TITLE: Why Real Music Feels Like Magic! A Critical Look. (music magic)
VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6E5nmXEXu8

Most music execs want to replace artists with robots. And Ray Daniels is not far from thinking the same way. Listen to what he says here. >> The science and the magician theory >> science. You have to start off as magic, but your goal should only be to become science. >> Everyone is trying to engineer a hit. The greatest music in history wasn't engineered. It was felt. That's what you're calling magic. Is the spiritual component to the music. It's the art itself. You can't recreate that. A lot of it was just taking advantage of the moment. >> So, the one thing that I learned from working with Dr. Luke was that it was all about the science of how to make a hit. Dr. Luke like like it's dino my like it's mathematics like >> yeah he comes from the math he comes from the mathematics science. Don't get me wrong, it might not be as fun to create, but it is very effective. Right? >> Music has a structure, a technique, it's a craft, but none of that can explain why it touches your soul. Listen to Quincy Jones make this point. >> The elements of nature when it comes from that, that's the most powerful force. It's like a melody. You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God. There's really no technique for melodies really. You can't touch it. You can't taste it. You can't smell it. You can't see it. You just feel it and it hangs in the air. It owns it. It dominates every time period. You know, >> people confuse magic with luck and science with certainty. So figuring out the science is not going to get you there. >> Jay-Z was trying to figure out the science. That's why he lasted long and he always got bigger. >> You had me in the studio. You stopped the music. Don't ever stop your music. take that [ __ ] to the to the hallway to the office anywhere on Alabama and stop playing music. That's pay the bill. We can't stop music. We ain't got nothing to eat about if we don't have the music. >> What Jay-Z said was really important. Never turn off the music. Why would Jay-Z say that if he looked at music as being a science? It wouldn't matter if you turned off the music or not. He could always just dial it up. he could always just take this formula or this recipe and make the songs that he needs to make. The reason he says never turn off the music is because the music, it's a moment. He's trying to capture a moment and he knows once you turn the music off, you no longer have that moment. So the music stays on all day, all night because you never know when you're going to capture a moment. that other stuff, the business side, meetings and things like that, you can talk about them anytime you want. >> Magic, if I do a magic trick right now, it's to wow you, >> right? >> Science is just as amazing. I just can explain it. The magic trick, how'd you do that? >> Yeah. >> Science is like, "What' you do? I mix this with this and you do this." And because this is the same, it's just as amazing. It's just it can be explained so no one pays to see it. >> I was in Mexico to see the pyramids and I saw some things that shocked me. I saw murals of Bob Marley in Mexico and I was like man Bob Marley in Mexico like they feeling Bob Marley like that. But as I studied Bob Marley I noticed that in Bob Marley's early years in the beginning he was trying to use a formula. He was trying to do the same thing as everyone else. He thought he knew the science. And while he was using that formula in a group, you wouldn't even know it was him. He was so far away from what made him who he is. And when he became who he really was, it was like night and day. So if an artist is listening at home, this how you know you magic. You make an album, make 13 songs, and you just want one of them to work and you gonna put it out. >> Science is Drake. Here's what you're going to like. Oh, I'm going to make a dance song. Left foot. Boom. Right. That's science. I'm going to make a dance song for America. It's going to be a hit. And then after that, I'm going off to something else. >> Someone who thinks they have a formula and they can just go in there and do their science. Hey, I'm going to put 25% of this in and I'm going to put 60% of this here. Never quite works out that way. I mean, think about it. We have a um we have a formula for water. Well, here. Let Cat Williams tell you. He explains it better. >> You know how you know God made water, not science? Water is the only thing in the universe. You know the recipe and you can't make none. You can't take hydrogen and put that with oxygen and come up with no type of water. Not tap water, not rain water, not flint water, nothing. That's the garden. That's why it's hard for people to explain why was Bas great. You look at his paintings and people say, well, he wasn't technically a great painter. But then you look at his life and you look at the time that Basia became famous and you look at the art scene in New York and you look at his style. He made he painted like a little kid. He crossed out things in his painting. It was a very natural way to paint, almost like a child would paint. Then you look at the social things he talked about. Then you look at the things that he went through