Sunday 28 February 2010
Destiny's Child-Get On The Bus
An early incarnation of Destiny's Child. Still a four piece and produced by Timbaland. This song is notable for both the sounds of birds tweeting and monkeys chattering at various points in the track. Timbaland also uses his vocal as a loop in the backing track.
Friday 26 February 2010
Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out Of My Head
In my new book, Words and Music, I accompany Kylie Minogue on a journey she takes through history, driving from the pre-modern through the modern into the postmodern and beyond. The book is an introduction to an edited history of everything with a soundtrack largely supplied by popular music. The fact that I chose Kylie Minogue to take us on this journey proves that my worldview was formed by the power of the popular song, and shows how hearing a song like Can't Get You out of My Head can help you make some sense of the mysteries of existence.
She drives towards a city, a city that is a metaphor for the future, for the internet, for the iPod, for music, for the mind, for a world where everything happens at once. At the end of the journey, I say to Kylie, or Kylie says to me: "Some day music will only be air. There will be no objects to hold or fetishise, and people will simply collect lists. No disc, nothing spooled or grooved, no heads to clean, no dust to wipe, no compulsive alphabetising. Nothing to put away in shoeboxes or spare cupboards, and be embarrassed about. A chip inside us and inside the chip a route to all the music that there ever was, which we can compile and organise and reorganise and reorganise and merge with and feel into and in whatever way possible find the time to listen to, and we'll need the time, all the time that music finds the time to press into."
Paul Morley
The Guardian
Friday 1st August 2003
Alva Noto
Alva Noto is a stage name of sound artist Carsten Nicolai who uses art and music as complementary tools to create microscopic views of creative processes. Another alias he uses is Noto. He is a member of the music groups Signal (with Frank Bretschneider, AKA Komet and Olaf Bender, AKA Byetone) and Cyclo. (with Ryoji Ikeda).
Nicolai was born in Karl-Marx-Stadt, East Germany. He has created music from overlooked sounds – the noises of modems and telephones for example.
Carsten Nicolai also works as a visual artist. Using the principles of Cymatics he visualizes sound. Nicolai’s practice is formed by a convergence of sound, painting and sculpture that results in installations exploring the idea of creativity filtered through modularized systems and codes. His music features prominently in his art. Nicolai’s work exposes the limitations, and potential beauty and creativity, possible within strict logical systems.
Jonathan Kramer: postmodern music theory
Courtesy of Theo Miller. A very interesting aspect of postmodern music theory. This will help you with your next essay.
Media Theorist Jonathan Kramer says "the idea that postmodernism is less a surface style or historical period than an attitude. Kramer goes on to say 16 "characteristics of postmodern music, by which I mean music that is understood in a postmodern manner, or that calls forth postmodern listening strategies, or that provides postmodern listening experiences, or that exhibits postmodern compositional practices."
According to Kramer (Kramer 2002, 16–17), postmodern music":
1. is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension
2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic
3. does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present
4. challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles
5. shows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity
6. questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values
7. avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold)
8. considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts
9. includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures
10. considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music
11. embraces contradictions
12. distrusts binary oppositions
13. includes fragmentations and discontinuities
14. encompasses pluralism and eclecticism
15. presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities
16. locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers
Jonathan Donald Kramer (December 7, 1942, Hartford, Connecticut – June 3, 2004, New York City), was a U.S. composer and music theorist.
Active as a music theorist, Kramer published primarily on theories of musical time and postmodernism. At the time of his death he had just completed a book on postmodern music and a cello composition for the American Holocaust Museum.
Media Theorist Jonathan Kramer says "the idea that postmodernism is less a surface style or historical period than an attitude. Kramer goes on to say 16 "characteristics of postmodern music, by which I mean music that is understood in a postmodern manner, or that calls forth postmodern listening strategies, or that provides postmodern listening experiences, or that exhibits postmodern compositional practices."
According to Kramer (Kramer 2002, 16–17), postmodern music":
1. is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension
2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic
3. does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present
4. challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles
5. shows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity
6. questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values
7. avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold)
8. considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts
9. includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures
10. considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music
11. embraces contradictions
12. distrusts binary oppositions
13. includes fragmentations and discontinuities
14. encompasses pluralism and eclecticism
15. presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities
16. locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers
Jonathan Donald Kramer (December 7, 1942, Hartford, Connecticut – June 3, 2004, New York City), was a U.S. composer and music theorist.
