You don’t need to be able to play guitar to make music
It’s not just guitar hero that’s doing a good job of getting regular non-musical people back into the world of writing and recording their own tracks. The hugely successful game may have inspired countless wannabe rockstars to pick up a guitar and start rocking out but with so much new technology available to budding musicians, it seems the cutting edge of new music is becoming less Gibson and more… Gameboy?? No, you haven’t heard that wrong. As musicians try to come up with more and more ways to keep their sound fresh and new people are discovering musical gold in all kinds of unexpected places, from state of the art mobile phones to old toys and retro games consoles. Here are a few of the more innovative and unusual uses for modern technology in music that we’ve found:
Old Nintendo Gameboys – perhaps one of the strangest musical creations around, DJ Scotch Egg doesn’t actually use any normal DJ equipment but produces his tracks entirely using sound effects and software from gameboys. But they’re not the new, shiny, slick consoles we’re used to nowadays – they’re all the old chunky grey ones you remember from the early 90s. This unusual approach not only works surprisingly well (he even manages to pull it off live and gives a very energetic performance) but it’s also a a bit of a trip down memory lane as you pick out the sounds you recognise from the games of your childhood!
iPhones – Due to play a series of shows at Wembley Stadium in the summer supporting Take That, Gary Go’s set is something a bit different to what you’d usually expect to see at a pop concert. He doesn’t play any instruments live, and he doesn’t have a band – he just does everything on his trusty iPhone. In fact, he wrote, played and recorded his album purely using iPhone software apps he had downloaded. It should be an interesting gig to see, provided his mum doesn’t decide to give him a call while he’s on stage!
Laptops – OK so maybe this one’s not quite so weird and wonderful, it’s not exactly unusual to see a laptop being used onstage during a show. But what makes the laptop such an important part of making your own music is that if you have one you literally don’t need anything else to write, play and record tracks. With so many different programs for musicians out there, able to recreate the sound of any instrument almost perfectly, and then record and mix your tracks, it’s just a case of picking the right DJ software and going for it. Gone are the days when you could use excuses like ‘but I don’t know how to play the guitar’ and ‘I don’t know the first thing about recording music’, nowadays it seems anyone can make it as a rockstar.