as far as racism and things like that and you look at the lifestyle and then you understand why people are in love with his paintings. It's not a technical thing. It's something you can't quite put a finger on. Art needs a vessel and a vessel is part of what makes the art important. Tupac treated every session like a moment that wouldn't return. And maybe that's why his music still lives to this day. And you and you know that's the you being an engineer. You know when you miss magic you miss magic. You miss magic. >> It's like a brick. >> You might be done with that whole situation. >> You see Tupac used to beat up engineers for listening to magic. >> Hey [ __ ] We only got two weeks to do this whole album. Complete it. Mix it down and everything. We don't have time or the luxury to spend all this time doing one song. We don't have it. We got to somehow find a way that we can double up on it. Cuz I did my whole album. I know it ain't all of that, but I did my whole album like three songs a day cuz I was just laying it, rocking it, then getting off. You can mix it later and have [ __ ] that love being in the studio all night just adding a drum beat at a time and [ __ ] You can do that after the rappers leave and [ __ ] [ __ ] that love being in the studio that just love listening for the right kick. But for while we in here and you got every you got like eight rappers here and everybody drinking and smoking and [ __ ] man, get that beat popping. Throw them [ __ ] on the track. You catch everybody freestyling. Throw them [ __ ] on the track. Boom. That's the name of the song is whatever this [ __ ] said his word, last word was, we do it, put it down. Then after we finish, we walk out. Everybody be here and listen to like just the hook. We go in there and lay the hook. If we don't like that hook, the [ __ ] lay another hook. Come back out here, you know, race scratches or whatever. That be the song. If you don't capture the moment, you'll never get it back. That's the bigger lesson. That's a life lesson. If music is truly science, how do you explain Tupac? Why can't we just create another Tupac? Why are we trying to create a hologram of Tupac? Why are we trying to recreate his voice with AI and put him on songs and put him with artists that he never heard of in his life? Why can't we just grab anyone off the street and create a new Tupac? And it be just as popular as Tupac, just as impactful as Tupac. We can't do it because music is more than just science. Music itself reminds me of learning how to swim. The more you relax, the better you do. The easier you float, the harder you try, the quicker you sink. I don't have perfect pitch, but I don't care because you're not going to dance to the key, right? You don't dance because it's in a key. You dance to the groove. So, I'm going to do my best to play the wrong note, but I'm going to make it groove. I start here. So, no matter what note I played, right? [music] That's wrong. That's right. It took me one note to know where I was, but you don't care. Listen, listen. Listen. [music] Listen. These are all the notes. You tell me which one is wrong. [music] All the notes are right, [laughter] but it's the context that makes it right, not the [music] pitch. I've been in a studio where we would listen to 10, 15 beats and the artist would not like any of the beats or there's certain beats that the artist wouldn't like and then a week or two later, the same artist will hear the same beats and he'll pick a beat out that he said he didn't like that day. Now he's saying he likes the beat. And he's act he's usually acting as if he never heard the beat before, but it's the same beat he turned down. What changed? The beat didn't change. The environment that he's listening to the beat in the studio, it might not have changed, but something about him changed. It's a new day. Maybe he was distracted. Maybe he was thinking about something else when he was listening to the beat. Maybe the beat just didn't connect with him because of the mood he was in. There's so many factors. That's why I say it's not really a formula. >> You ever seen somebody when they was younger and be like, "Damn, they was the shit." I mean, and then they see them when they old be like, "Damn, they fell off." That's because we caught them in a magical moment in their life. >> Once the once the magic fade, once the magic does fade away, you're just here. >> Yeah. You got to figure out the science of it at that point. This whole idea of it being closer to science and the closer you get to science the better is only something that either a scientist would say or people in the business would say because they want repeatable behavior. They figure if we make it like a science that we could just make hits after hit after hit after hit and it's almost like a factory because that's how engineers think. That's how business people think. Let's make it a factory. Let's make it predictable. But it's not predictable. What it sounds like to me is Ray Daniels wants control, but the people, we want music. So y'all going to have to choose a side. If you like the content, make sure you subscribe, drop a comment if you disagree with anything I've said. Until then, I'll see you next time. [bell] >> Be appointed hand of the king. [music]