Studies in Audio Culture

WELCOME

2006-12-30T11:20:00.001-08:00

This blog collects the participating students' essays from the 2006 fall semester's Studies in Audio Culture seminar at ECIAD. The seminar set out to address the very questions suggested by its title: examining not only what constitutes Audio Culture itself, but also how it is to be studied. These broad, framing questions quickly unfolded into a complex, interrelated field of study, ranging from the materiality of sound and the ambiguities of listening and hearing to the political economy of popular music in the age of the iPod. Presented over the semester with an eclectic collection of readings, listening sessions and film viewings, as well as student presentations and much group discussion, it is not surprising that the students' work for the class was diverse both in terms of form and content. Their essays are presented here without editorial intervention, retaining the individual voices of the students, idiosyncrasies and all; they are also not presented in any particular order. Please enjoy.

Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers

2006-12-30T11:12:00.000-08:00

Aaron Wolf

In December of 1973, Hilly Kristal opened a music club at 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was christened CBGB & OMFUG, which stands for "Country, Bluegrass, Blues, and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers". A gormandizer is a person devoted to eating and drinking to excess. According to Kristal, it also means "a voracious eater of music” (Kristal). For the first year and a half, the club booked conventional acts that fit its name. But on March 31, 1974, it began to change its standards, transforming CBGBs into one of the most important and influential musical venues in the world. During the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, CBGBs played host to a movement that helped changed the look, sound, and aesthetic direction of both underground and popular music, as well as the face of art and popular culture. The club became the center of an underground revolution in youth culture do to the many bands it provided an outlet for, the most important and well known of those bands; the Ramones.

March 31, 1974 was the first time Television took the stage at CBGBs. Although this night is important in retrospect, it did not appear eventful at the time. The club was less than half full. Those attending were friends of the band, most of which not only didn't pay admission, but were also too poor to purchase drinks. Worse, Kristal thought the band was terrible: screechy, ear-splitting guitars and a jumble of sounds that he just didn't get. Kristal decided “never again.” A few weeks later, though, Television's manager convinced Kristal to let the band play once more, along with a new group called the Ramones. Much more than Television, the Ramones music was brash, fast, and sloppy. Eschewing musical virtuosity, they considered guitar solos self-indulgent and unnecessary.

Unfortunately, this second show mirrored the first: the club was half empty and no one paid admission or bought drinks. Television sounded less then perfect and the Ramones were a mess. Their equipment kept breaking down, they kept stopping and starting songs, and they spent most of their fifteen minute set yelling at each other. This time, however, Kristal was open to the bands returning. Both bands continued to play shows every month, improving in terms of sound and performance, and crowds eventually began to grow. Within a few months, new bands inspired by Television and the Ramones, as well as earlier groups such as The Velvet Underground, the New York Dolls and The Stooges, also took the stage at CBGBs, including the Patti Smith Group, Blondie, the Heartbreakers, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, the Fleshtones, and the Talking Heads. This was the start of a flood of performers of “street music”, as punk acts were initially known, and a scene around CBGBs developed.

The Patti Smith Group's first performance at the club was so well received that Kristal agreed to have them play four nights a week, two sets a night, which turned out to be a seven week stay. Because of Smith's background and notoriety, her audiences were composed of writers, artists, musicians, and other celebrities. It was an unusual crowd, ranging from punks to professors, including Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsburg, Allen Lanier from the Blue Oyster Cult, Lou Reed, John Cale, and many other important musicians.

Responding to the ever-growing crowds, Kristal organized “A Festival of the Top 40 New York Rock Bands,” as he called it, promoting it in such influential publications as the Village Voice and the Soho Weekly News. The festival was a success. Major music publications around the US ran articles about the festival, the bands, and their “punk” rock, and even more press and hype followed in the UK. This increasing public recognition attracted recording company executives' interest. Patti Smith was signed to a major label, followed quickly by the Ramones and others.

The Ramones recorded and released their self-titled first album in July of 1976. They travelled to London to fuel the hype in the British press, playing to nearly three thousand people at the Roundhouse. Impressed and inspired by what they saw, many in the young audience were already in bands or would later form bands, contributing to the sound and style of punk. Before the Roundhouse show, a few members of the newly formed Sex Pistols and Joe Stummer and Mick Jones of the Clash, broke into the Ramones dressing room to meet the band. The Sex Pistols told Johnny Ramone that so far they were only rehearsing because they didn't feel that they were good enough to play in public. Johnny replied, “I hope you're coming tonight. We're lousy. We can't play. If you wait until you can play, you'll be too old to get up there. We stink, really. But it's great.” (Chean, 6) By the end of 1977, both the Sex Pistols and the Clash had released their debut LPs, which were well received, especially in the UK.

All over North America and the UK, punk bands were forming, inspired largely by the Ramones, the Clash, and the Sex Pistols. Over the next few years, hundreds of bands were signed to major labels and released LPs. These records were well received by the punk community, but punk rock never took over the cultural mainstream as the record executives hoped but many in the punk community resisted. The Clash's 1979 album London Calling was the best selling punk LP of the 1970s, and it topped out at 27th on the charts.

The beginning of the 1980s saw an evolution in punk as the subgenre of hardcore emerged. It is characterised by a sound that is thicker, heavier, and faster than 1970s style punk rock, with short, loud, and passionate songs. Though CBGB was a hot spot for touring bands when they came through New York, the scene that kept the bar alive during the 1980s was New York's own underground hardcore scene. Every Sunday afternoon, a matinee "thrash day" show would host a handful of hardcore bands from the afternoon to dinnertime hours. For nearly a decade, this event became a hardcore institution, until Kristal cancelled the event in 1990 due to violence inside and outside in front of the club. With the cancellation of the Sunday matinee CBGBs never really regained its footing and place as a venue for groundbreaking music. It became a venue that acts would play for nostalgic merit over the next decade and a half, still occasionally hosting a few of the bands that had begun their musical careers performing there.

The start of the new millennium did not bring good fortune to CBGBs and one of the key bands to its success. On April 15, 2001, Joey Ramone passed away at age 49, the victim of lymphoma. Little more than a year after Joey's death, Dee Dee Ramone was found dead on June 5, 2002 of a heroin overdose. Johnny Ramone passed away two years later on September 15, 2004 after a long battle with cancer. Soon after, in 2005 a dispute between CBGBs and the Bowery Resident's Committee began over $91,000 in back rent. After the lease expired, the two sides reached an agreement that the club would remain open for fourteen months. On October 15, 2006 CBGBs closed its doors forever at the 315 Bowery locations. Hilly stripped the club completely taking even the walls and urinals with plans to reassemble them at a new location nearly three-thousand miles away in Las Vegas, Nevada. Soon tourists will be able to piss in the same urinal that a member of the Ramones, or Blondie, or Talking Heads might have used, while reading the tags and doodles on the wall.

The influence of the bands of CBGBs will never be forgotten forever changing popular music. Even though punk was not played on Top 40 radio and albums did not often sell outside of their general audience the influence on other bands continues today. In the early 1990s the rise of “grunge” and “alternative” saw many bands emerge into the mainstream that were directly influenced by the punk of the 1970s and 1980s. Bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, the Pixies and later Greenday and Offspring credited these bands to inspire them to form bands. Wearing Ramones of Clash t-shirts and talking about them in the press there was a renewed interest in the punk of the past.

In 2003, Rolling Stone, which many consider the definitive music magazine, published a list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” The List included multiple entries from both the Clash (London Calling, No. 8/The Clash, No.77/Sandinista!, No. 404), the Ramones (Ramones, No. 33/Rocket to Russia, No. 105), and Talking Heads (Talking Heads: 77, No. 290/Stop Making Sense, No. 345/More Songs About Buildings and Food, No. 382), as well as an appearance by the Sex Pistols (Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, No. 41), Patti Smith (Horses, No. 44), Television (Marquee Moon, No. 128), Blondie (Parallel Lines, No. 140), X (Los Angeles, No. 286), Black Flag (Damaged, No. 340), Buzzcocks (Singles Going Steady, No. 358), Modern Lovers (Modern Lovers, No. 381), Wire (Pink Flag, No. 410), Minutemen (Double Nickels on the Dime, No. 411), Suicide (Suicide, No. 446), Public Image Ltd. (Metal Box, No. 469), Gang of Four (Entertainment!, No. 490), and Husker Du (New Day Rising, No. 495).

A year earlier Spin published a list of the “50 Most Influential Bands” and the Ramones placed second to the Beatles while the Clash were seventh. CBGBs was not only responsible for creating a home for punk but also for hosting band like Blondie and the Talking Heads that contributed to the creation of New Wave which did, unlike punk rock, dominate the airwaves for a large part of the 1980s. These two bands enjoyed commercial success that none of the punk bands of CBGBs obtained.

When Hilly Kristal opened CBGBs in 1973 he did not plan on creating a venue that would transform music, pop culture, and transform the landscape of the Western World. He intended to host country and folk music; he had no intention of hosting a fast, aggressive rock that would alter the political landscape by both actions, words, and by bringing the underground up into the light for the public to see. It couldn’t have happened any where else or at a different time. New York was being abandoned for the suburbs and the city was decaying, leaving only those that could not afford to leave and those that were unable. Within a two-block radius of CBGBs there were six flophouses holding about two thousand men, mostly derelicts, alcoholics, drug addicts, physically impaired or mentally unstable. There were many muggers hanging around the Bowery preying on the old or incapacitated men. It was this climate that created the music, it was an outlet to express frustration and rage the false image of the American Dream created after the Second World War. It was a rejection of authority, and a voice for the youth.

At the time there were nearly no venues for live music in New York. In 1973 Max’s Kansas Club was closed and CBGBs was the only venue located in the Bowery. Rent was cheap and the surrounding buildings were mostly industrial and the people, who did live close by, didn't seem to care too much about having a little rock and roll sound seeping into their lives. It just happened that CBGBs was the right place at the right time, surrounded by a collection of frustrated youth looking for something that was their own.

Work Cited

Chean, Steven. Hey Ho Let’s Go!. New York, New York: Warner Bros. Records Inc. & Rhino Entertainment Company. 1999.

End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones. Writ. / Dir. Michael Gramaglia & Jim Fields. Rhino Home Video, 2005.

Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. The Ramones: Biography. http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:1gjyeay04x07~T1

Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. The Sex Pistols: Biography. http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:aq6wtr69kl2x~T1

Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. The Clash: Biography. http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:ttxuak1k5m3p~T1

Farber, Sheryl. No Thanks!. New York, New York: Rhino Publishing. 2005.

Kristal, Hilly. The History of CBGB and OHFUG by Hilly Kristal. http://cbgb.com/history1.htm

The RS 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/ 5938174 the_rs_500_greatest_albums_of_all_time/

The Problem of "Punk"

2006-12-30T11:07:00.000-08:00

Tserin Cheesmond

This is what happens “When you come to realize that your well defined universe is only a perimeter” (Cranfield)

How does someone of my generation (born in the 80’s) relate to the punk image, or how does say my sister, a decade younger, lay a claim on the identity of punk rock when much of the perception that is propagated has been manipulated and mutated through the myth of punk? As I try desperately to cling to some sort of authenticity, or ‘realness’ in my own personal relation to punk I am forced to face the questions, how can I define my well constructed identity through the use of the punk rock image, and how does this image reflect, or perhaps not reflect, the audio aspect, the difference between the music and the mohawk, and somewhere in between I hope to find myself.

The word “punk” itself presents many problems. As any word does, it has many different, often conflicting, meanings that are constantly evolving as the world and the way we view the world changes. Originally, a term used in prison- “William Burroughs: I always thought a punk was someone who took it up the ass.” (McNeil, McCain 208), it evolved during the late 1970’s to describe a sub-culture that continues to evolve and affect culture today. Punk forced its way into the mainstream public eye via the Sex Pistols in the summer of 1976. Since then it has become a marketable teenage fashion sold in stores everywhere, the main difference being that in 1976 it still had the ability to “disturb and outrage” (Woljick 7) the public into which it was received, whereas today while it may illicit stares and the occasional comment even the most shocking ensemble has become relatively commonplace. It is no longer dangerous to leave the house dressed as a punk. The image has become so uniform, so absorbed into commodity culture that at Halloween kids can buy the ‘punk rock’ costume kit, complete with studded bracelet, studded jacket with prescribed pins and patches. Punk has been perpetually balancing on the precipice of ‘pure’ versus ‘put on’, as with anything attempting to be new or different, the question of ‘originality’ or ‘purity’ begins to come into play almost at the very conception of an identity as a movement. Perhaps this preoccupation with purity comes from the original un-manufactured sound of the bands, the desire too capture the rawness and the unrefined attitude of the music. This can be seen in the debate over Malcolm Mclaren and his control over the direction, especially the visual image, of the Sex Pistols, he claims to have ‘made’ the band and orchestrated the original movement, in the UK. While his influence cannot be denied, indeed he is historically there; can only one person be responsible for such a great collaboration and explosion of energies and sound? The momentum was set in place far before the arty manager took hold. From the Ramones and the Clash, to Blink 182 and Billy Talent (challenging the notion of authenticity and referencing history by borrowing his punk moniker from the classic punk book/movie Hard Core Logo) the idea of what is “punk” today has changed dramatically, not only musically and stylistically, but also terms of intent and soul.

The problem becomes a search for the authentic, that is, if there even really is an authentic to speak of or find. The experience of being a punk, or maybe better described as choosing to look like a punk today, has very different connotations and consequences then it did only thirty years ago. In his books Chris Walter, who grew up a punk in Winnipeg in the 70’s, describes the feeling of taking your life into your hands when making the decision to shave his first mohawk. I have many (older) friends with stories of fists and chains as a response to just walking down the street dressed in their punk rock attire. Is it, then, any wonder that the scene is associated aggression and violence? The question needs to be asked whether the aggression is a role absorbed into the image of a punk as a reaction to, or a perpetuation of, the violence from external forces or a role intentionally occupied? “ The idea of the degraded, the meaningless, and the forbidden was consistently exposed and glorified, and these symbolic transgressions through adornment stigmatized the wearers as defiled and dangerous” (Woljick 19)

But I digress, the reality remains that in today’s society the experience of being a punk is drastically different then in the days of its origin, but it is no way less real, or less valid. Once to be a punk was to take a risk, it took courage, and while I still believe there is still a certain degree of bravery involved to align oneself with the other, it is far less physically dangerous to dress like a punk today.

