A title only has the weight which you give it. If every Dick and Harry called their music a composition it would change nothing- except lowering the value of the word. Your problem with the term beat or beat maker could simply be with what your mind associates them to be.

A piece of music exists in the form of a composition in musical notation or as a single acoustic event (a live performance or recorded track). If composed before being performed, music can be performed from memory, through written musical notation, or through a combination of both. Compositions comprise musical elements, which vary widely from person to person and between cultures. Improvisation is the act of composing during the performance, assembling musical elements spontaneously.

Composers are not limited to writing only for instruments, they may also decide to write for voice (including choral works, operas, and musicals) or percussion instruments or electronic instruments. Alternatively, as is the case with musique concrète, the composer can work with many sounds often not associated with the creation of music, such as typewriters, sirens, and so forth.

Wikipedia....

And i aint got nothing against you, you came off pretty arrogant and the bright yellow caps didnt help at all. Call yourself a fisherman for all i care, its all about the tunes, beats, compositions, instrumentals, etc.

KINGwater

In my opinion, and with regards to MY music only, I wouldn't feel comfortable describing myself as a composer. I have heard of electronic music composers and stuff like that but it gets a little tricky when talking about hip hop and sampling. For non-hip-hop electronic genres, from dubstep all the way to some spacey out there stuff, I would have to hear the music in question and get a feel for genre, direction, purpose, etc before I would take a classical music term like composer and apply it to a loop-based beatmaker.
When it comes down to it, a beat, which is slang for a hip-hop instrumental backing track, is traditionally made for a rapper to rap over. If its made to just be an instrumental, no matter how "hip-hop" it sounded, some would argue that it isn't a 'beat' by definition (I don't feel this way but a lot do).
A big trend in recent years is for hip-hop to be used as this big blanket definition for all types of kind of hip-hop sounding spin-offs but that are still not quite hip-hop.
For me, absolutely, if I try to spit on 16 bars on a 'beat' and I can't, its either: a)got something rhythmically really out of place or b) it's not a hip-hop beat. I think that if someone feels like their music doesn't fall under the 'beat' category then that is a good thing for their music because it gives them permission to take something in a new direction and its good for the 'beat' definition because it brings it back inward towards hip-hop where the term should be used.

Right on brother, you said a mouthfull!

Keal, I'll speak for myself when I say I wasn't trying to attack you, I was just providing my outlook on what you're saying. I know what you mean when you say we can be composers. And it's entirely possible, in fact I would say whenever you make a track you are composing - which is why I stated that titles and whatnot are unnecessary and limiting. Of course, it's not always going to be a complicated composition, but isn't stringing together any group of sounds in an order that sounds good considered composing? One can compose a song with a just a violin and a piano, we can do the same with samples - It just seems harder since we don't have FULL control over the sounds.

I will say, there is a feeling to "composition" and if I'm interpreting you correctly then I know what you mean. You know there's those looped up beats, and then there's the beats that build and build, get louder and quieter, progressive chords, etc. They are harder to create but definitely not out of reach. Let's take it there! haha SP-Orchestra in the making!

And Chess you have a lot of good input, I agree that if your music doesn't fall under the 'beat' category thats dope, but I don't think it falling into the 'beat' category automatically makes it unworthy to being a composition or automatically be trying to be hip-hop. I don't have enough time to fully develop my perspective or response to you, but maybe I'll edit it back in later.

I think what keal is trying to get at with this whole "not beats but composition" thing is synonymous with what DJs felt back in the 90s when they felt that they were doing something much more than just mixing records but doing something more creative and elaborate that the term "DJ" was too broad of a word to describe themselves. So they started calling themselves "turntablist" in order differentiate themselves from DJs that just mix and spin recordss. Now lets take the word "compose" which by definition is to make something out of parts or elements of something into something new. So someone that composes is by definition is a "composer". hmmm??? So then a beat maker or a beat composer could mean the same thing.

Personally i wouldnt go so far as to describe my music as something even remotely comparable and on par to Mozart's piece. Heeeeelll no! When people ask what i make i says beats.

Yeah I agree. I hope you didn't take that away from my above post somehow. I was pretty clear that I said with MY MUSIC I wouldn't label MYSELF as a "Composer." To each his own. Labels are labels and probably create more confusion in the end than clarity. If I told people I was a composer, they would probably think I got my degree in 'music theory and composition' and that I write scores and I'd have to explain my way out of it. Or if I posted on craigslist that I was a composer selling my services, it would lead to more confusion. My point is, call yourself what you want, but just know that you'll have to explain yourself to more than a few people if you use already established words like "composer" in a new (not wrong) non-traditional sense.

groktopus wrote:

I will say, there is a feeling to "composition" and if I'm interpreting you correctly then I know what you mean. You know there's those looped up beats, and then there's the beats that build and build, get louder and quieter, progressive chords, etc. They are harder to create but definitely not out of reach. Let's take it there! haha SP-Orchestra in the making!

This is what i'm talkin' bout!

You are what you think you eat.

"bright yellow attitude"
called it, dibs, mine, mine, idk

1 i hate trying to explain my weird music. I don't know what it is. my wife says it's healing. wtf
2 if i look up country music on youtube and find Reakwon imma be sayin' "Ma, who dis on da tv talkin' all fass and s#!7"
yeah classifications are good in that case, bc i sure don't want to watch any Cyrus,Urban or Brooks anytime soon and def not voluntarily.
3 the great thing about soundcloud is you can call it anything you want I'm starting hiptronic. what would you call the subclass of your compositions?

seriously; springwater can i use it? the B.A.Y. (monogram style)

just type normal and i might read that stuff now back to beat YEAH BEATS!

Simon Says: "just be like everyone else and think like everyone else so I keep doing the same old thing"...Thats' what I heard...

Oh wait he might not read this. I said, Simon Says: "just be like everyone else and think like everyone else so I keep doing the same old thing"...Thats' what I heard...