[l-_l-_l-_lo_ol]

In the age of computation I think the real dichotomy is between rhythm-focused loop-based composition and music made by people playing instruments. It's easy to see why hip-hop and technology is winning: it's easier music to make. Why compose minutes of music when you can compose 20 seconds and loop it? Or sample it altogether? Why spend thousands of ours learning an instrument?

[__david__]

I think you are confusing composing with performing. A composer doesn't need to be able to play an instrument to compose music for it. Composing hip-hop tracks doesn't mean that you need to be a skilled performer of a musical instrument—but it still means you need to be a skilled musician. You aren't just going to throw 20 seconds of some nonsense together and then loop it over a whole track and come away with something that stands up to what a skilled producer can make.

Also, criticizing hip-hop for having repetitive background music is kind of like criticizing Bach's Prelude in C Major for having no rhythmic variation—it may be true but it's completely missing the point.

[jasonwatkinspdx]

Have... you ever tried to make a track in Ableton from a sample library?

While there's plenty of examples of crap lazy music out there, making good music electronically is in fact exactly the same: you spend years learning how it all works and how you can best adapt it to your own ambitions. Electronic music production is not like copy pasting some paragraphs together and calling it done. In fact, the versatility of digital production methods means that learning how to produce good music electronically is like learning not just a single instrument, but the whole dang orchestra sufficiently well enough you can compose for it.