Debbie Harry describes “two maniacs running around town putting up signs that said, “Punk is coming! Punk is coming!” We thought, Here comes another shitty group with an even shittier name.” (McNeil McCain, 208) Little did she know that a new subculture had been given its title. The punk movement began at mostly the same time, in the late 70’s, in the UK- focusing around the London scene, and in New York- mainly functioning out of the club CBGB. The outlandishness associated with punk was very much influenced by scene in England. What had been a “much more adult and bohemian rock culture” with poet Patti Smith, Johnny Thunders and Lou Reed, in New York turned into “this crazy teenage thing” as the kids in England emulated their idea of what American punk was. (McNeil McCain 244) Much like the transgression of spitting, which originated in the UK and was brought back to the US, to become a definitive feature of the punk image. Another example can be found in the notion of the ‘pogo’ dance, supposedly invented by Sid Vicious jumping up and down in order to better see the bands, it has taken on its own life in the myth of punk, as it is rarely seen at shows today. Kids in England were trying to emulate the scene in NY, but having a removed, and therefore distorted image of it invented their own fashion that, eventually, took over as the predominant image of punk culture. This can be seen in the styles of dress between the two scenes, for example the Damned and Johnny Rotten from the UK in contrast to The Ramones, Johnny Thunders, and Jerry Nolan, staples of the NY scene.

Punk changed the way we understand music. Punk pushed the boundaries, both musically and aesthetically. When it comes to music, punk took talent out of the equation, essentially making the ‘bad’, as far as mainstream musical standards were concerned, ‘good’ and therefore, marketable. Said in the words of the man who claims to have crated the Sex Pistols, Malcolm Mclaren was searching for a way “to use “bad” and make it work in a way that might ultimately change popular culture itself.” (McCain, McNeil 243) In every aspect punk rock purposely took the ‘good’ out of ‘good music’, and out of ‘good taste’ as well. It made angry yelling and crashing noise acceptable as a form of music, that unlike experimental noise music, for example the recordings made by the Futurists in the early 1900’s, was marketable, able to infiltrate mainstream corporate music. In the mid 70s, an era of hippies, hair and bellbottoms, many people felt that this form of music better described the soundscape of the time, rather than disco, with it’s cheesy grins and shiny lights. The aggressive nature and fast pounding beat mixed with a sense of desperation and an idea of futurelessness, due to class struggle and social unrest, was the perfect audio soundtrack for disgruntled youth.

The Ramones inspired Mick Jones and Paul Simonon before the inception of the Clash, along with many other bands, instilling the notion of “just get out there, you’re as good as you are….just go out there and do it” (Steiner 231) If one looks at the band line-ups in the late 70’s to early 80’s, it reads like an incestuous family tree, as bands formed and reformed. A cover for the punk zine ‘Sniffin’ Glue’ documents the time well, saying, “This is a chord. Here’s another one. Now go start a band.” That is essentially what a lot of kids did. Punk encourages people to be “actively creative as opposed to being a passive fan or consumer” (Woljick 8), in terms of both dress and the creation of music. Effectively challenging the idea of what is considered ‘good’ music and who is able to produce it, “It implicitly challenged elitist notions of what art is and who may create art.” (Woljick12)

The most common image that is brought to mind when one thinks of a “punk” is a brightly colored mohawk, studded and painted leather jacket, and a safety pin or two through random body parts. What began as an audio and visual attack on society and its values was quickly changed into a uniform, and that uniform has been incorporated into mainstream media and culture, distorted into a sugarcoated rebellion driven by the greed for capitalistic gains. Today you can walk into a mall get a mohawk, a lip piercing, and a Rancid T-shirt, and in an hour later walk out looking like a ‘punk’. The day I saw a Le Chateau storefront advertising a “Punk Princess” t-shirt adorned with a safety pin ($ 39.95), as Simple Plan was the day I had to sit down and re-think my affiliation to the so-called “punk rock” scene “punk rock” image. It brings to light the question of what is really original, the kid who creates his own shirt with a sharpie pen or the one who buys it pre-fabricated at an ‘alternative’ store, as they are both buying into the same image as it has been sold to them. In essence, buying their ‘uniqueness’ in order to be a part of a larger community, as described by Calefato “Subcultures have their own uniforms, components of a jargon with which the groups make themselves recognizable both inside and outside their circle, and through which they exchange, as in a communicative grapevine, their passwords regarding tastes, stylistic twists, everyday practices and forms of behavior.”(Calefato) The use of the word ‘punk’ as a label has become so encompassing that within it even smaller segregated groups (such as: gutter punx, emo, screamo, pop punk, hardcore, etc.) have been created, each with their own set of identifying signs. So, where exactly does punk stand, as a culture, and as a musical movement, within today’s society? More importantly, how does punk function?

“The most important thing in life is style. That is, the style of one’s existence…. For if man defines himself by doing, then style is doubly definitive because style describes the doing.” (Robbins 12) What you wear and, sometimes more importantly, how you wear it describes where you fit into society’s tangled hierarcy, not only how others classify you but also how you chose to identify yourself as well. The way one chooses to dress can be seen as a language one uses to visually communicate who one is and what one’s beliefs are. It becomes an expression of personal identity; a carefully selected set of symbols used to define of how one wants the world to view them. It is as artistic and creative cultural endeavor each morning when choosing what to wear, how one want to be seen, “creating a small, but complex semiotic system, valid perhaps for that day only.”(Greco 149) Make no mistake about it, the kid with the patched up pair of jeans and grubby leather jacket has made just as much a conscious decision with regard to fashion as the coordinated teeny bopper whose braces’ elastics match her shoelaces and nail polish, ferociously devouring a Seventeen magazine.

Punk fashion holds the myth of the idea that anything goes, the concept of wear-what-you-want without any regard for style. The main idea was to shock and offend. “Treating so called ‘flaws’ as marks of distinction…by celebrating the uniqueness of individual styles that opposed prevailing idea of good taste, punks implicitly critiqued dominant notions about beauty and” art. (Woljick15) With punk nothing is sacred. The swastika is worn, hair is blue, purple and red, and obscene language is broadcasted on shirts. There are no boundaries in terms of dress, the more ridiculous the better, however, there are unspoken rules and regulations that solidified in the very beginnings of the scene.

A style based entirely on the lack thereof (or so I thought), it exploits different symbols borrowed from many different cultures and social classes. Some of the music was heavily influenced by reggae and the Rastafarianism idea of the destruction of capitalism and oppression (Babylon) was also incorporated. Tribal designs are common as tattoos. Multi colored mohawks mimic those of Mohawk Indians. Leather jacket were appropriated from the ‘rockers’, a preceding subculture of the 1950s. Religious and political symbols are defiled. Bondage and sexually explicit clothing is worn. Military gear appropriated to rebel against the army. Punk is a confrontational montage of cultures and classes thrown together to cause confusion. The bondage clothing, (and belts) are used more to “ threaten, or expose culturally constructed ideas about “deviancy” rather then to entice.” (Wojcik 19) Images of skulls are used as a way to emphasize life and celebrate death. “The image of he skull, grinning or dancing, became a punk icon, an ever-present reminder of death’s ultimate triumph over all, regardless of class status.” (17) The punk ideal is to appear as unnatural as possible, unlike the hippies who embraced nature.

But what happens when rebellion becomes a uniform? Consider the time that is spent studding and paining the ‘must-have’ fashion item of any punk: the oh-so-important leather jacket, one of the most defining symbols of the punk. Or consider the amount off effort required to obtain unnaturally bright colored hair. The skill and effort involved in obtaining a legitimate punk ‘look’ practically goes against the very idea of freedom of expression it claims to represent.

Politics and music cannot be separated just as politics and art cannot be separated, and so forms of dress cannot escape being caught up in the political realm. As always, though, the mainstream corporate manages to absorb an aspect of every subculture. The Punk image is a marketable and sellable style that is mimicked in malls and high fashion. Viviane Westwood, who once dressed the Sex Pistols and had a huge influence on how punk looked, especially the zippers and bondage straps, is now a high fashion designer making dresses for the stars. Even the art world picked up on artists like Raymond Pettibon, who designed many gig posters, most noticeably for the band Black Flag. As this happens the line between bringing down the system from the inside and simply selling out gets imperceptibly thin.

The introduction of punk created a whole new audio sounds cape, making the bad sound good, recording in the garage, on minimal equipment became, not a necessity, but a stylistic choice. Without being packaged and sold as a commodity by a corporation this enable the musicians to hold the illusion of being in control of selling themselves. They are independent of one system…. that of the record companies, but then become reliant on another system in the form of technology and the computer. However, no matter how ‘independent’ the labels, or musicians become they still must rely heavily on things like photocopy machines and the Internet to spread their word, music or message. With the invention of the internet and new technology it is becoming easier to be not as reliant on the system of the state, as seen with itunes and the self recording and cd burning, that is going on all over the world today. Making the music accessible to a larger audience without the backing o f a major label. It is a weird little grey area in which it becomes a very modernist idea to put out indie music, to make the individual accessible to the universal, only it now becoming universally accepted to be individual.

Richard Hell, of Television and the Heartbreakers, described the way in which drug addiction was perceived as a normal part of the early New York scene in ’74, ’75 as, “it still had this “nice” taint of the forbidden, yet at the same time nobody really thought of it as dangerous.” (McNeil, McCain 210). This “taint of the forbidden” is a concept that is extremely prevalent within today’s manufactured idea of punk culture. One can only hope that just as the addictions proved to be more serious than originally perceived, as can be seen in the many deaths or downfalls of numerous punk legends, like Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan, Dee Dee Ramone, Iggy at his worst (or perhaps his best), that perhaps, despite all the fuzzy leopard skin and chromed safety pins, something more dangerous lingers in the shadows of post punk pop, waiting and watching.

Calefato, Patrizia. “Signs of Order, Signs of Disorder: The Other Uniforms” Uniform: Order and Disorder Ed. Francesco Bonami, Maria Lucia Frisa, Stefano Tonchi. Italy: Edizioni Charta, 2000. 195-204

Greco, Lorenzo. “Social Identity, Military Identity” Uniform: Order and Disorder Ed. Francesco Bonami, Maria Lucia Frisa, Stefano Tonchi. Italy: Edizioni Charta, 2000. 145-152

Hebdige, Dick. Hiding in the Light: On Images and Things, England: Clays Ltd., 1988.

Keithley, Joey. I, Shithead: a life in punk, Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2003.

Punk: attitude, Writ./Dir. Don Letts. Freemantle media. 2005.

Robbins, Tom. Another Roadside Attraction, Canada: Ballantine Books of Canada Ltd., 1971.

Steiner, THE REJECTION OF BEATY IN ART

The Filth and the Fury: A Sex Pistols Film, Dir. Julien Temple. Alliance Atlantis, 2000.

Wojcik, Daniel. Punk and Neo-Tribal Body Art, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995.

P2P

2006-12-30T10:52:00.000-08:00

Johnny Burgess

In its simplest form peer to peer networking includes anything from a telephone conversation to traveling folksingers of the past. Nowadays the term has become synonymous with file-sharing networks on the Internet. This definition of the term has been scaring music corporations since the inception of programs like Napster, which was quickly stifled and reinvented by these corporations. P2P communication poses a threat to the pocketbooks of music corporations with its underground distribution potentials. This paper looks at the impact of this technology on the market of music, and its capability to transform the experience of the music itself.

P2P networks allow for free and unauthorized reproduction of intellectual property such as music, software or information of any form. In the case of music, to obtain a song or album from another user in the network, all one must do is download it onto their own hard drive as a copy. This is the basis for Internet driven P2P networks. The difference between this and making a copy of ‘Lethal Weapon 1’ are nil, save the physical effort it takes to get the tape and some loss in quality in producing the hard copy.

P2P networks allow users to obtain music for free or at a marginal cost. This seems to put users in control of the copying and distribution of products without paying any fees typically. Adrienne Russel, in an article called ‘Networked Public Culture’ on the website netpublics.annenberg.edu, explains that this practice “produced massive anxiety within industries that rely on artificial scarcity to generate market predictability” (Russel), putting the user in control of the scarcity of the products, not the industries, while further, artists themselves are threatened by people ‘stealing’ quality copies of their music and not giving them money in the form of buying records. Maich states that, not to be left behind, “All major record labels struck deals with legitimate online retailers like iTunes” (Maich 46). These retailers sell songs for a buck and albums for around $10, but inevitably buying music is now based on the honor system.

However, the more P2P users push corporations, the harder they are going to push back on consumers and creators. We have seen this with numerous P2P networks being shut down or reconfigured, such as the commoditization of Napster and the current copyright suit filed by Universal on Myspace. Is this going to lead to the next manifestation of the Internet? In its original conception the Internet was created to “exploit two of the great underused resources of the digital age: surplus storage space and surplus processing power…”(Russel). This created an easy way for users to access indexed information on other people’s hard drives. This was considered Internet 1.0, where “all clients were servers and all servers were clients”(Russel). The current version, version 2.0, is much less communal, allowing users to obtain information without providing any themselves. Also there are remote servers through which all the information must pass through via an Internet provider. Although information is controlled by police watchdogs and through logged information on users activities, there is plenty of ‘Cyberspace’ left unwatched. The Internet is becoming the newest, biggest arena for crime in several areas, such as sexual predators perusing chat rooms, or scam artists preying on the corporations. In a Macleans article, called ‘The Internet Sucks’, Steve Maich gives an estimate that “US consumers had lost about US$8 Billion to various online schemes over two years”. Combined with a high computer illiteracy rate within users, could this be proof governments have a reason to remodel our current version of the Internet?

The problem of users abusing the power the Internet has enabled --whether copying music for distribution purposes or preying on children -- is only one side of the debate, though. There are plenty of people putting P2P networks into their intended utopia of information sharing. Never before has the D.I.Y. record label been so effective. In the past, for indie bands to hope for success, large amounts of money had to be spent on album pressing, marketing, distribution, and the cost of touring. Now with convenient P2P networks, labels can promote musicians by creating a free Myspace page, or other inexpensive forms of publicity that the Internet provides. Also, the dire need to produce a hard copy of an album or song is unnecessary (although for nostalgic purposes it may be). Indie labels can sell material through an Internet retailer and in a digital media. CD formats are already becoming extinct with MP3 players, like the iPod, so spending money and time on pressing is excessive. This allows for more money to go into places that benefit the actual music experience, like production and touring.

Garnet Clare, a rapper named Tall Man from BC’s lower mainland, has followed many artist’s choice to begin with D.I.Y. labels and self promotion through P2P networks. He started recording songs with friends just using a digital audio workstation on his computer and distributing his CD’s personally traveling around and dropping off promos at retailers for free. Clare then began using Myspace as a promotional tool. In a personal interview I did with him, he said this of P2P networks: ”[P2P networks] helps us get our music into the ears of people far beyond our current touring area, which helps us acquire a non-local fanbase, giving us more reason and opportunity to tour more places”(Clare). The model of D.I.Y. is nothing new. Tape trading and home production/distribution became big in the 70s. The only difference with the Internet is that it is quicker and easier than before, which is essentially the only thing that the Internet has done for us. Does this then limit the possibilities of P2P to benefit all the hierarchies of music?

In an interview in NME with the Raconteurs, when asked about Gnarls Barkley, Brendon Benson and Jack White from the band agree:

Brendon: It’s amazing that it’s the first Number One from download sales alone”

Jack: “It just shows you that if the songwriting is as good as ‘Crazy’ right across the board, then the downloading doesn’t hurt the music. If sales are declining it’s because the songs are no good, it has nothing to do with the Internet ruining anything. ‘Crazy’ is proof of that…. It’s good, so people bought it.” (Swank 24)

Jack White believes that if people are still satisfied with the music they will pay to have it (the honor system!). Are the majors ignoring illegal file-sharing networks and hoping the fans are honest people?

