Quote:
Originally Posted by feedingear
'the truth is that if you gave Skrillex a piano or any other instrument than the specific sound bytes he uses to create a track, and asked him to reproduce the song in a way it was identifiable, he wouldn't be able to... you've got a better chance of success asking an elephant to fart in the same sequence of notes on command.'
The cover above is a perfect example of the harmonic and melodic components of the track (few bung notes aside), and any person who had heard the Skrillex version could easily identify it. The tracks I linked were Skrillex - Bangarang, and Summit (Feat ellie goulding).
If melody is to define a composition, would Penderecki - Threnody therefore not qualify as a musical composition, as it would not be possible to do a piano reduction or reproduce it without an orchestra? Does that render the piece null and void, make it any less beautiful or stirring?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HilGthRhwP8
Fortunately debates aren't one sided affairs - if you want to post an opinion then its up to others to concur or object 
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And they are free to do so, but when they start debating with me only to find I'm uninterested, the only way they will not find it one sided is if they find someone else to continue with them. Career contrarians are around every corner, a dime a dozen on the net, and will always find something to disagree about wherever they go. At some point many of them will mature and realize how much of their life they've wasted on that, or perhaps not. Also with maturity comes the ability to have enough confidence in one's own opinions to not feel the need to challenge everyone else's, so as to compare and contrast and split every hair.
Looking at the specifics of my quote, I don't suppose anyone happened to notice that's not Skrillex playing? Unless he changed his hair style a little since I last saw him.. lol. If you have videos of Skrillex actually reproducing all of his tracks in their entirety using a piano or similar acoustic instrument, I would retract my statement. Otherwise it has only been reinforced here.
Of course tracks are easily identifiable when you search Google or Youtube for them by title, especially when the title is displayed right there in the link. Whether or not anyone would identify the track by hearing that rendition (without having a clue of the title or the author or even genre of music) is something that could only be proven (and thus my theory disproven) with a blind study. I personally doubt I would have recognized it but maybe an occasional Skrillex fan would, and admittedly I don't listen to most of his tracks more than once or twice so I won't pretend to be a fan. But of course that was not the crux of my quote that you included (apparently without fully understanding).
Identifying a song by title first, then finding a melodic rendition of it using a search engine in hopes of finding contrarian evidence is actually the reverse process of what I was suggesting. The only way to prove or disprove would be to start with the melody first and provide no clue to the title. Starting with the title might be entertaining but would be "cheating" for purposes of that sort of study.