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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Week 14

A Review of the introduction of The Cognition of Basic Musical Structures by David Temperley. I'm kind of glad we didn't have to read this book. The introduction was extremely dry. I don't completely understand exactly what Temperley was talking about but there were a couple things that struck me as interesting. He writes about "these structures are most often simply taken for granted as musical facts" (19). As a musician, there aren't a whole of things that are fact so this statement is interesting. One possible issue that I see is that the says "I speak of the ``correct'' analysis of a piece - as I often will- I mean the analysis that I assume listeners hear" (27). With music, you can never say there is a correct way to analyize a peice or hear a piece. Everybody's going to hear something different.

I have definitely learned some things in this class and a lot of things because of my musical background have been old news. 
So I leave you with a video of Anthony Warlow singing "This is the Moment"


Saturday, April 23, 2011

Charts and Humanity

First thoughts on a article titled: Counting Down to Number One: The evolution of the meaning of popular music charts by Ernest A. Hakanen.

 I think its funny that Ernest mentions ranking human attractiveness . (2). While humans do do it, part of the reason behind it, is that there are scientific studies as to why certain people find others attractive. With straight males, there is a scientific ration for hips to waist, and that subconsciously, men know what this perfect ratio is. There also have been studies with symmetry and what men find attractive. Case in point, on a recent episode of the TV show Criminal Minds, the unknown subject (UNSUB) was attracted to murder those women who had dystopia which means that their eye sockets are not symmetrical. Now granted it caused the UNSUB to murder but in another person it may be found to be attractive.

Hakanen writes "Radio  stations use  them  to  develop  playlists  and  fine  tune their appeal" (4). However, for users like me, I don't listen to the radio unless it's NPR. I do listen to Pandora but those "stations" are based on what the user likes so if I don't want to hear Katy Perry I don't have to. Ever. So I think it a couple of years, a lot of charts that Billboard has will be obsolete because people won't be listening to the radio as much. That being said, it is a little sad for me because every Sunday morning when I was growing up, we would listen to Casey Casem and we got out of church just in time to hear the number one song in the land.

Hakanen goes on to talk about their research models including looking at the the history of "charts" and then what they reflect of the market. One thing to note that has just happened dealing with charts since September of 2010 is that the singles and albums of the tv show Glee have broken all kinds of records... BUT and it's a huge one (:)) is that 98% of the songs on that show ARE NOT original! They're covers. So even though the charts say that Glee is the number one selling band/artist, whatever it's not really true because all their stuff is covers. So it's important to know about the songs on those charts.

Next, a look at the article Human- Centred Musical Studies: Towards a charter of Musical human rights by Gino Stefani
This article looks at whether there should be specific code for human rights in terms of music. . I get where they are coming from but... I don't think they realize the definition of Genocide which is:
"...violent crimes committed against groups with the intent to destroy the existence of the group. Human rights, as laid out in the U.S. Bill of Rights or the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, concern the rights of individuals" (United States Holocaust Museum encyclopedia).
The USHMM also spells out Genocide  as it relates to the UN definition. Unfortunately, I don't think Stefani understands that music falls under human rights as well as part of the underlying definition of genocide is the destruction of cultural property, which music falls under.  To destroy a group, part of what you have to do is tear down their culture against themselves as well as the surrounding populations to get them to see it as a bad thing. An example of this, is that during the Holocaust, the Nazis persecuted Jewish musicians and banned all music that was written, sung, or produced by Jews.

Next an article titled Analysing popular music: theory, method, and practice by Philip Tagg.
This article looks at why popular music should be analyzed and what the point of that analysis is. the first page of the article looks at a pop music conference and the stereotypes that were protrayed in other media (1). While I understand that there is significant studies on popular music, I do think it is a little strange to have a conference on them. The article also mentions physical stereotypes that they thought would be at the conference.
This article also looks at how popular culture has affected different areas such as the communication process as well as looking how the listener interprets the song and how the artist interpret the song which was interesting because they can and more the likely probably are two (or three or four) different things.

For articles, we finally look at Music, History, Democracy by Paul Oliver. This short article looks at short papers presented about how songs are influence by current political events as well as how they influence the events themselves. There was a short obiturarie on Ewan MacColl who wrote one of my favorite songs "The First Time Ever I saw your Face" (though not the Roberta Flack version... I hate that version). Here's Leona Lewis singing it:
 
And a male version




Review of Amnesty International's website
Good site but what do the Beatles have to do with Amnesty International?  I'm very confused why the Music for Human rights page is all about John Lennon... Frankly I think the website is poorly designed as it tells NOTHING about music for human rights... just about Lennon.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

wow

So Seth Rudetksy retweeted this video and I thought I'd share. It's pretty awesome:

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

What makes an artist?

As you read, think about the following questions: based on the topics we've explored in this class, do the authors characterize the future of music as you see it? Do you think their vision of the future is complete? What do they leave out or fail to consider?