Major record companies are beginning to directly use P2P sites. Angwin, McBride, and Smith state that via the population of networks like ArtistDirect, they are flooding sites with fake files that include advertising from 3rd party companies “Hence the alliance between Jay-z and Coke. By inserting promotional material into the decoy files, and then planting those files prominently on file-sharing sites, record labels and other marketers turn what is now an anti-piracy tool, into an advertising medium” (Angwin, McBride, and Smith). Although flooding file sharing sites with fake files won’t be the sole reason major labels stay in charge of music, it is a way they have begun to fight back against P2P networks.

With a wider range of access to music globally, people are faced with the question, what is good? Just because we have so much accessible music doesn’t mean that it is all worth it. As I said before, all the Internet has provided is the ability to do things quicker, easier, and with some sense of anonymity. Take, for example, what the Internet has done for writing. Thousands of bloggers consider themselves ‘journalists’, many do about as much as read Yahoo! News headlines. Yet, some are credible, and do their research and so are worth checking out. The experience of music then has not changed; you just have to sift through more shit. P2P networks have changed how we get our music. They have given people the choice of buying a whole album or just the single. They entitle us with the ethical choice of paying for music or ‘stealing’ it. P2P networks have given the amateur musician a wider range of listeners and the facility to self-promote. While major record labels are losing the monopoly over our ears to the realm of amateur talent. Listeners are gaining a portion of control over the market of music. Is this then contributing to a better experience with music?

Music Tuned by the World

2006-12-30T10:31:00.000-08:00

Silje-Marie Salhus

The art`s function as a reflection of the world is not a new topic for discussion. One of the theorists who has written on this subject is R. Murray Schaefer who describes, in his book "Tuning of the world", how formal elements in musical compositions can be compared to the contemporary soundscapes. He draws a line between what happens in music development and tendencies in rest of the world, and uses the introduction of mechanical instruments and industrial sounds in the 40`s as an example. It is interesting to look at what is happening in society contemporarily to the development of the art and music in this way. What affects the artist and what is the art an expression of? One of the biggest changes of direction in music history is what is described as "the crisis of tonality", which happened in classical music between late 19th century and early 20th century (Adorno, Bloch, Lukacs). In this text, I want to look into this specific subject.

The rise of atonality was dramatic and I`m curious of what caused this. I will try to illuminate this specific change by focusing on one of the atonal movement`s leading figures, the austrian composer Albert Schoenberg, and the political situation in Europe at his time. "The sound of classical European music between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries was characterized by the system of tonal hierarchies "(Wikipedia, 'tonality'). "As ancient musicians developed the scale and melody a sense of "key" or "tonality" also developed" (Fink). "Tonality is a system of writing music according to certain hierarchical pitch relationships around a key "center" or tonic, thus establishing tonality as relational at its core (Wikipedia)." It "describes the relationships between the elements of melody and harmony-- tones, intervals, chords, scales, and the chromatic gamut; but particulary those types of relationship that are characterized as hierarchical such as that one of the elements dominates or attracts another" (Milne). Atonality describes music not conforming to this system, where the hierarchy of tonal centers are not the primary way to organize a work. While music without a tonal center had been written previously, for example Franz Liszt´s "Bagatelle sans tonalité" of 1885, it is with the 20th century that the term atonality began to be applied to pieces, particulary to the works written by Arnold Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School (Wikipedia, 'Atonality'). When talking about the crisis of tonality, these composers were the ones leading music in this direction.

"Historically, atonal music can be divided into two phases. The first phase is often described as "free atonality" or "free chromaticism" and involved the conscious attempt to avoid traditional diatonic harmony. After WW1, the second phase begun. This phase "was exemplified by attempts to create a systematic means of composing without tonality, most famously the twelve-tone technique; the method of composing with twelve tones" (Wikipedia 'Atonality').

Arnold Schoenberg was a key figure in the atonal movement and the inventor of the twelve-tone technique. He was born in Austria in 1874 and largely self-taught, taking counterpoint-lessons with the composer Alexander von Zemlinsky (Schoenberg Centre). He started to compose at an early age, and in his twenties he made a living of orchestrating operettas while composing tonal works such as the string sextet "Transfigured Night" (1899). Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler both recognized Schoenberg`s early significance as a composer. "Mahler even adopted Schoenberg as a protégé and continued to support him even when his style reached a point Mahler could no longer understand" (Collage New Music). Besides composing, Schoenberg also taught harmony, counterpoint and composition. Among his first students were Anton Webern and Alban Berg, who would become composers of a great importance themselves and later taking Schoenberg`s ideas even further. Schoenberg`s position in the community of contemporary music was strong, and his textbook from 1910 on harmony; "Harmonielehre" remains one of the most influential books on music theory (Collage New Music).

Schoenberg`s music changed distinctly. In 1908, composing "You lean against a silver willow", "his first piece without any reference at all to a key"(Wikipedia, 'Arnold Schoenberg'). The same year he completed one of his most revolutionary compositions, the String Quartet No 2, in which the first two movements use traditional key signatures, even though chromatic in colour, but where the final two movements daringly weaken the link with traditional tonality (Collage New Music).

The first World War disrupted Schoenberg`s development. He left many unfinished works and undeveloped "beginnings" because of the mandatory military service he had to serve. The war changed Europe, and it pushed Schoenberg even further as a composer. "After the war, he worked at evolving a means of order which would enable his musical texture to become simpler and clearer. this resulted in the "method of composition with twelve tones". In order to promote consistency and order in atonal composition Schoenberg adopted specific precepts for his system. "In this method of composition, the twelve pitches of the octave are regarded as equal, and no note or tonality is given the emphasis it occupied in classical harmony" (Wikipedia, 'Arnold Schoenberg'). The technique was founded by Schoenberg in 1921, and first described privately to his associates in 1923 (Wikipedia, '12-Tone-Technique'). The method was used during the next 20 years almost exclusively by the Second Viennese School, "the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils and close associates in early 20th century Vienna, where he lived and taught between 1903 and 1925" (Frisch 121). In the fifties, the technique became widely used, taken up by composers such as Boulez and Stravinsky. Some of these composers extended the technique to control aspects other than the pitches of notes, such as duration, method of attack and so on, thus producing serial music. Some even subjected class elements of music to the serial process (Wikipedia, '12-Tone-Technique').

The basis of the twelve-tone technique is the tone row, an ordered arrangement of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale. The principle behind twelve-tone music is that no one tone can be repeated until all eleven others in the set have also been heard. This way, the tones are interpreted in terms of their relation to each other, and not to any one key tone. This was what Schoenberg had in mind when he originally titled the system "Method of composing with twelve tones which are related only one with another" (Wikipedia, '12-tone technique'). The tone row chosen as the basis of the piece is called the prime series, and is notated as P0 in its original form. "Given the twelve pitch-classes of the chromatic scale, there are 12 (factorial 479.001.600) unique tone rows. When twelve-tone technique is strictly applied, a piece consists of statements of certain permitted transformations of the prime series (P). These statements may appear serially, or may overlap, giving rise to harmony" (Wikipedia, '12-tone technique'). Appearances of P0, the original tone-row, can be transformed in three basic ways: transposition up or down (Px), reversal in time (giving the retrograde (R)), and reversal in pitch (giving the inversion (I)) (Wikipedia, '12-tone technique'). The various transformations can be combined, and the combination of the retrograde and inversion transformations is known as the retrograde inversion (RI).

As it originally was invented, the twelve-tone technique is a very specific way of composing with many strict rules. " P, R, I and RI can each be started on any of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale, meaning that 47 permutations of the initial tone row can be used, giving a maximum of 48 possible tone rows. This is known as invariance. The forty-eight permutations can be represented concisely in a form of chart called a matrix. "When rigurously applied, the technique demands that one statement of the tone row must be heard in full before another can begin" (Kelley). "Consistently atonal treatment of the row requires that no notes be doubled at the octave, tonal melodic or harmonic elements (intervals) are to be avoided, and no note should be sustained to the point where it becomes a focal pitch" (Kelley). Still, there is a lot of freedom within the system, as "adjacent notes in the row can be sounded at the same time, and other aspects of music other than the pitch can be freely chosen by the composer"(Wikipedia, '12-tone technique'). There are also no rules about which tone rows should be used at which time, beyond them all being derived from the prime series (Wikipedia, '12-tone technique').

"To Schoenberg and his students, the purpose of twelve-tone technique was primarily avoidance of tonality through the systematic creation of a 'democracy of tones'. Experimental music without tonality prior to the development of the twelve-tone process seldom succeeded in offering enough musical cohesion to allow for movements of considerable length. Schoenberg's method solved this problem by offering the opportunity for the creation of musically significant and orderly structures that offer a piece both unity and variety. Finally, Schoenberg's twelve-tone procedure could even help the composer to avoid the traditional notions of 'theme' and 'development' that were inextricably linked with tonal composition, while offering twelve-tone music's own unique brand of both." (Wikipedia, '12-tone technique')

Schoenberg, commenting on his music of the time, stated: "Had times (before and after 1914) been "normal", then the music of our time would have been very different"(Wikipedia, 'Arnold Schoenberg'). This statement contains many clues about why he composed the music he did.

As mentioned, this was the time of "the crisis of tonality" in classical music, but that was not the only crisis at the time. The political situation in Europe was out of control and that was reflected in most parts of society. When the first world war broke out it was a consequence of the shots in Sarajevo in 1914. This was just "the last straw". The disruption had influenced large parts of Europe for the last hundred years. Power structures and alliances between countries changed in fast order. This lead to a Europe with a tense and uncertain atmosphere, and to draw a picture of the world that Schoenberg and his contemporaries were living in and which society their music was reflections of, this is a brief summary of the situation:

After Germany was united in 1850, the empire became one of the most powerful industrial nations in Europe. Germany demonstrated their new position when they won the war against France in 1870-71. Great Britain had controlled the oceans since the time of Napoleon. They intended to keep on having the power. The great British Empire included, among others, big colonies in Africa, Australia and Asia, and their intention was to maintain the balance of power on dry land in europe. Of course they were concerned about Germany´s new, strong position, especially because Germany started to build a large fleet (Howard 109). A method Great Britain used effectively to maintain their power was the way they chose sides in the wars that often arose in this time. Their strategy was to wait until they knew for sure what the result would be. Then they would take the losing country´s side and use their position to make sure that the winner did not get too powerful (Howard 111).

There were also other disturbances in Europe at the time. One of the reasons why things were so tense was because of the strong sense of nationalism that appeared in many european countries. National romanticism, which lead to a focus on and awareness of each nation's unique culture and history, had a strong influence in society in the last part of the 19th century. This lead to ideas about freedom and unity and those ideas did not make the situation any calmer. Russia used for instance the Balkan countries´ longing for an unique identity to expand and reach the ocean. "On the pretext that they would ”protect their slavic brothers" Russia went for their coastline (Strachan 218). The fact that Europe was influenced by many competing empires with nationalistic drives resulted in the countries splitting in two alliances: The triple-alliance that consisted of France, Russia and Serbia, and the triple-entent; Germany and Austria-Hungary (Howard 139). This is what was going on prior to the shots which murdered the heir to the Austrian empire, and parallel to atonality`s first phase in music. The atmosphere was tense and chaotic, and as Schoenberg put it, far from "normal".

Schoenberg`s music changed more rapidly pre-war, between 1901 and 1910, than any other time (Frisch). " After Wagner and mahler, classical music had reached something of an impasse. Tonality had been pushed as far as it could conceivably go. It became clear that additional insight could not be gained with further variations upon principles of harmony and counterpoint that had already been stretched into meaninglessness"(Vydyanath). Schoenberg`s "interest for atonality that resulted in the 12-tone technique came as a result of him feeling that the saturation of added notes in harmony had reached a stage when there was no meaningful difference between consonanse and dissonance. For a time his music became very consentrated and elliptical, as he could see no reason to repeat and develop" (Vydyanath).

There were many composers working with the same subject at this time. Schoenberg was not the only one creating systematic use of the chromatic scale, he was just by far the most influential. Actually, at the exact same time and in the same country, Josef Mathias Hauer also developed a similar system using unordered hextachords, but with no connection to Schoenberg (Wikipedia, 'Arnold Schoenberg') The hunger for something new was reflected in many different areas of society. "At this time, many intellectuals felt that thought had developed to a point of no return, and that it was no longer possible honestly to go on repeating what had been done before" (Wikipedia, 'Arnold Schoenberg'). "This is the same time as abstract painting and psychoanalysis was developed in the western world"(Wikipedia, 'Arnold Schoenberg'). We can also find other examples of artists talking about breakdown and longing for renewal, Kafka´s novel "Metamorphosis" is one of them. This was a general tendency. It was not something that only happened in the world of classical music, and this fact leads to the idea that the political and social situation around the war also effected the classical music, and had an important role in pushing music towards atonality.

If we in the light of the general situation look at the way this music was constructed, it is possible to draw lines from the formal elements of the atonal music to the historical events. When Schaefer is talking about the relationship between music and soundscape, he points at how music can be used as a guide to study shifts in aural habits and perception because it "forms the best record of past sounds". These shifts in aural habits and perception are most likely a consequence of the time and society, and so on the "crisis of tonality" is interesting. Regarding what another important theorist, Theodor W. Adorno, writes about sound and familiarity, the atonal movement could represent chaos and anxiety. In his essay "On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening", he states that "to like a piece is almost the same as recognize it". One of the principles behind the atonal movement was exactly to avoid recognition and repetition. There is no tonal center to be located, neither any references. The result is that this music tends to be perceived as dislikable, messy, chaotic and loaded with tension. Schaefer is using the hunting-horn motifs of 18th century- symphonies as an example of how music reflects society.

Would it be that strange if we took it a little further and said that the music can reflect the atmosphere of society the same way? The chaotic situation in pre-war Europe, as described, was parallel to the chaos that the crisis of tonalty caused in atonality`s early stage. Europe`s longing for a new start fits Schoenberg´s idea of "avoid the traditional notions of "theme" and "development" that were inextrictably linked with tonal composition" and so on give music a new start. When it comes to the twelve-tone technique, it was most of all an attempt to organize atonality in a way that made sense. This focus on organizing what can seem random and chaotic is interesting as it doesn`t just appear with such a great importance just right after WW1. After WW2, the 12-tone- technique again became "widely used, taken up by composers such as Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Luigi Dallapiccola and, after Schoenberg`s death, Igor Stravinsky" (Wikipedia, '12-tone technique').

The question about where art comes from has no simple answer. There are always many factors involved when music is composed, the art is usually an expression both coloured by external influences and the artist`s internal life. I believe that there can be a connection between the way music is constructed and the general tendency of that specific time, and that the crisis of tonality can be used as an example of this. Around WW1, things evolved simultaneously. As the more or less stabile constructions of the European societies fell apart, so did the standards music had been constructed on for hundreds of years. As Europe had to find a way to organize the new, post-war world, the composers had to figure out a way to organize the new world of music represented by atonality. The outside world does play a role, tuning the music history.