Active as a music theorist, Kramer published primarily on theories of musical time and postmodernism. At the time of his death he had just completed a book on postmodern music and a cello composition for the American Holocaust Museum.
Thursday 25 February 2010
Alvin Lucier: I Am Sitting In A Room
"I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice and I am going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed. What you will hear, then, are the natural resonant frequencies of the room articulated by speech. I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but, more as a way to smooth out any irregularities my speech might have."
I am sitting in a room (1969) is one of composer Alvin Lucier's best known works, featuring Lucier recording himself narrating a text, and then playing the recording back into the room, re-recording it. The new recording is then played back and re-recorded, and this process is repeated. Since all rooms have characteristic resonance or formant frequencies (e.g. different between a large hall and a small room), the effect is that certain frequencies are emphasized as they resonate in the room, until eventually the words become unintelligible, replaced by the pure resonant harmonies and tones of the room itself.
Alvin Lucier
Alvin Lucier (born May 14, 1931) is an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. A long-time music professor at Wesleyan University, Lucier was a member of the influential Sonic Arts Union, which included Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and Gordon Mumma. Much of his work is influenced by science and explores the physical properties of sound itself: resonance of spaces, phase interference between closely-tuned pitches, and the transmission of sound through physical media.
Wednesday 24 February 2010
Editing
1.Read the editing techniques presentation
2.Choose a clip e.g. trailer, advert, music video
3.Analyse the editing techniques used in your clip. Identify them and explain why they have been used.
4.Answer the following question: "How does the editing in ___________construct the meaning about the relationship between characters?"
5.Finish for homework (deadline Monday 1st March) and post on blogs.
Why Bowie and the Grateful Dead are the web's real visionaries
Psst: want to know the future of cyberspace? You could try asking a rock star. Why? Well, some of them have turned out to be perceptive futurologists. Eight years ago, for example, David Bowie said this to a New York Times reporter: "I don't even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I don't think it's going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way. The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I'm fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing."
John Naughton The Observer, Sunday 21 February 2010
Click on image above for full article.
Institutions and Audiences
This is taken directly from the OCR specification:
candidates should be prepared to demonstrate understanding of contemporary institutional processes of production, distribution, marketing and exchange/exhibition at a local, national or international level as well as British audiences’ reception and consumption.
There should also be some emphasis on the students’ own experiences of being audiences of a particular medium. In this case the medium is music (with reference to film too) and the institution is Warp.
candidates should be prepared to demonstrate understanding of contemporary institutional processes of production, distribution, marketing and exchange/exhibition at a local, national or international level as well as British audiences’ reception and consumption.
There should also be some emphasis on the students’ own experiences of being audiences of a particular medium. In this case the medium is music (with reference to film too) and the institution is Warp.
Tuesday 23 February 2010
Boredoms
Boredoms (ăƒœă‚¢ăƒ€ăƒ ă‚¹) (or, more recently, V∞redoms) is a noise rock band from Osaka, Japan. The band was officially formed in 1986, although some date the band to bedroom tape experiments from 1982.[1][2] The band's output is usually referred to as noise rock or sometimes Japanoise, though their more recent records have been largely based around repetitive minimalism, ambient music, and tribal drumming.
The band has a vast and sometimes confusing discography. Many band members have rotated through the group over the years, often using a number of various stage names. Singer Yamantaka Eye is the closest the band has to a frontman; his style includes a range of baffling screams, babbling, electronic effects, and very heavy post-production. Drummer/keyboard player/vocalist Yoshimi P-We is featured on most Boredoms recordings.
Lightning Bolt: Peel Session
Lighting Bolt performs on the late John Peel's BBC radio show.
Lightning Bolt is a noise rock duo from Providence, Rhode Island, composed of Brian Chippendale on drums and vocals and Brian Gibson on bass guitar. The band met and formed in 1994, when the members of the then-trio attended the Rhode Island School of Design. The band signed to Load Records in 1997, and released their self-titled debut the same year. In total, Lightning Bolt has released five full-length albums, numerous vinyl singles, and appeared on several compilations.
Lightning Bolt are known for their guerrilla-style live performances, where they typically play on the ground rather than a stage, with the crowd gathered around them. The band's sound is typically loud and aggressive, though the group cites composers Philip Glass and Sun Ra as compositional influences.