It’s interesting that this author separates publicity and promotion (p. 17). To me they’re part of the same cog of the system. To get publicity you have to promote. To help promotion, you get air play and publicity… But then they do say that the four fronts are interconnected which is very true.

In Chapter six they write that with CDs, “Confusion reigns. CDs are thought to be too expensive for what you get one or two worthwhile songs. Prices vary too much from record club prices to store prices” (244). I disagree with at least the first part of that quote. Some of my favorite songs by artists are not the ones released to the public. They’ve been the ones that have been “buried” so to speak on the album. One the best examples I can think of is the song “Gira Con Me” from Josh Groban’s first album, Josh Groban. It wasn’t any of the three singles that came off that album but it’s one of my favorites of his, after 5 albums, it’s still one of those.


The authors write about how artists can use sites like Youtube to promote their stuff (244). Frankly I think “artists” who vigorously promote themselves on Youtube aren’t artists. Anybody can upload a video singing to that site. Look at Rebecca Black. People think that she’s a hit sensation and an “artist”. Not to hurt her feelings (like some were doing) but she’s not. She’s auto tuned, her song has like five words and is tonal. I truly think the mark of a good artist is one who can sing (and belt in the case of females and belt well) is to sing acapella and be on key and tune. It is not easy. See Straight No Chaser do it: 


I think the authors did a really good job in looking at the future of music and they covered more if the internet side of the business than The Future of the Music Business did. I don’t know if their vision is complete; I don’t you can ever say something like this will be complete. The music world is ever changing and so it’s not something so concrete.

Next, review the following Music Markup Language website http://www.musicmarkup.info/ . This site attempts to delimit music informatics to specific technological considerations. Do you think the authors of this site get it right? What do they leave out?

It’s hard to know what the authors of the site got right or what they left out as I have never used XML or any experience with it. I have worked with HTML however. This is such a complicated website and it has a lot of technical jargon on it that goes right over my head… I do like that they have a section describing the project

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Music, culture, and life

Saturday, April 2, 2011

The future of the music business

Chapter 19 in The Future of the music business
 Once again Gordon skirts around the issue of actually writing and just puts another interview for a chapter.  Gordon does make an interesting point in this chapter the model for the music industry has reverted back to an older model in that it's all about buying the single on say iTunes instead of the full album (though that is also possible). Gordon writes that before the Beatles came along in the 1960s, this was the model. Then once the Beatles came, it was all about the album. Then the digital music revolution happened and things went back to the older model. 

Chapter 20 in  The Future of the music business
I'm so glad this book is almost over because this is ridiculous. If you write a book, you should do research and write on the topics of the chapters, not just put interviews. This interview is all about music in "virtual worlds" like Second Life and the virtually reality thing that MTV created after the success of The Hills, which by the way is now defunct.

The first thing that I clicked on I came across this and the project sound really cool. Plus how each artist is connected to each other is amazing! The only thing though, I think the people doing it don't know every music style correctly... I went to new age and close to new age, they had Celtic Thunder. That is not what I consider "New Age". They're more world music if anything... So a problem with that project is who's definition of a category are they going with?

I'm definitely going to check out these sites and try them as many of them seem helpful in finding new music.

One aspect of the music business that I think is also changing is that of Broadway. Musical theatre is a world wide thing but the shows that come to Broadway are for the most part uniquely American. Take for example, one of the current musicals on Broadway, The Book of Mormon. It takes a uniquely American religion and uses the material in it to make a musical (and a funny one at that. I mean it's by the creators of South Park). However, it is getting more and more expansive to make a musical. American audiences expect a lot and it is not just about the performances (though it should be). Take for example, the new (and buzzed about) production of SpiderMan. It costs in the millions to make, yet they're have 4 (or 5) serious accidents in the past 4 months. It's not an easy adventure to take on. So what's the answer? Well for one, Spider man can not continue. The reason for this is that there are just to many problems with it, not just the accidents either. Another thing that needs to happen and even though it's scary, those who write musicals, need to do more original ideas. The American public doesn't need to see 101 dalmatians musical! It's a huge reason I am drawn to The Book of Mormon. It's an original idea! Now granted, there really isn't, for the most part, such thing as an original idea but musicals like The Book of Mormon, RENT, and tick...tick...BOOM! come close. Don't get me wrong, I think some of best musicals in the last couple of  years have been musicals of movies, books, etc. One of my favorites was Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. While not taken off of any book or anything like that, it was based on the life of President Andrew Jackson and it was hilarious! I was so sad when it closed early.

I think those who work in musical theatre need to look at the history of musical theatre to be inspired. Even though huge musicals like Oklahoma! were not original ideas, the people who were the collaborators were the success to the shows. Not to mention the glitz and glamor and theatrics that certain musicals (ahem Spiderman) seem to think that are necessary for a successful Broadway show.