WORKS CITED

Ardorno, Theodor W. "The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture"- On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening". Brunner-Routledge, 2001.

Adorno,Theodor, Bloch,Ernst, Lukacs,Georg: "Music and Society in the 20th Century" International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, Volume 1, Number 2 December 1987, http://www.springerlink.com/content/h74u420jl3874k55/

The Arnold Schoenberg Centre: "Biography". The Arnold Schoenberg Centre, October 24th, 2006. http://www.schoenberg.at/2_center/history_e.htm

Collage New Music: "Arnold Schoenberg". October 14th 2006. http://www.collagenewmusic.org/schoenberg.html

Fink, Bob. "A further note on Early Harmony- The Role of the Drone and counterpoint in the Development of Harmony". Appendix to Orgigin of Music, 3rd Edition 1980. October 14th 2006. http://www.greenwych.ca/drone.htm

Frisch, Walter and Bard Music Festival: Schoenberg and his World". Princeton University Press August 16, 1999.

Howard, Michael. "The First World War". Simon and Schuster (Trade Division), 2003.

Kelley, Robert. "Introduction to Post-functional Music Analysis: Set Theory, The Matrix, and the Twelve-Tone Method". 2002. November 2nd 2006.

Milne, Andrew: "What is Tonality?" The Tonal Centre. November 29th 2006. http://www.andymilne.dial.pipex.com/

Schaefer, R. Murray. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Destiny Books Nov. 1993

Simms, Bryan R. "The Atonal Music of Arnold Schoenberg 1908-1923". Oxford University Press, June 25 2003.

Strachan, Hew. "The First World War: A New Illustrated Story". Oxford University Press, 2003.

Vydyanath, Manasi: "Classical music from 1904 Vienna to today`s Chicago". Chicago Maroon- the independent student newspaper of the university of Chicago. May 20, 2005. November 3rd, 2006. http://maroon.uchicago.edu/voices/articles/2005/05/20/classical_music_from.php

Wikipedia

12-tone technique: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_tone_technique

Arnold Schoenberg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoenberg

Atonality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonality

Tonality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonality

Hip Hop and Black Culture

2006-12-30T10:30:00.000-08:00

Remy Choi

What is music? In the dictionary, music is a form of art and entertainment or other human activity that involves organized and audible sounds and silence. At least, music means to me sharing every emotion I got now all the time in my life. I can take comfort from the music and be cheered up from the message by hearing all different types of sound with lyrics. Music is not just background noise but it has played an integral part in our lives. Throughout listening the music, we can conjectures the trend of the time and grasp the situation in the changing world. Music can be one of the best ways to study the culture and the history of each other country. There are countless types of music around the world but I would like to focus on hip-hop related black culture and the effect of Eminem called "White Negro" on Rap and black culture.

There is an unforgettable story that I touched Hip-Hop for the first time, Black Culture, when I just got here, Canada. Everything seemed to me new and I was so excited to get a new world. Canada is a multiracial nation which means I can come in touch with all different cultures and different people at the same time. Not long ago, when I lived in Burnaby, I was having brunch in a restaurant with my family, sitting near five African-American boys. They looked aged about fifteen to seventeen. Five of them wore exactly same style, covered with huge size of black clothes and flashing jewelry. Those accessories looked a little bit too much for that young age. I had not started to go to school yet, but I knew it was on Monday afternoon and it's time for them to stay at school. I assumed they were skipping school and they were extremely loud and unruly. They didn't care rest of people in the restaurant at all. It was hard to see much healthy "black community" there. All of them were listening music and even I could hear what they were listening clearly.

After repeatedly warning the boys to stop keep quiet, the manager finally told them to leave. Of course, they ignored her until she called a male security guard. For me, it was the first time to see black people and it was not such a nice chance to get the first good impression from them. The boys were not monsters, but they seemed to consider themselves exempt from public norms of behavior. What struck me most was how the boys' music provided them with a continuing soundtrack to their antisocial behavior. At that time, English was totally new to me, but I could see the different ways to speak between those five of them and just people outside. I felt that rap was a decoration in their conversation. That was the first step to be interested in rap, Hip-Hop and Black Culture.

Hip-Hop is a cultural movement that began in the late 1970's in the United States that has mainly African-American roots. It is also, historically, an expression of an opposed race in the U. S. and an answer to their position in the larger, “White" public sphere. In my knowledge, Black slaves coming from Africa expressed their wish to be free and happy in their life by singing a song which is now called Hip-Hop. As lyrics cover with their hardships and pains, we could see their standard of living and understand their feeling by music, Hip-Hop. It could be possibly shown with a negative point of view when I saw the five of Africa-American boys because they have nothing to hide or affect to be faithful as Hip-Hop. Back in the bad old days, blacks often complained with some justification that the media too often depicted blacks simple as uncivilized. Today, even as television and films depict blacks at all levels of success, hip-hop sends the message that blacks are uncivilized. It has played a leading role to show a true perception of blacks.

In fact, Hip-Hop is not the kind of music which has elegant lyrics or romantic atmosphere such as Jazz or Classic, nothing pretty or sweet. It exploded into popular consciousness at the same time as the music video, and rappers were images the ugly world portrayed in rap lyrics. Video features rap stars flashing jewelry, driving luxurious cars, weapons, angrily gesticulating at the camera, scantily clad women and criminal behavior. Everyone will notice the difference even at first sight that Hip-Hop is special and distinct. However, how come do many rappers wouldn't have a powerfully negative effect upon whites' conception of black people? How do people break down even the invisible structures of society racism by dealing with Hip-Hop? I believe that Hip-Hop has resulted in an ironic reversal. People not only know the fact that it uses a harsh language to express the plainspoken message but they also concede that Hip-Hop does something which people could not do exploding their expression of dissatisfaction toward politics and the world daringly from rappers with words. It makes listeners to be pleased and gives feeling satisfaction throughout indirect experience by rappers. It could be one of reasons to excuse vulgar words and accept the success of Hip-Hop.

According to the research paper, Peterson states that rap is the racial, the gender/sexual, and social location. First, rap is black cultural expression, not co-opted whiteness. White rappers immediately generate questions of cultural property and appropriation. Next, rap is male dominated. Finally, rap is from the streets, the music of the underclass essentially opposed to enjoying a bourgeois suburban life. However, I do not agree with all three of them called central semantic dimensions of rap authenticity. First of all, it is an undeniable fact that rap and Hip-Hop were grown up in the black culture. However, some white artists for example Eminem, he breaks the rules and the boundaries of the influence and acceptance of Black Culture, and more specifically Hip-Hop , on White. He is not only influenced by Black Culture, but that he might as well be considered black as "White Negro", a white person who exhibits naturally Black qualities. The popularity of Eminem in today's rap culture is undeniable. He show selling 285,000 copies on first day. Since his entry into a predominately African-American art form, Eminem has been thrust into the spotlight and has done more than just live up to expectations, gaining countless loyal fans. He is noted for his ability to change his vocal pace and style multiple times within one song without losing the beat, and has been praised for his skill in alliteration and assonance. Eminem is a Hip-Hop head of the truest form. This still does not change the fact that race is a crucial question that exists in America today. White involvement in black art form is immediately problematic. Eminem's authenticity is disputable because he is white and rap is usually considered a black art form. I believe that people are not just white or black. If a white kid growing up in a predominantly Black neighborhood, he can feel more at home among Blacks simply because that is the environment with which they are familiar. Like all the things, Hip-Hop as a cultural movement is not static. It changes and the people are influenced by it. Hip-Hop is seen as synonymous with being black. The dominant force in the culture has been that African-Americans, but as the years have progressed, there have been others who have gotten involved and made the culture all inclusive by showing that it has touched them in some way. More to the point, Hip-Hop is not "Black" music, since most of its buyers are white. That whites buy more Hip-Hop recordings than blacks do is hardly surprising, given that whites vastly outnumber blacks nationwide. In my opinion, I believe that the reason why Black Culture could be introduced into Whites more rapidly and played an influential role for them was the power of White artists. People would be easily sympathized with what the White rappers try to say and what they want to express throughout it, because they are comrade.

There are several notable female artists that have most certainly contributed to the artistic growth of rap music and Hip-Hop culture in general. It is harder for women to get a voice within the world of rap music that their male counterparts. Thus their skills and talents were missed or invisible. Especially in Asia, women have been treated discriminatingly in the gender issue between man and woman in various ways until today. However, women everywhere are invading the spheres of men and women have always been a part of Hip-Hop culture and a significant part of rap music. Rap is not male dominated. Also Hip-Hop can be used as a bridge between the streets and the world of academics. I do not mean it is from the streets, but I'm saying now rap is used for everyone who wants to express or criticize or explode their feelings even from the streets. It also can say bridge between Hip-Hop and politics. Hip-Hop has been created by working class in the past, and now it is a music that can be shared with everyone. I think it is warmly welcomed in the lower class or working class rather than the person of high standing who do not understand how the world is unfair to lowly person. Up to present, commoners hold a large majority of population in the world so Hip-Hop could appeal to much more people these days. That is why I could say Hip-Hop is from the streets.

Every country has its own culture depending on many factors and it is the symbol of the State. Whether it could be Black or White Culture, the most important thing to remind is to comprehend the significance of their superiority and accept the reality with respect. This way of thinking would help the all countries to develop and make them wealthy both mentally and financially. Though origin of the Hip-Hop is Blacks, any other people in the all over the world can involve and participate for making it wealthier in order to share and learn awesome culture together. Also it would play an important role to make the world into one.

Futurism, Situationism, Cage and Einsturzende Neubauten

2006-12-30T10:14:00.000-08:00

Keith Wecker

Situationist practices first evolved in the early 1950s as a complete movement. Situationists were those who took it upon themselves to theorize and partake in the creation of a situation. The situation itself can be defined in several ways. It could be a reaction to a situation already in progress, it could come about as a spur of the moment action, or it can be theorized and then put into practical use. With the latter possibility the situation is as controlled as possible, with as little left to chance as possible. Prominent Situationist composers and musicians have pushed boundaries and personal limits of what can be done. The most contemporary and relevant example of Situationist practice is Einsturzende Neubauten. The Neubauten are based in Berlin and have many ties to Situationists’ and their predecessors, the Futurists. I will use examples of the Futurists and John Cage to prove if the Neubauten is Situationism.

Luigi Russolo was one of the main composers in the Futurist movement. Along with the rest of the Futurists Russolo was witness to Pratellas' famous L'Aviatore Dro opera. Even though he isn’t mentioned to the extent of Russolo, Pratella had joined the Futurists in 1910. From reading the letter sent to Pratella by Russolo, it seems as if the opera they witnessed in1914 was the first grand scale use of noise the futurists experienced. I believe this is a first run at Situationism. The Futurists goal was to create a new experience with the new sounds they discovered. It could be applied to the definition of the Situationist movement “the goal of situationism is to theorize or put to practical activity of constructed situations" (wikipedia.org). This was used as a shock tactic to wake up the people who took in the arts to the Futurist ideology. They wanted to throw away the old and start with a clean slate. Their famous quote of "the only complete hygiene is war" (Futurist Manifesto) makes it inevitable they would reject all things classical and create their own.

While the Futurists made their own instruments and invented new compositional techniques, the rejection was not absolute, as classical instruments and venues were used through Futurist performances. When you are participating in atonal or sounds that could be classified as harsh it takes a person with a tolerance to listen to it. There is much beauty to be found with in atonal music and sounds, but it requires a more selective ear. With this in mind perhaps it is best to create a situation inside a historically recognized venue. Historically recognized isn’t necessarily an old venue, but one which it is known for consistently having shows. If you are wishing to generate a violent reaction in someway, then the Futurists shows were Situationist. They would lie about who was performing and then surprise the audience with a feast of ‘music’ many people would not tolerate at that time.

Being in a venue in Rome in 1914 and hearing noise emulate the sounds of the industrial factories that had developed in the last 50 years was not an enjoyable Sunday out on the town. The example is when the Futurists published posters about a famous orchestra and singer performing at a hall. They lied about who was appearing, and it really was a Futurist performance, full of noise and insanity happening all around. It was much easier to get away with that because since there was no one to check via the internet or telephone, so you could easily dupe the owners and attendees that said people are playing. Regulars of the opera and the orchestra showed up in their Sunday best and got their world turned on its ear. It was Situationist because they created a scenario that was dependant upon, but not entirely, how the audience would react. The Futurists theorized how to announce their intent and brought it to life in a constructed situation. Today it would be the equivalent of telling everyone that James Blunt was playing a 150 person capacity bar, and when everyone turns up they have to deal with Wolf Eyes.

The most recognizable name in Situationist music would be John Cage. In the early stages of what was to become situationism, his events never strayed too far from the actual venue either, or a building designated as a venue. His work and teachings run across a gamut of movements and styles. His work is considered important parts of modernist composition and experimental music, as well as stylistically connected to the Fluxus and Situationalist movements (wikipedia.org). John Cage’s inventiveness with retooling instruments, prepared pianos for example, and using non-instruments for making music, differently tuned radios et al, was a continuation of what the Futurists had started. While still situated in 'the venue', everything was being done to turn all the rules on their ear, both ears preferably. It seemed as if there was no limit to what could be discovered. Cage had lived by his father’s words of '’if someone tells you it can't be done, you know what to do’'(wikipedia.org). When you get to a point of so much having been conquered in terms of artistic experimentation that one needs new colors to paint with.

The Futurists felt the same way 30 years before the Situationist movement when Russolo built his Intoner machines. The need to get rid of what has come before and start fresh is a compelling idea. Ideally it would be that when the history is erased there are no traditions left. If you could delete your history then the chalkboard of life is just waiting for your first mark. You could redefine notes, what a piano is, how to play the piano, et al. It is hard to imagine getting to a place with no predisposed knowledge, no starting point. I believe that is an interesting parallel to Situationist theory. The goal is to theorize and then put into practice a controlled situation is that it would be different from the previous event and the next event. The goal that spurred on the Situationists was to create new situations. I personally don’t think they were considering the abolishment of tradition in the way that the Futurists did, but parallels can be drawn.

John Cages most recognizable piece is a Situationist piece called ‘4:33’. He composed this piece of 3 movements in which the pianist gets on stage and moves up the key guard of the piano. At the end of every movement the pianist would close the guard again. No actual notes were played but the sounds that made the piece were those of the audience getting more and more restless. This composition also fell into the category of Aleatoric music, or music that is mostly left up to chance. To use the ‘4:33’ as an example John Cage did not know how the audience would react or what they would say. Cage composed the duration of the piece as well as the silence of the piano but left the rest to chance (wikipedia.org). The reason I enjoy this particular piece is how it is equal parts Situationist and Aleatoric. Aleatoric music is when certain parts of a composition are left to chance. I feel that the next best example of this would be Einsturzende Neubauten, the proto-industrial group from West Berlin.