Stockhausen: Gruppen and Helicopter String Quartet
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Gruppen, for three orchestras (1955-57)
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Gruppen ("Groups") for three orchestras (1955-57)is "a landmark in 20th-century music . . . probably the first work of the post-war generation of composers in which technique and imagination combine on the highest level to produce an undisputable masterpiece" (Smalley 1967, 794). A large group of 109 players is divided into three orchestral units, each with its own conductor, which are deployed in a horseshoe shape to the left, front, and right of the audience. The spatial separation was principally motivated by the compositional requirement of keeping simultaneously played yet musically separate passages distinct from one another, but led to some orgiastic passages in which a single musical process passes from one orchestra to another.
Karlheinz Stockhausen: Helicopter String Quartet (Salzburg Festival 2003)
The Helikopter-Streichquartett (Helicopter String Quartet) is one of Karlheinz Stockhausen's best-known pieces, and one of the most complex to perform. It involves a string quartet, four helicopters with pilots, as well as audio and video equipment and technicians. It was first performed and recorded in 1995. Although performable as a self-sufficient piece, it also forms the third scene of the opera Mittwoch aus Licht ("Wednesday from Licht").
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen (22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music" (Hewett 2007). He is known for his ground-breaking work in electronic music, aleatory (controlled chance) in serial composition, and musical spatialization.
Monday 22 February 2010
Flight Of The Conchords
Flight of the Conchords is a New Zealand comedy duo composed of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. Billing themselves as "Formerly New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo" the group uses a combination of witty observation, characterisation and acoustic guitar music. The duo's comedy and music became the basis of a BBC radio series and then an American television series, which premiered in 2007, also called Flight of the Conchords.
Friday 12 February 2010
Fight Club -The Postmodern Dilemma Of Manhood and Postmodernism and Violence
.
Fight Club and the Postmodern Dilemma of Manhood
Postmodernism and Violence
Two essays that may prove helpful when writing your essay. Click on images for links.
Fight Club and the Postmodern Dilemma of Manhood
Postmodernism and Violence
Two essays that may prove helpful when writing your essay. Click on images for links.
Essay
Discuss two or more media texts that you would define as ‘postmodern’ and explain why you
would give them this label. Cover at least two media in your answer.
Use the resources that I have posted connected to Fight Club, Memento and Pulp Fiction. You don't have to refer to all the films, you can focus on one of them. Make sure that you also refer to your individual work on postmodern music. That way you will have covered two types of media.
Wednesday 10 February 2010
Fight Club trailer
Fight Club is advertised as a heart-racing thrill ride. Is this different to the reality of the film itself? The voiceover describes the narrator as "tired of his job, sick of his stuff, looking for something new. But he wasn't ready for what he found." The trailer accentuates the action elements of the film. In reality the film subverts the generic conventions of an action film and is something a lot darker and more disturbing.
If Filmmakers Directed The Super Bowl
The auteur's Super Bowl. A reimagining of the Super Bowl influenced by the film style of Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch, Wes Anderson, Jean-Luc Godard and Werner Herzog.
Monday 8 February 2010
Wednesday 3 February 2010
Magazine covers
Click on the image to view a small selection of covers from Raygun a short lived American magazine (1992-1995).
The rest of Chris Ashworth's website is worth a look too.
Contents page ideas
A couple of ideas to help with contents page layouts. Click on either image to view the site.
Monday 1 February 2010
Rankin: covers portfolio
A gallery of Rankin's magazine covers. A great place to look for ideas. Click on image to access gallery.
Magazine layouts
Click on link above to view a really helpful blog that has posted inspriration for magazine layouts. You would be foolish not to have a look and utilise some of the ideas.
AS Foundation: coursework lesson
Today you need to ensure that you are completely up to date. Check the coursework schedule for a reminder of the work you need to have already completed.
Ideally this week you should be filming and editing if you are making the film opening and taking photos and deciding on layout if you are making the magazine cover.
On Friday 12th I am expecting a draft version of your work. Wednesday's lesson will be a theory lesson so you will need to use you own time effectively to complete the task.
Make sure that you post updates of progress and examples of your work on your blog as you go. This is extremely important. Ensure that all posts are labelled correctly and that you all have a link list and a label list.
Fight Club
Some points to consider when watching the film today:
In what ways can Fight Club be considered a postmodern text?
* Identify the postmodern aspects of the text.
* Who (audience types) would categorise this film as postmodern?
* What other readings of the text could one make?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)