comment on your children and how you folded them into this conversation. I think it’s very responsible of you to want to encourage your children to express themselves musically. You’re a very well articulated guy, so I don’t doubt for a second that they are all well educated, hard working, talented, and bright. All the more reason for you to not leave any part of their musical (or educational) development in the hands of anything but Dear Old Dad’s long-studied understanding of the ROI’s of hard musical work. I would challenge you to *really* engage with them over their musical development (which I’m sure you already do to a large extent) if you think music is something that truly enriches their lives. By leaving even a fraction of their musical equipping to a piece of software which does all of the work for them, what are you really doing to further their educational foundations? Nothing. As someone who makes their living “from both composing and running studios” as you stated above, You have no excuse. It would be a travesty above all travesties for anyone from Russ Hughes’ family to have their musical development fall to a computer product that was made *specifically for cutting corners*. From an outside observer, in addition to abdicating your role as your children’s “expert” musical guide (after all, dad *is* a studio boss and composer!), you are also letting them escape with the easy way out. They can essentially turn their brains off, not have to learn anything, and just create “music” while watching SpongeBob Squarepants simultaneously. Awesome.

The case study of your children can be applied across all plains of creative output, while (admittedly) propping up UJAM as the punching bag. Look, I’m not a pie-in-the-sky, Pollyannish ignorant by any means… But I sure would like to see a few things in this world not go the way of McDonald’s beef farming, Old Navy’s offshore child labor loopholes, or Nike’s shoe construction: Dumbed-down to the point of humans just falling in-line because… oh, what the hell… it’s *just* easier!