Formed in 1979 in East Berlin, they currently still function as a band. They were created out of the anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian stance that East Berlin had at the time. The cause of this was the cold war situation and the Berlin Wall; it was viewed as too risky to invest in East Berlin during those years. I believe that the Neubauten is based upon modernist ideologies because of how their ideas inform their function. The prevailing mood of East Berlin was incredibly off kilter with the lack of enforcement, the squatting and a prevailing tone that the apocalypse was just around the corner. (Dax pg11). The Neubauten have similarities to both the Futurists and Situationists.

Regarding the audience Einsturzende Neubauten have a very similar stance to the Futurists. In the early days the Neubauten wanted to play anti-music; something that was not accepted as music and would shock the audience (Dax pg 55). The Futurists were concerned with destroying what music was and had been up until them. There was an urgency to create something new through destruction. Einsturzende Neubauten translates to “collapsing new buildings”. The first ever show of the Neubauten was them playing in a four foot high space underneath the autobahn. It was just the singer, Blixia Bargeld, on guitar and FM Einheit on bricks. The Neubauten defiantly have upped their Situationist aesthetic over the course of their years. They have played on a stretch on top of the autobahn, played in the Nuremberg Hall, did soundtrack accompaniment for ‘Metropolis’ on a boat in a harbor, and blew up fridges for a performance in the Mojave desert (Dax pg124). When you are playing music that is abrasive and as assaulting as the Neubauten, the artistic side of it seems to be lost by a large percent of the listening population. Not that I believe that John Cage is more melodic or of a higher intelligence, but his were easier to see as art.

Cage and the Neubauten both were pushers of what can be done. Their aesthetics are quite different but both are trying to get into the same place. Cage was into using non-instruments such as out of tune radios for performances. He was also in to alteration of musical instruments. The most famous example of this would be his prepared piano. His first attempt was with a metal plate resting upon the strings of a grand piano. He was intrigued by the sound and took it further. In a prepared piano bits of rubber, metal or glass are placed in the strings of a piano, almost always a grand piano. The grand piano is optimal because of the easier accessibility to the strings and the superior tone of a grand piano.

The Neubauten were put in the position of having to improvise with the trash they found in the street because of their poverty. The only instruments they didn’t make were electric guitars, effects pedals and Digital Audio Tape machines for backing tracks when required. The Neubauten consistently talk about the love of pure Industrial noise, the mechanization of the drones and beats that would emminate from the factories. The Neubauten started as an aleatoric band. They would just play one beat for as long as and hard as possible. There was no song structure so it was all made up on stage. They were inducing this situation upon the crowd where anything could happen. There was a show in 1987 for an opening at an art institution where they attempted to dig a tunnel from the space to underneath Buckingham Palace (Dax pg 219). They attempted to either see how long it would take to dig under the palace or until how long they could get away with it for. The digging went on for over an hour but did not get very far.

I believe the defunct magazine Situationist Internationale would have declared Einsturzende Neubauten a member of the contemporary movement of Situationists. With their goal of creating an environment of unlistenable music and a confrontational stance towards the audience I see the Neubauten as a continuation in the Situationist movement. The band is asking questions with the sounds they are making. They are putting the viewer in a specific frame to see the reaction. The response of the viewer helps the band fine tune their thesis and informs what they do for the next performance. While they do owe a debt to John Cage and the Futurists, the Neubauten have taken the form of Situationist theory and mangled it into something dangerous, beautiful and confrontational.

WORKS CITED

No Beauty Without Danger, Einsturzende Neubauten, 2005, EN Publishing, Berlin

Liebeslieder, Einsturzende Neubauten, StudioK7, 1995, 98 min, DVD, Germany

WEBSITES CITED

‘Francesco Balilla Pratella’ – Biography, Online Museum, 2003, 1. paragraph, www.museumonline.at/2003/projekt_futurismus/eng

‘Luigi Russolo’ – Online Encyclopedia, Nov. 03, 2006, 4 paragraphs, www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Russolo

‘John Cage’ – Biography, Online Encyclopedia, date unknown, 10 paragraphs, www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage

Eyesight to the Blind

2006-12-30T10:08:00.000-08:00

Fernanda Robledo

“Cocksucker Blues” was my first real introduction to The Rolling Stones. In one of my photography classes, we were looking at the work of Robert Frank, a very well known American photographer and film director. We watched “Cocksucker Blues”, Frank’s documentary of the Stones while they are on their 1972 tour. The film was/is very shocking since it shows the band doing lots of drugs and having promiscuous sex, but also very real because it shows the loneliness and gloom of life on the road. "It's a fucking good film, Robert, but if it shows in America we'll never be allowed in the country again." (Jagger). My second and most formal introduction to the Stones happened on Saturday November 25th of the present year at around 8:00 p.m. when I received a phone call from a friend who was wondering if I wanted to go see The Rolling Stones. I replied with an: “I don’t know…maybe…” I have never listened to the Stones before, I do not own any of their albums nor know any of their lyrics, and I only know a little about some of the band members might from rumors concerning a Mars bar or the tabloids talking about them bunking their heads. Probably by now I am being hardly judged and even hated for my musical ignorance. After making sure that the ticket was offered to me for free, I then said: “What the heck, I rather be out there than stuck here at home writing essays…” so I went. We arrived at BC Place a few minutes before the band came on stage; we were welcomed to our seats by big red fireworks and the smell of pot. The place was packed and as the band started playing, the crowd went wild. I looked around me and I realized that this crowd was a total mix; young, old, yuppies, hippies, hardcore rockers, eccentrics, etc., everybody was there. As I was watching the older couple rocking and copying Mick Jagger’s moves I realized that this was history, that this band was bringing together all those generations that they have been inspiring with their music since the 60’s. I had never experienced anything like that before, it was a very interesting phenomenon. After that concert I started thinking about why The Stones are still so popular, what is it about their music, their songs that people are so attracted to them. I really wanted to know what was going on in the 60’s because people talk about this era as a time of great change in the world, as a time of liberation. When I think of the 60’s all I can think about is hippies, psychadelic tie-dyes, bell-bottoms, drugs and lots of sex but I know that there was something much deeper going on, so here we go….

The hippies or flower children were the youth of the 60’s who were ideas of freedom, happiness, hope, revolution and change. Hippie culture rejected the typical American 50’s consumer society who went to church, lived in the suburbs, whose recreational time was spent sitting at homewatching sitcoms and whose married couples were sleeping in separate beds. I mean, we do have to agree that that kind a life sounds pretty boring, who would not want to rebel against it. British youth was also reacting against it society because they were pretending that World War II hadnever happened, that everything was and had always been alright.

Both British and American youth started changing and because they were opposing to war and the ideals that older generations had set. Music was a aid to create that change, and in this case it was through rock and roll. Apart from just being a musical style, rock and roll became a way of life, a language a fashion style, all characterized by ‘attitude’. From the very beginning, rock and roll has always been associated with youth, rebellion, sex, and drugs. “Rock treats the problems of puberty, it draws on and articulates the psychological and physical tensions of adolescence, it accompanies the moment when boys and girls learn their repertoire of public sexual behaviour” (Frith and McRobbie 371). In the 1950’s rock and roll was a synonym for disruption and the ability to shock older generations became part of the allure of the music to young people. Everybody remembers Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956 when he first swiveled his hips in public. It seemed that in the first few years of the 1960’s that rebelious spirit had been tammed but within a few years rock and roll reclaimed its power and it was coming back at full force, and it would have social, cultural and political consequences. Rock and roll wanted to change the world. “This desire begins with the demand to live not as an object butas a subject of history⎯to live as if something actually depended on one’s actions⎯and that demand opens onto a free steet” (Marcus, On Record 5-6). The parents of this generation had fought to regain peace, prosperity and security but in this fight equality and justice had been lost. The young generations, known as the ‘Baby Boomers’ started questioning the politics of their government. “Hippies were important because it was only through stepping out of society that people were abletolookat it objectively-to see what was wrong with it, to see how they’d like it to change” (Miles 10). Rock and roll was doing it too, in particular folk music with Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary whose songs talked about peace and civil rights. Without them, Bob Dylan’s songs would have never been heard. While he was in New York, he started writing about racial suffering and the threat of nuclear apocalypse. He inspired people with his songs. “He pointed out problems, hypocrisy, suffering, and expressed his personal feelings of outrage and compassion in so forceful a manner that listeners came to share those feelings, to find them within themselves. This makes Dylan not a prophet but a leader, an agent for change in a society that did not know it was awaiting his arrival” (Townsend).

This rock explosion was not just happening in the U.S. but also in Britain. From the American music market point of view, the “British Invasion” began overnight in 1964, but in England there had already been an American Invasion for many years. “In England-catching the reverberations of the jazz milieu of Miles Davis and Jack Kerouac-the youth scene had acquired the status of a mammoth sub cultural class, which was the by-product of a post war population top-heavy with people under the age of eighteen” (Gilmore 67). Liverpool, England gave birth to a four-piece group called The Beatles in 1962. It took The Beatles a year to transform and redefine British pop culture and they did the same with American culture after their arrival in the U.S with ‘Love me Do’. The Rolling Stones became very popular at that time with their first major song ‘Satisfaction’. Every single young kid heard these lyrics and went wild. Mick Jagger became the James Dean of the sixties; the band personified rebellion in their music, attitude, and appearance. The rock lifestyle has always been associated with sex and drugs, and actually during the mid 1960’s drug use became identified with rock culture but certainly, it was not the first time drugs had been used for artistic recreation. Drugs gained popularity and musicians were promoting experimentation which may have influenced the use of drugs with the youth of that generation. “Getting high started being seen as a way of understanding deeper truths and sometimes as a way of deciphering coded pop songs. Along with music and politics, drugs were seen as an agency for a better world, or at least a shortcut to enlightment or transcendence” (Gilmore 70). When the Beatles started publicly accepting their use of marihuana, many fans followed. The rumor says that, apparently it was Bob Dylan Dylan who introduced them to drugs during his 1964 tour of England. “One of the great things about early pot was the sheer hysteria , the laughs. This could appear very, very funny, hilariously so” (McCartney).

The dream for equality, harmony and tolerance did not last long, the Vietnam war exploded and young troops were sent to fight it. Consequently, music became darker and more troubled. Plenty of artists like The Doors, Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop and the Stooges were totally open about using their music as a force of rebellion to shock audiences. Music in the late 1960’s was about doubt and fearing the possibility of another World War that would completely destroy the planet. 1968 was a big year for the world. “Martin Luther King was murdered on April 4th on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee” (Wikipedia). Two months later, “on June 6th, Robert Kennedy was assassinated a few moments after delivering a speech celebrating his victory at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Califronia” (Wikipedia). Dreams and the dreamers were slowly desintegrating; The Beatles made moremusic but the band desintegrated shortly after. A year later, The Rolling Stones lost band member, Brian Jones.

There was nothing greater than to end the decade with a massive concert, ‘Woodstock Music and Arts Fair’. The concert was held in a farm in Bethel, New York from August 15th to 18th. The show was attended by over 500,000 people, most of them got in for free. The weekend was rainy, everything was overcrowded, and the people that were at the concert had to share food, alcoholic beverages, and drugs. “There were a lot of people coming together to break society's rules while dancing to some inner prompting in order to get closer to some higher truth that's a pattern that unites the Civil Rights marches and the Anti-War protests and the student sit-ins and the rock festivals” (Railton). Some of the many performers at Woodstock were: Richie Havens, The Fish, Sweetwater, Ravi Shankar, Joan Baez, Carlos Santana, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Creedence Clear Water, The Who, Joe Cocker, Ten Years After, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Sha-na-na, Jimi Hendrix, among others. “Woodstock was not a wake. It was a confused, chaotic founding of something new, something our world must now find a way to deal with” (Marcus, Woodstock 56).

Rock in the 1960’s showed that it was capable of uniting masses for important causes that could help bring change in the realm of politics, society, etc., even if it was through chaos and rebellion. “The 1960’s proved that rock is anything but a trivial music; it does have impact, and at its worthiest, it still aims to threaten, to draw boundaries, to defy, and to win young people over to its view and ethos” (Gilmore 77). Music now a days is so different form what it was then, messages are no longer profound, with this, I am not saying that music has to be profound to be good, but it when music has a deeper meaning people seem to appreciate it more. Now a days everything just seems so fake and plastic, it all has become about mass media and consumerism, becoming rich and famous. So where have all the talented people gone? I know that there is talent out there but it is hard to find amongst all this crap. The main ingredient in music in the 60’s was rebellion, and it is still here but people are using it in a different way like exploiting their bodies in order to get their 10 minutes of fame. Will pop music die just like rock music is said to have died in order to start a newer, truer, better musical style? I do not know the answer to that question but you never know; at least people are starting with fashion, people are adopting back the 70’s so maybe change might occur in the music industry as well. Hey at least the annoying teen bands are out of the map, that is improvement just right there.

Works Cited

Frith, Simon and Angela McRobbie. “Rock and Sexuality” On record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word. New York: Pantheon Books, 1990. 371-389.

Gilmore, Mikal. “The Sixties”. Rolling Stone: The decades of rock and roll. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2001. 65-77.

Greil, Marcus. Lipstick Traces. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989.

---ed. “The Woodstock Festival”. 20 Years of Rolling Stone: What a long strange trip it’s been. Ed. Jann S. Wenner. New York: Friendly Press Inc., 1987. 49-56.

Jagger Mick. “Cocksucker Blues”. January 2003. http://www.16beavergroup.org/monday012703.htm

Robert F. Kennedy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kennedy

Martin Luther King,Jr. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_luther_king

Miles, Barry. Hippie. New York: Sterling Publishing Inc, 2004.

Rialton, Stephen. Psychedelic ‘60’s: Introduction. February 1999. http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/sixties/intro.html

Townsend, David N. “Changing Times.” Rock n’ Roll Culture and Ideolgy. 1997. http://www.dntownsend.com/Site/Rock/3change.htm

The Authenticity of Remastered Music and the Changed Experience of Hearing

2006-12-30T10:05:00.000-08:00

Stephanie Fink

Listening to recorded music today has a much different quality of sound than when recording was originally invented; the way we hear and listen to music created during the digital age is specified to a cleaner electronic recording, and has been stripped of any evidence of its history, and early century charms. It was Technology who decided the rules that music would live by and the way we would hear it, and with the invention of new playback systems and recording tools, it has changed the act of listening to music and the experience of the sound so radically that most of the allure and character of original recordings have now been removed as a noise purification process.

Throughout the history of recording, one of the main goals of every new playback device has been to alleviate the listener of distractions, or ‘surface noise’, from the music. Each new means of recording carries with it certain peculiarities that define the era it was recorded in: the sputter of the needle on the record, the hum of the cassette, the room tone of acoustic recording, etc. I wonder what is lost when these completed recordings converted to the digital age; taken out of their element and rearranged to suit modern sound. How does this affect how we experience the music, and the original intention of that experience? What happens to the original impression when the sounds of time and nostalgia have been removed? I believe that when the music changes, so do our reactions and attractions to it. We connect with it differently, and in most cases, we are unknowingly affected in a different manner than if we had heard it in its original form, because our intellectual associations with its signifiers are lost. Music in its original form will never have the same atmosphere and authenticity that it did before it was interfered with, perhaps with the exclusion of music that is altered as a necessary repair, for example sound that is transferred from an aged, brittle, master recording to a CD archive in order to preserve the music. There is definitely a line to be crossed, and in most cases it is exceeded, particularly with respect to compositions that are remastered to new formats.

