Interesting thread! Good question Shiny!
I don't really know how ez keys works, just like i don't really know how a session with a session pianist would work.... I'd assume you can be as much or as little the "real" author of what gets played as you like, so how much the result of what you do is creative, original, and, most importantly,
yours is completely dependent on how you use the tools - exactly the same with a clever digital tool as with a clever human tool. You can rely heavily on the tool's creativity, or you can focus on using your own. For me personally, i think that with a digital tool, to get the sense of satisfaction of creating something, I'd want to tell it exactly what to do, note by note (even though it is a pain in the bum to actually do). I guess garageband is far less "clever" than ez keys, but i think for me that would be beside the point....I'd just want to know that I'd written what I'd written. I suspect that with a human tool I'd be a little more open to suggestions, but essentially, I'd still want to have already written the part, note by note.... In my mind, if i ever had session musicians there to do my bidding, they would be doing exactly that... I'd have written every part for them so they'd be playing off sheet music written by me. And maybe they'd offer suggestions here and there, and maybe I'd go with them or maybe I'd tyrannically shoot them down in flames. No doubt I'd be well advised to be a tad less megalomaniacal to benefit from the superior musicianship of my dogsbodies. And i never have actually had the experience of working with a session musician, so i don't know what I'd do in reality. But if I'd written a song and i wanted it performed/recorded, I'd want to feel that it was mine... It would be different of course if i were doing something collaboratively, like in a band, but if it really were
my piece, I'd want to know that it was essentially all mine......
I don't know how the library thing works in ez keys, but assuming it's just a catalogue of presets that comes with the software, a major problem, quite apart from not giving you the satisfaction of knowing that you'd created it yourself, is that any number of other people who are also using the software could also be using the exact same snippet of library clipping...and the bigger and the more un-tweaked it is by you, the more likely it could potentially be recognised as being the same as in another song, or even as being directly out of ez keys. (And yes, i know there's an argument that even without taking something from a library, it's not exactly inconceivable that any number of songs could be using the same pattern over the same chord progression as the one that you "made up"...and, come to that, that everything you write that you think you're being original with is actually derivative of thousands of other pieces of music that you've heard before....but that's a whole other can of worms...)
The fact that it concerns you enough to post about it, Shiny, seems to suggest that it already means you're taking less satisfaction in your own song. I'm sure your song is brilliant, but the most important thing, first and foremost, is that it should give you a sense of pride in the creation of it.
Any approach is possibly a valid way of creating music, but from a personal perspective, i reckon the more creativity you put in, the more satisfaction you get out...
Of course, as you guys already mentioned, using digital tools to help write music, and using them to perform it are two completely different kettles of fish.... And (talking only about music that's actually written for real instruments, not music that was always intended to be electronic) in an ideal world i think you'd always have real musicians playing real real instruments. But it's not an ideal world, so for demos, the digital versions are extremely handy...and so much cheaper!!
if you want keyboards/piano in your song, and you don't play them then, you either need a session musician, collaborate with someone, find a sample, or use EZ Keys
I'm not sure whether this is what you meant Boydie, but i don't think that if you don't play an instrument, but you want to use it in your song, the only options are to get someone or something else to make it up for you. Yes you need someone/something else to
play it for you, but just because you can't
play a part doesn't mean you can't
write it. Like diadem said, probably Handel and Mozart didn't play every instrument they wrote for (though I'm sure they played many more than i can
)....... If you can hear what you want in your head then you can write the part without the help of a human or digital tool. You still need to communicate it somehow of course so that it can get heard...either by writing manuscript for a musician or by plugging it all into some software...but you can definitely write it. I'm sure you probably write better if you also play though, as you'll have a better understanding of the instrument and what it can do.
Basically the more you can do yourself, the better, but we can't all do everything, so tools are useful. As long as you don't give the tools to a robot and tell it to go do everything for you!
Whoa that was a long post.... But don't worry, i got ez essays to write it for me!