The first sound recording was a barely audible recording of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on Dec 6th 1877 by Thomas Edison. Although there had been many attempts before this time to record sound, this was the first successful effort on Edison’s invention, the tinfoil cylinder phonograph (Schoenherr). Since then, recording devices have strived to have less ‘surface noise’, and an even sound. Remastering in today’s times is delegated the chore of creating a finer sound quality from master copies, most of which carry the tin-can sound of their recording abilities, as well as the hisses and pops created by the player. Because of this, most remastered music has been removed from all of its original quirks, not only due to technological advances throughout the century, but also preconceived notions of what true sound (absent of this ‘noise’) should be and how we should hear it. It is presupposed what kind of sound we’re going to get when we buy a 78, and depending on our player it may have more of the sweet hum and haw of un-tampered noise than others. When I listen to cylinders on my grandfather’s Edison Gramophone, I don’t expect anything but a treble drenched croon, and when I listen to records on my father’s jukebox I hear record hiss and the sounds of the needle wearing on the vinyl, because these are the probabilities of their mediums. This expectation and identification of music has evolved radically over time and as a result whenever we hear these sounds sampled in modern recordings, for example, record crackle on Christina Aguilera’s album “Back to Basics” and on Portishead’s self titled album, we know it for certain as harkening back to a specific era in music as opposed to inabilities in today’s technological devices.

Different types of processes have over the decades tried to capture sound with a live and pure-to-the-sound result, but have failed in comparison to the digital audio file and the CD (Compact Disc). In today’s recordings, sound is transferred clean with little or none of the medium’s surface noise (which is a characteristic of pretty much all other music players: cylinder, record or cassette) and now with the scarcity of production in those mediums, we now have CD’s and mp3’s bearing the spotless contemporary insignia of a more-perfect technology instead of the noticeable crackles and purrs of previous devices. Tinfoil phonograph, cylinder, graphophone, gramophone, record discs (rubber, brass, wax, plastic, shellac, and vinyl), reel to reel, cassette (which has many of the same audible qualities that records have: cassette hum, hum of the cassette player) etc, have all worked towards achieving the silence of the CD or mp3 file, and the longevity in quality of the medium without age and use deterioration.

There are several factors that determine the noise that each system emits, such as the machine and the medium, the design of the objects, and the space of the recording; be it acoustic of otherwise. Early music recorders were influenced by the shape and form of the players, which characterized the way the sound was heard. When the technology of recording changed from acoustic to electric in 1925, the sound of the recordings changed the way we take notice of recorded music. It focused the ear more specifically on the tune as opposed to the whole environment, and muffled the act of playing music, being recorded in a space, and the sound of the machine.

Now considered unpleasant to the majority of consumers, surface noise no longer has a place in modern recording as there is no place for it in modern playback devices. With this result comes the dilemma of medium transference and how much to change in the process of converting for the newer medium. With the popularity of the CD (and the need to re-release previously recorded albums to this new format) often comes the task of repairing worn or delicate music in the process. It seems that most of the time in this process, instead of having the initiative of restoration in the forefront of the operation, that idea gets muddled in the recovery process. What we end up with are old recordings on CD that are released as “remastered”, which sound much different than the original, not in changed notes but in changed ambience of the sound. We see this all the time in music, anywhere from 1920’s Jazz recordings like Louis Armstrong’s Dixieland albums and earlier, from the Dead Boys first record in 1977 to lots of albums made recently in the 1980’s: Madonna, Elvis Costello, the Ramones, Talking Heads, etc. Anything recorded on a format other than CD has and will (depending on its popularity) be remastered in the process of converting it to disc. Some consider the removal of surface noise to be granting the music freedom to be heard with absolute clarity, and perhaps in the beginning the excitement of this revelation may have been true. But now that the novelty has worn off, some of us find ourselves questioning the authenticity of the changed recordings. Since it is tampering with another person’s creative material, remastering someone else’s work thus becomes a tricky subject. When an album is recorded it becomes a complete, concluded piece of work, which is meant (by the mixer, producer, artist, etc) to be enjoyed as such. But when music is modified, remixed, and some of what has been put into each recording (including the surface noise) has been removed, we take it out of its contextual era by misappropriating technology, and are often tampering with the author’s original idea of that sound, even if the new version is considered by the majority of people to be a successful change.

It is a thin line between repairing an original recording and altering it for today’s sound. Repairing is a process of archiving, or saving fragile material that time will surely ravage further and reduce to museums. To take an untouched album, chock full of the habits of its technology, and change it to suit contemporary standards is often altering it excessively. This seems to be a situation much like when fig leaves were added to nude renaissance images of Adam and Eve to cover up what people thought they should be ashamed to reveal. Can you tamper with an artist’s idea and still have it remain original and authentic to the original? Not really. When you change the way things are heard you alter the way they affect people, they ideas they attach to it, and the authenticity of the recording. With the removal of the original sound, the initial space of the recordings is lost, and the alteration of it leaves the music not as it was originally intended to be heard, and the experience of that sound eschewed. I understand that a vast majority of people will opt for a remastered recording because it is surely easier to listen to, and really this authenticity problem does not bother itself with most consumers, but the way our ears hear the history of the sound is as much a part of it as the music itself.

Music has a specific relationship with the ear, and now with CD’s and more recently computer audio files, the accessibility of listening is amazing. With the consistency of clear available sound, we don’t hear most of the sound we take in. The sound is edited further by our ears, which have lost the ability to hear the way we did before the popularity of recorded sound (Ross). In the early century, our sensitivity towards sound was supremely greater than it is now. With the barrage and convenience of sound, our auditory instincts for hearing the world have worn away. Perhaps this is a contributing factor towards the instinctual reaction to eliminate surface noise; the inability to hear beyond the sounds of the parts to get to the whole. It is as if we as listeners are not only shaping music, but it is shaping how we hear by force.

Although much of what I have discussed is proposed through critical opinion and research, I understand that a lot has to do with taste and judgment. While trying to be detached from my own view and remain dependant on logic, I found myself scrutinizing the bigger picture as well as the territory of music. I wonder what the need is to eradicate older formats as soon as new ones are invented. At this rate, original formats will never get to be heard the way they were made to be. We have eliminated the sounds of history in our current technology, and altered how it was intended to be understood and utilized. With the popularity and accessibility of computers, I am curious as to where sound can go from here. I wonder if there is room for sound to evolve, or perhaps just the players will progress. Until then, I assume we are comfortable with our current technology, and old methods are left to become artifacts for museums.

Works Cited

Barthes, Roland. “Listening”. The Responsibility of Forms: Critical Essays on Music Art and Representation. Trans. Richard Howard. Berkley University Press, 1985.

Morton, David. Off the Record: the Technology and Culture of Sound Recording in America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000.

Morton, David. http://www.recording-history.org/

Ross, Alex. “The Record Effect”. The New Yorker. 2005 http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/articles/050606crat_atlarge

Schoenherr, Steve. “Recording History Technology”. 2005. http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/notes.html

Stern, Jonathan. The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.

Listening to Iruma

2006-12-30T10:03:00.000-08:00

Angela Kim

Art and music have always developed in parallel with one another throughout the course of history (impressionism) and these both arts need to have a sentiment to invent a great work of art and very important for artists. For this essay, I thought I will write about western music or relationship between so many different cultural music but decided to write about the sound of instrument (piano) and my description of impression after the piano recital in last year.

How should I define and conclude if somebody asked me what exact meaning of the sound? I don’t think I could answer easily for that question. What would be accepted as a good music or performance to be impressed greatly and what’s not right music? Perhaps, this would be one of the questions from so many other questions about music. A deep study about “sound” which is using as a material of sound would be very important to gain some knowledge about music. Everyone have different taste and their favourite foods or styles are all different. Also, not every sound of music are correct and become people’s favourite music.

I studied about forerunner of sound to gain more of basic knowledge. For this essay, I will write about the sound, tone and about my favorite pianist “Iruma” who is very special to me. Joseph Sauveur (1653~1716) is a scholar from France who made a great success towards the study of sound and his invaluable contributions to the development of sound. Also he studied an overtone of chord and explained about the principle of vibration. He measured the number of vibrations through a gear and siren.

Understanding about a musical instrument would be the most important thing before I study about sound and music. I would like to express the quality of tone from some words as warmness, coldness, softness, sharpness, and sometimes harsh or fresh. When the sound touches people’s sensory organs and it form the perfection of many different feelings from the sound. For example, let’s say there are 2 sounds in same volume. Those will be reaching to same place. However, between these 2 sounds, people able to remember the sound, which feels alive and comes close to their minds. And that will give an effect to sense of touch, even stimulate sight and finally become a motive.

Eruma’s music is the one of great music that touches people soul. He’s not just playing the note but he played minutely and combined with piano between the vibration of sound and the connection of music. He has a great ability but beside, he got more valuable abilities which could inspire to the music from so many experiences and cultivated mind. Some musician think that is not very hard to make people impressed by their music but not everyone has ability to touch audiences’ soul. When I listen to so many different love songs from all the different singer, I see only few of them could song correctly and express their feeling which comes from deep in their heart. I could recognize how their love was like by listening to their sounds.

I started questioning myself about the meaning of fundamental sound. I thought I know about music very well and had confidence about myself that I have enough knowledge. Most of friends ask me to recommend good music and they said I’m the one who know about music very well and every songs I recommend are nice. But I realize I didn’t even know about basic sound and what are the real great sounds to listen. Therefore I asked my mom about it because she graduated from the music school in KOREA and her major was violin. We had a conversation about music over the long haul. First of all, my mom said the sound has to be delivered correctly to listeners. The good sound should be vividly spread out and make people impress even move them deeply into their minds.

For example, if there’s a huge music hall with 5th floor and the sound should be reached for all of the audience and that is not easy. If someone who has a wrong vocalization and came up on the stage and shout for sing a great song, the audience on the first floor might show respect by his solemn sound but the audience on the 4th floor might not be impressed at all from the sound. In other hand, if he play one song properly and express a feeling of grief then some audience even on the 3rd floor could be moved to tear. It would be heard as an elegant sound if people catch the distant sound correctly. Therefore some people listen to the music at the back seat on purpose to grasp the correct sound. The principal of the sound and frequency, I could never say the correct definition of sound but the existence of the sound is absolutely important and necessary for sure.

I’m going to write a description of my impressions from the performance last year in KOREA. There was a piano performance of Iruma at Seoul SAMSUNG hall. I wanted to listen at firsthand two of his best music “kiss the rain” and “may be”. Honestly, I was not very interested in piano music before coming to CANADA. I felt boring and sleepy while listening to the piano music and I couldn’t’ find any interest and didn’t attracted at all from the new age music. Even though I learnt piano when I was young, I was still wondering why people were so interested in listing to the melody of piano. I couldn’t understand people who love piano music because I thought great music should have lyrics. Also for me, those different sounds were all heard as a same sound.

However; when I was an international student in Vancouver and away from my hometown, I spent most of the time alone, by myself, and there were a lot of opportunities to be contiguous with the melody of piano at my uncle’s church. Every time I felt anxious, insecurity and oppressed by something, the sound of piano had comforted my feelings. The decisive fact of I started to love piano and Iruma is because of the unforgettable performance which was present from my first love few years ago. He played “perhaps love,” and “kiss the rain”.

In church, some pastors encourage flocks to not to listen to new age music because the origin of a word of New Age meant Satan. However, I think there is no greater music which could make people peaceful other than New Age music. Some people might feel flat from the melody of piano but while I listen to Iruma’s music on the performance, tens of spectrums approached me in a variety of different ways, under a roaring light. He was sitting in front of black Grand piano and his appearance was gorgeous. For the opening music, “Tears on love” from the love scene in his album played quietly. As a title, it reminds me some kind of images of sorrow story and sad separation. Every time his fingers skimmed over the keyboard, each notes of his music which has so much vitality just overwhelmed my heart.

Finally I realize why people recommend me to attend for Iruma’s piano recital. The refrain of sound was Barely connected lightly to start and heard as the sound is getting to loud and expose out some sadness. It was totally the sound of Heartbreaking love. In the songs “If I could see you again”, the notes between right rhythm summed up plentifully and gave me a feeling of cheerfulness. As I listen to it, the image of fresh verdure through the outside window covered with raindrops. I didn’t know why that image is keep popping on my head.

At a moment listening up to middle track, I’ve realized that image was the one that I saw on the front page of Iruma’s fan page and the background music was “If I could see you again”. I was anxious about some friends from on line from the fan page. We were exchanging words each other about mere trifle very often and the music gave me pleasure to get back good memories and made me indulge in reminisces. Pictures or music could bring back one’s precious memories. If we see some pictures that we took even in the very long time ago, some of memories would flash. It’s same as sounds. I remember which song is the one that I listened with tear in a sad situation thinking about something or listened in the car on the way trip and singing loud after the song. I remember vividly how my mood was while I listen to that music and it’s that important

The song which made me even more sad, and the music that I listened with my lover in the past and how happy that moment was, Iruma’s sound calls back all the memories while I’m listening to music. His song had almost very similar patterns but I liked the unique charming harmony of his own sound. All the melodies of Iruma awakens my susceptibilities and my old memories. His sound is very attractive and gentle. When he talked honestly about his childhood and his experiences in England, I felt he is the same humdrum human just like me but has more talent with piano. Therefore, the emotions he put on his songs and the feeling I had could possibly come to a mutual understanding. Sometimes, the songs could transmit the actual meaning deeper than a lot of speeches, and his few minutes of melodies described exactly rather than hundreds of words of speech. I consider music as a high and noble thing which is necessary for my life. Music is the most abstract art, It represents nothing but itself, and could be expressed various of feeling and mood in one piece of song. “Listening” is the same as “hearing” about as much as “thinking” is the same as “feeling”.

Noise versus Non-Noise and the Technological Dialogue

2006-12-29T19:54:00.000-08:00

Chris Leitch

For most listeners enjoying music on their home stereo, the sound of an ambulance siren is disruptive. In terms of defining sound, the siren is considered by many as noise while what is musical is non-noise. But what is noise? And how does a noisy sound compare to something that is not noisy? Most importantly, what happens when one abandons preconceived notions of noise and allows all heard sound to exist without favoritism? In this era of extreme technological advancements, the varied and complex soundscapes that envelope the city listener must be reevaluated. By disrupting biases of preferred and not preferred sound, the listener offers open territory for fresh soundscapes. This paper examines how these new soundscapes, absorbed by the listener, abolish the debate of noise versus non-noise. Throughout this essay, I will refer to my subjective listening experience involving the interjection of a live ambulance siren into the playback of recorded music. The siren and stereo evoke a dialogue by means of which the notions of noise and non-noise are examined and reassessed.

This investigation stemmed from an opposing viewpoint attained while reading Sound and Noise from which Aden Evens addresses a segregation of listening experiences. Evans observes that,

“Recorded music is sterilized, frozen in place, turned into a medium that stands between self and the world instead of an experience of the world…Once isolated, the music neutralizes its context, removing itself from lived experience, to stand before the listening subject as an object. The subject-object pair, listener and recording, form a closed system with an inside (the listening room) and an outside (everywhere else).” (9)

In contrast, I believe that recorded music can become an experience of the world again. However, for it to do so, recorded music must rely on sounds independent from the recording (i.e. from an outside source). Sounds usually regarded as extraneous actually introduce integrated soundscapes combining recorded music with “real world” sounds. I argue that such amalgamated soundscapes challenge Evans’ definitions of the ‘listening room’ and ‘everywhere else.’ For me, the most pertinent experience that deconstructs the ‘closed system’ involves an ambulance siren piercing the walls of the ‘listening room.’

An ambulance siren in this context challenges the listener’s evaluation of desirable and undesirable sound into the same arena of listening whilst providing ambiguity between wanted sounds. The experience of both together as one soundscape is much more ambiguous than its binary division in terms of music versus noise might suggest.

City dwellers will agree that an ambulance siren is intentionally an extremely invasive sound penetrating the walls of homes in proximity of the sirens’ source. The siren is a warning signal that requires it be loud in order to compete with surrounding noises. As a city’s population increases, the sound of siren will no doubt increase as well. Moreover, it is the sirens’ unique attributes interlaced with stereo playback that provided access for acknowledgement of seamless relation to what before seemed as two unrelated sound occurrences. The natural reverberation that a siren produces as its signal bounces from building to building and then finally to our ears parallels the synthetic reverberation often used in music production. As we and our stereos remain still behind the walls of our houses, a natural panning effect occurs as the ambulance rushes through the city around us.

The fluid entry and exit of this natural panning ‘sound effect’ offers an intense meditation of the fleeting moment when the two sounds interact. Because ambulances are usually in motion, this interplay lasts only a short duration. Supposing that one does allow this technological conversation to exist (as this entire supposition is one that is subjective), one can imagine this dialogue physically defining an acoustic space. The listener is engaged between the shifting tension of the stereo and the siren allowing both sounds to merge into a single sound experience. As a result, background sound mix with the foreground providing the ‘listening room’ with opportunity for discussion, but only to those that speak the language of technology. And by technological language, I mean the random buzzes, hums, drones, electrical gossip and battery powered murmurs. Or in the case of the stereo and siren conversation, the zeros and ones whizzing into an artificial composition, a translation of pure AC/DC current shouting out to the neighborhood while the constant howl of the siren retorts over furious pistons; a short rebuttal. The birds outside appear only to mouth their songs now.

No doubt the utterance of nature is incompetent to enter the listening room’s high decibel guarantee of volume control. Nor does nature stand a chance of overthrowing the shriek of an ambulance’s siren. Perhaps only a thunderstorm or some natural catastrophe has a volume level as loud or louder than a siren. Nevertheless, bird song, the most familiar natural sound in urban spaces cannot compete with sirens. Yet, even with these occurrences does nature fail to speak the abstracted, synthetic dialect that today’s technological items so easily spew. Nor does nature challenge our augmented submersion into the vastly hi-tech sound environments concerning audio relationships. Continuing with this idea of a culture’s complex situation with regards to sound, Luigi Russolo explains that, “the traditional orchestra was no longer capable of capturing the imagination of a culture immersed in noise, and that the age of noise demanded new musical instruments he called “noise instruments.” (The Art of Noises: Futurist Manifesto, 10) The most common and frequent sounds produced by nature in the city are those created by birds, which seem to share a certain status with traditional orchestrated sounds. This is mainly due to apparent parallels between unplugged, organic operation of the instrument and organisms acting as the direct, physical and foremost catalysts for producing sound either vocally or instrumentally. Moreover, regarding Russolo’s proposition for “noise instruments” to facilitate the ‘age of noise,’ the siren can be considered a “noise instrument.”

The siren as a sound effect has made its way into countless recordings of music, especially those considered popular music. The tendency to include ‘non-musical’ sound into music further deconstructs perceptions involving boundaries between noise and non-noise. Brady Cranfield argues that, “to identify noise is also to identify non-noise. In this relationship, noise is paradoxically affirmed as the negative, the unwanted. However, once acknowledged, noise becomes known as “noise” (Producing Noise: Oval and the Politics of Digital Audio, 4). Cranfield explains that, “this shift in appreciation subsequently reorganizes the dialectic between noise and non-noise.” Popular music easily integrates so-called unwanted sounds, blurring the difference of noise and non-noise. So much that Russolo’s vast ensemble of noise-makers from the early ‘twentieth century have evolved into a continually expanding practice of cohering ‘non- musical’ and ‘musical’ with an even greater diversity of noise-makers.

With respect to the onset of noise-maker as instrument, R. Murray Schaefer identifies, “Russolo, who invented an orchestra of noise-makers, consisting of buzzers, howlers and other gadget, calculated to introduce modern man to the musical potential of the new world about him…Russolo’s experiments mark a flash-point in the history of aural perception, a reversal of figure and ground, a substitution of garbage for beauty” (The Tuning of the World, 110) It is interesting to note how recorded material can normalize noise as valid listening material, yet when the same noise exists outside the context of music, efforts to accept it as an instrument become difficult. This is why it is crucial to recognize the significance of the siren-stereo interaction. For it is within this conversation between the siren and the stereo that the noise-maker (i.e. the siren) is permitted to participate as an instrument. As the siren-stereo interaction informs only one instance of increased aural perception, its recognition assists in the failure to define noise.

With the increasing functionality of noise, the boundaries of the term ‘noise,’ are collapsing in on themselves providing a current definition that fails to be precisely articulated. Noise, once thought to serve no purpose, now contributes to the reorganization of what is musical. Russolo states that, “the evolution of music is comparable to the multiplication of machines, which everywhere collaborate with man.” (The Art of Noises: Futurist Manifesto, 11) Russolo continues,

“Today, the machine has created such a variety and contention of noises that pure sound in its slightness and monotony no longer provokes emotion. In order to excite and stir our sensibility, music has been developing toward the most complicated polyphony and toward the greatest variety of instrumental timbres and colors.”

In correlation to my own listening attitudes when inside the ‘listening room,’ “complicated polyphony” that enables listening excitement arises from integrated sounds that have been released from different sources. Offering a positive evaluation of the absorption of noise, Henry Cowell argues that, “Since the “disease” of noise permeates all music, the only hopeful course is to consider that the noise-germ, like the bacteria of cheese, is a good microbe, which may provide hidden delights to the listener.” (The Joys of Noise, 23) If noise can be considered something that pleasures the listener, the definition of noise carries new implications, subverting traditional convictions that noise is unpleasant.

I use the term ‘noise’ with a great deal of optimism, even while the definition remains on a wavering threshold invoking both positive and negative connotations. And as listening is subjective, a constant, intense re-examination of noise versus non-noise is necessary. Only then can one infer what constitutes noise. Only then will one conclude that evaluating noise in opposition to non-noise is useless and insignificant. In this respect, the boundaries have dissolved to the extent that even popular music, the most accessible of genres, ignore the traditional classification of noise.

With the exploration of the ambulance siren and music integration, a specific, dynamic relationship generated a broader listening scope of intricate aural relationships within an urban environment. The deconstruction of ‘listening room’ and ‘everywhere else’ provided entry into other existing, complex soundscapes, including conversations between various technological devices. The dialogue shared between one machine and another resides within the creativity and subjectivity of the listener. Although the siren/stereo conversation may only pertain to my own listening attitude, communication among avid listeners of these particular sound relationships is what remains imperative. This seemingly complex dialect of noise versus non-noise can advance to greater understanding through discussion of personal sound experiences. The biases of preferred sound are in constant reexamination as the surrounding aural environment is in constant transformation. This leaves notions of noise and non-noise at a perpetual state of interpretation.

Works Cited

Cranfield, Brady. Course Notes, “Producing Noise: Oval and the Politics of Digital Audio”

Cowell, Henry. “Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music”, The Joys of Noise. New York: Continuum, 2004

Evens, Aden. “Sound and Noise“, Sound Ideas: Music, Machines and Experience, Minneopolis: MIT Press, 2005

Russolo, Luigi. “Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music”, The Art of Noises: Futurist Manifesto, New York: Continuum, 2004

Schaefer, R. Murray. “The Tuning of the World: The Soundscape”, Music, the Soundscape and Changing Perceptions. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977

Opening Up: A Beginning In Western Audio Culture

2006-12-29T19:52:00.000-08:00

Lindsey Bond

What is sound? What is music? What is noise? In this paper I wish to focus my exploration on defining and contextualizing sound, music and noise in contemporary western audio culture. I have felt increasingly dissatisfied with the common use of these words when describing audio work, and wish to challenge and dissect my habitual use of these terms by researching them. I will draw on the work of Henry Cowell, Jacques Attali, Luigi Russolo, Mary Russo, Daniel Warner, and Aden Evens. As I explore these theorists’ writings, I hope to clear up my misunderstandings and ultimately create my own definitions of these words. To deconstruct the common use of each word I will investigate the entire aural experience: the physical hearing sensation, identification, perception, and habitual listening. Do common cultural definitions of sound, music, and noise blanket the conscious listening experience, thus creating assumed aural discourse? In seeking out the various definitions of, and contexts for sound, music and noise the blanket will be thrown back to expose intentional awareness that is integral to appreciating the aural experiences.

In “The Joy of Noise” (2004) Henry Cowell says that harmony, melody and rhythm are the primary elements of music. He goes on to say that if noise were included in this category (it rarely is) it would be a subsection under rhythm. Cowell writes that certain sounds mark and identify the rhythm in (behind) music. These sounds behind the music may be understood as certain periodic sound patterns. (Cowell). When considering the elements that make up music one must deconstruct the role and the affect of rhythm. Rhythmic sounds (beats, patterns in sound) can stimulate the listener, and reveal to him/her a presence or a force behind the music. This ‘force’ could be defined as organized impulses from sound, which physically stimulates an individual’s sense of hearing, and evokes an emotional affect. Sound, according to Cowell is “all that can be heard” and rhythm is the “formulating impulse behind the sound” (23). Is the rhythm in music a constructed concept from a “loud” physical sensation? Is this “force” or “beat” a conceptual construction that falsely informs the meaning behind what music is? When one begins to hear sound vibrations, how does one internalize (perceive), attach meaning, and then communicate this physical sensation? Am “I” hearing music, or am I hearing a rhythmic beat? Is that beat in the music, a sound? Is that sound a noise? What is music – is it noise?

Cowell explains that noise and music have a customary “hard and fast” opposition. He writes that music, in order to be properly scrutinized, must be separated and considered as two sections of thought. The first category is music into sound and rhythm, and the second is tone (a division from rhythm) into melody, harmony and noise. These distinct subsections then form: musical-tone and musical-noise. For Cowell, noise is linked to tone through contrasting structures of non-periodic vibrations (noise), and periodic vibrations (sound). Musical-tone and musical-noise exist inter-dependent with one another: “as musical sound grows louder the noise in it is accentuated and the tone element reduced” […] “Thus a loud sound is literally nosier that a soft one; yet music does not touch our emotional depths if it does not rise to a dynamic climax” (23). Cowell’s point suggests that the amplitude and timbre of the sound and music, affects the audiences perception of the music-noise dynamic, because all sounds that are loud and rambunctious are labeled as noise. Yet Cowell goes on to say that a sound will not evoke an emotional response unless its amplitude is heightened. This statement renegotiates noise’s position of ‘other’ into musical tone -an ‘acceptable’ dynamic- because of the strange cultural definition of noise: as: all sounds that are loud, rather than Cowell’s definition of sound as: “all that can be heard”(23). Therefore the musical tone in sound is connected to the non-periodic vibrations that are noise’s foundation, thus a relationship is formed: noise is the sound that organizes rhythm to form music. When placed in a contemporary context, noise informs music because of the emotional climax that ones needs to experience while listening to music. (“yet music does not touch our emotional depths if it does not rise to a dynamic climax” (23). When this relationship is looked at holistically the music-noise axiom breaks down. The opposition between noise and music parallels the relationship between the ‘force’ behind music (or the rhythm of noise), and the sound or perception of music itself. Music can instead be defined, not as a “force” in itself, but the amplitude, quality, and duration of sound and noise, which ultimately forms an affective aural experience. This experience is a departure point where one can begin to consciously explore the perception of everyday noise sound and music.

In “The Art Of Noises: Futurist Manifesto” Luigi Russolo writes also about the different qualities between noise, music and sound. Russolo argues that noise reveals the immediate familiarity of life. Noise is found in every corner of life, and due to this fact, noise has the power at once to recall life itself. However, for Russolo, sound is always musical (a combination of melody, harmony and rhythm), therefore sound becomes alienated from noise’s relationship with life: “Sound, estranged from life, always musical, something in itself, has become for our ear what for the eye is a too familiar sight” (13). An opposition again plagues music and noise. Russolo’s solution is to challenge the timbre of sound by creating compositions with noise. To properly confront the negative cultural context that is attached to noise, (noise has a non-periodic structure, and thus a “problematic” sound), Russolo warns that one must not reproduce the everyday noise, but explore the different timbre of noise, and organize them to achieve a fresh aural experience. The static melody of music is re-born through diverse combinations of ever-changing timbre. The “art of noises” is an acoustical revelation that does not limit itself to imitative reproduction but enjoys an “ unsuspected pleasure of the senses” (13). This unsuspected pleasure is inherent in the different timbres of instruments that are beyond the four or five classes of instruments in a regular orchestra. Russolo writes how sound carries with it an inherent “tangle of sensations” that leads to listener boredom. Sound confuses sensation because when one listens to music one does not truly listen, but merely hears the cultural classification of music (a complete result), thus individual perception is made invisible because of music’s innate monotonous cultural definition. Only through encountering and arranging the irregular confusion of noise can one refresh the unsuspected qualities of noise, and destroy the well-exhausted structure of music. (Russolo) The different timbres in noise challenges the ghastly mundane qualities of sound that “does not satisfy our ear”, thus noise compositions call for “ ever greater acoustical emotions” (11). Russolo uses sound as an adjective describing music as a finished product. Noise, the wild card, mixes up and clears out the stuffy tradition of western music. According to Russolo, if one collaborates different noises together to form a new sound in music, these different qualities of noise push music forward to build a revolutionary western sound. By challenging the cultural meaning of music, Russolo creates his own definitions for music, noise and sound. His attention to the new sound of noise articulates a gesture, which crushes normative assumptions about western sound and reveals conscious listening.

In “Noise and Politics” Jacques Attali writes that with music is born power and subversion, and with noise is born disorder and its opposite, the world. Noise is in opposition to the world because its problematic binary. Russolo states that noise is inherent in life, where as Attali states that “listening to music is listening to all noise”(7), thus confirming the negative dialectic between music and noise. Attali states that noise can signify codes of life: sound is what noise becomes after shaping noise into music. Music can be defined as an organization of sounds into terms or a code, which reflects the relations between man and his community. Attali states that territory is controlled not by the disorganized vibrations of noise alone, but through the decision to ban subversive noise. Why is noise banned because of its elemental state? The autonomy of the community or state cannot withstand the disorganized vibrations of noise? Noise is all around us, as Russolo states, yet if one uses the noise of everyday life to compose a new genre of musical-sound a renewed perception of auditory stimulus and ultimately conscious listening would result. This new direction in listening could lead to different or conflicting ideas; the exact reason why Attali states that noise in being all music and sound, is consequently revolutionary, and thus must be banned. With the introduction of any new sound or music, the state power weakens, as it does not accept the infiltration of the new sounds. The process of noise becoming normalized into sound or music completes the circle of definitions for what is accepted listening material. Noise “ is the source of purpose and power, of the dream – Music.” (7).

In contemporary western culture, popular music seems to constrict the definition of music to a singular state of meaning. Do the amount of people listening to a specific genre of music dictate what subversive noise is? Attali writes “ to listen, to memorize - this is the ability to interpret and control history, to manipulate the culture of people, to channel its violence and hopes”(8). The common understanding of music, as organized instrument sounds with harmony, melody, rhythm and usually vocals, restrains and controls the common understanding of music. If many people listen to one kind of music, and only a few people listen to what is categorized as “loud” noise (the other to music), does this affect how sound is really heard? The standard for evaluating sound has changed the way listeners define what music, sound and noise. If one considers Cowell’s definition of how sound is “all that can be heard” (23), and compares it with the controlled listening (conformed cultural meanings), sounds “force” seems to shrink down to one code of meaning, music: “a disguise for the monologue of power” (8) Music can then be defined as a mask that conceals the status quo and inhibits or pushes the individual to explore different sounds and noises to influence an innovative aural experience.

To break down the cultural codes of music, as a tool for organized listening, one must re-think the recognition and perception of sound and noise. In “Rough Music, Futurism, and Postpunk Industrial Noise Bands” by Mary Russo and Daniel Warner, aural identification, the primary process for recognizing sound, noise, and music, is concentrated into two elements: signal and noise. Wagner and Russo state that both: information theory and western musical discourse center on the signal and noise relationship. Western musical discourse is founded on the structural differences between signal and noise: where “the periodic vibrations of strings” is signal, and “the non-periodic vibrations of ambient or concrete sound” is noise (49). Russo and Wagner write, when noise is used as a component of music, it acts as “a primary perceptual clue for aural identification” (48). The attack period of a musical tone is where signal separates from noise: as one begins to perceive noise, one also begins to hear the signal of musical instruments. The dialectic of noise as an “unwanted” entity in cultural music is renegotiated and noise becomes a departure point initiating the aural experience. As Russo and Warner conclude, noise and signal interact as inter-dependent parts. This relationship reconfirms that beyond the various different theories ultimately noise is inherent in all sound and music.

Finally, Aden Evans, in “Sound and Noise” from Sound Ideas: Music Meanings and Experience investigates noise in terms of absolute and relative noise, thus re-works the whole creative process of aural perception. Absolute-noise is the heard noise of a babbling confused signal, like static in the radio or the air sound behind a recording. Relative-noise is the “unheard”, it is the diffused medium upon which a signal rides (Evens). Relative noise is the “implicated” of sound, that, which can mark where one begins to identify and understand sound, in turn creating a clear perception, or as Evens writes: a conscious sense of sound. As one comes to recognize and define sound, noise becomes detached from its negative binary and begins to modify the aural experience. Evens’ describes noise as a reservoir of sense: noise is senseless, and insensible, noise directs signal. Noise is obscure and is un-contracted by nature, yet through its senseless character, noise inherently modifies or contracts perception: sound is given sense. In the process where hearing becomes listening, sound, music and noise contracts from obscurity to clarity. Evans describes the process of contraction as: “Before frequency is contracted as pitch and pitch as timbre, noise is contracted as the implicated of sound” (14.5). These various degrees of contraction, separation and collaboration of sound, music, and noise makes each term contextualize themselves together. Using timbre, amplitude, harmony or melody as a signal, noise and “the implicated” (or the perception), work together to develop a intentional insight that shapes and deconstructs assumptions about the daily aural experience. The “implicated” or that which connects both signal and noise comes into focus lifting perception to a mindful level where the ‘problematic’ noise contracts and pushes sound and music forward from sensation into a conscious construction of the aural experience.

The journey from Cowell to Evens for me begins to clarify my misunderstandings of how each term, music, noise and sound, functions in western aural culture. The romantic illusion of music as a force in itself solely creating the emotion, or noise as a negative effect from a recording, have been deconstructed and replaced by more questions about the conscious levels of aural perception and a complete affective aural experience. Evens work distinctly clarifies the obscure relationships between sound, music and noise from my western audio culture, because of his exploration into the perception of audio work. My own definitions of these terms may be created from my internalized experience compare to a generic collective assumption. Now with a clear sense of sound, music and noise, I can begin to explore these terms as guideposts, instead of being confined to their common constructed definitions. As exploration is now open I can use these terms as departure points that connect my physical sensation with my own conscious perception ultimately leading to what Roland Barthes explains as a jouissance of the audio experience.

Works Cited

Attali, Jacques, “Noise and Politics”, Audio Culture: Readings In Modern Music, Eds. Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner, New York: Continuum. 2004. 7-9

Barthes, Roland, “The Grain of The Voice”, Image- Music- Text. Trans Stephen Heath. New York: The Noonday Press, 1977 179-189.

Cowell, Henry, “The Joys of Noise”, Audio Culture: Readings In Modern Music, Eds. Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner, New York: Continuum. 2004. 22-24

Evens, Aden, “Sound and Noise”, Sound Ideas: Music Meanings and Experience, Minneapolis: Mit Press. 2005. 14.5-21.3

Russolo, Luigi, “The Art Of Noises: Futurist Manifesto”, Audio Culture: Readings In Modern Music, Eds. Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner, New York: Continuum. 2004. 10-14

Russo, Mary, Warner, Daniel, “Rough Music, Futurism, and Postspunk Industrial Noise Bands”, Audio Culture: Readings In Modern Music, Eds. Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner, New York: Continum. 2004. 47-50

An Ancient Flute’s Breath into the New World: Sufi Sacred Music in a Global Context.

2006-12-29T19:49:00.000-08:00

Roger Atalay Harrison

Listen to the story told by the reed,
of being separated.

Since I was cut from the reedbed,
I have made this crying sound.

Anyone apart from someone he loves
Understands what I say

Anyone pulled from a source
Longs to go back.

At any gathering I am there,
Mingling in the laughing and grieving.

A friend to each, but few
Will hear the secrets hidden

Within the notes. No ears for that.
Body flowing out of spirit
Spirit up from body: no concealing that mixing…

~The Reed Flute’s Song, Rumi (Barks 18)

As many people born in Canada to parents of different racial backgrounds, my cultural heritage is ambiguous. I came into being and grew up in a white middle class neighbourhood of the reputedly rough Toronto suburb of Etobicoke. My father’s family is white anglo-saxon protestant, of Irish and German descent, and had dwelled in the Eastern United states and subsequently Ontario since colonial times. My mother was born in Istanbul, Turkey and her family immigrated to Canada in the late sixties. It was deemed in my formative years that my mother wasn’t to speak Turkish to me; it was too confusing as my father wasn’t had no clue what she was saying. Thus I grew up with a large part of my roots cut off, fifty percent actually. I would hear my mother speak Turkish with my grandmother and aunts with an exotic lilt that felt comfortable, yet I could not understand. My Dede (Turkish for grandfather) would play his Ottoman marches, gypsy folksongs and belly dance music on the old record player, and there was something there, an ounce of familiarity tingling in my blood, but it all seemed so heavy and otherworldly that I just couldn’t get into it.

So I grew up like most suburban kids, wandering the streets causing mischief, speaking in our Toronto slang, listening to whatever mass-produced commercial act had a flashy video on MuchMusic. In utero I had apparently been exposed to Led Zeppelin and the Beatles when my mom got a pair of headphones and rested them on her belly. Thus it was no surprise that those were the first records that I began to listen to as my taste gained consciousness and developed. It was through the classic rock groups of the sixties and the seventies that I first developed a musical flavour for the ‘exotic.’ I remember the first time I watched Yellow Submarine and the scene introducing George Harrison meditating on some other spiritual dimension. The sitar and tabla mantra of ‘Love You To’ sparked off something within me. Granted that Indian classical music (in this case appropriated by the Beatles through the influence of Ravi Shankar) is quite different instrumentally and modally than Middle Eastern styles, the hint of otherness was there and I associated the two until I knew better. Likewise, Kashmir by Zeppelin bore repeated listening on the trusty old turntable. Kashmir is noted for drawing heavily on a Middle Eastern scale. Was my Turkish blood vibrating along the same frequencies as these oriental-influenced pop songs?

I found out on my first visit to Turkey with my family in 2002. Heading to our pension from the airport, the taxi driver was blasting Arabesque (high energy dance music adopted from neighboring Arabic countries [Broughton 164]). In a time traveling daze from the cross-ocean flight, the call of the muezzin from the mosque right next door to our guest house stirred me from sleep and filled my heart with a feeling I had never quite experienced: I felt like I was at home in a place I had never been before. The sounds of the call to prayer, the numerous street and restaurant performers, and the arabesque beat bouncing from every careening taxi cab over the next few day were the catalyst for my blooming interest in the music of my estranged motherland. My mother (I was now calling her Anne, Turkish for mother) and I went on a search for some recordings to play back home. We walked into a cluttered old second floor shop on the busy Sultanhamet street, whose sign translated loosely: Sacred Healing Music and Antique Instruments. Upon entering we were greeted by an old man wearing an Islamic cap that offered us tea and coffee as per their customary hospitality, and brought us into his office, which was lined with various Turkish instruments. Sitting there on the divan (a low lying couch) was an elderly man, his toothless smile revealing somewhat of a mystical air about him. He spoke no English, but with my mother translating he communicated to me that he was Yusuf, a Sufi master from Konya, the spiritual capitol of Turkey. Konya is the home of the Mevlana sect of Sufis, known for their rituals involving improvisational instrumental and vocal music and spinning in circles to achieve an ecstatic elevated state. Noticing that I was a musician, he expressed in apparently very poetic terms his invitation for me to study the music and dance of the whirling dervish (or Mevlevi, in Turkish) under his guidance. “I long to feel your locks of hair brushing across my face as you learn to whirl. Come to Konya in the spring time and follow the light of the full moon down the main street until you find a wall with grape vines growing upon it, beyond the wall is the mosque where I reside. I will teach you.” I left that little shop somewhat amazed and humbled by his words and presence, and since then the music and rituals of the Sufis have intrigued me.

Sufism, a mystical sect of Islam, traces its roots back to the 7th century and the prophet Mohammed. Sufism spread wherever Islam’s rapid expansion took it, from Western Africa to Central Anatolia, Spain, and Northern India. Globalization has now made Sufism a world religion, with followers nearly everywhere, some not even devotees of Islam itself (Bohlman 19). The Mevlana sect of Sufis was founded in the 13th century by the mystical poet and Sufi Master Jellaludin Rumi, who believed in the sacred power of music and dance to elevate oneself to the state of the devine. The root belief of Sufism is that unconditional love is a manifestation of God onto the universe. It all revolves around the concept of Tawhid: that all things are a manifestation of a single reality. “The essence of Sufism is counterpoint. Everything exists with its opposite” (Dede) The aim is to gain awareness of this duality, overcome it, and revel in the unity of all things.

When I returned three years later to that same shop I learned that Yusuf had passed on, to some heavenly paradise no doubt. This time I left the place with a reed flute in my hands. In Persian and Turkish it is called the ney, and is an instrument which has held prominence in Sufi ceremonies since the very beginning. The reed flute dates back to ancient Egyptian times more than 5000 years ago: a simple cane reed, dried and hollowed out, with seven holes punched into it. It is used widely in most Middle Eastern music, and for the Sufis, as an improvisational instrument in the Sema ceremony. Sema literally translates into the ‘art of listening,’ and the ceremonies involve an ensemble of musicians and singers, and a caste of dervish dancers dressed in long flowing white robes. As the music goes through its various movements, the dervishes begin to spin in circles, their constant spiraling movement and concentration on the sacred music bringing them to the point of mystical ecstasy.

The sound of the ney characterizes a very strong aspect of Sufi and all middle eastern music: the melody. Melodies are often very linear and can be played with various instruments, including the ney, clarinet, violin, saz (a fretted lute-like instrument with seven strings), and kanun (resembling a harp layed down on the lap). Most of these instruments are microtonal, that is, they can play notes that are between tones and semitones on the western scale, and this results in a flowing, voice-like quality that is very striking and leads to endless possibilities improvisational-wise. (Bordowitz 377) Rarely are melodies accompanied by chord structures, rather they fly over the drone of a single note, or are doubled up with other instruments or singing, which occasionally add a harmony to the melody.

The rhythmic counterpoint to the melody is constructed using various frame and hand drums, like the riqq and darbuka. They are often played in compound time signatures, 9/8 being the most common. Tempos change, often gaining momentum and building in a crescendo to a climax, then half tempo, eventually slowing down to the end of the piece. The lilting and fluid melodies and the driving rhythmic beats echo the Tawhid concept of dualities, linking religious philosophy to musical aesthetics.

My desire to listen to more Sufi music unsatisfied, I wondered where I could find more of it back in my new home of Vancouver. I walked into a record store was directed to the ‘world music’ section, not ‘Turkish’ or even ‘Middle Eastern’ music, but ‘world music.’ Weird.

Now, with the phenomenon of the 'global village' further homogenizing cultures around the world, one can catch the sounds and influences of ethnic music virtually anywhere. The title ‘World Music’ is record companies’ reaction to this trend in order to market ethnic, devotional, and folk music from around the world in one lump package.

“If you walk up to troubadours on the Nile River and ask them what they were playing, they wouldn’t say “world music.” My understanding of what “world music” is doing in the marketplace is to defocus real ethnic music. Also, when we call something ‘world music’ we’re obviously saying it’s not our world. If it were our world, it would include all the music in the store, the rest of the stuff from our culture. When we say this is “world music,” what we really mean is it’s out there and it’s not to do with us.”
- Keith Jarret (Bordowitz ix)

On one hand, this spread of musical seeds around the world exposes us to sounds capes of musical tradition completely different to ours. We can appreciate it as something new and different, but taken out of context of its homeland; we lose some of its original meaning. Important questions must be asked here: What is lost in translation? Can one who is foreign to this music appreciate it for its true meaning, or just as an exotic sound that is different from what we hear everyday on the radio?

Invariably, nuances of musical form and meaning are lost in translation between the divide of cultural traditions. The behemoth that is Western popular music has cast its shadow to most places in the world, to the extent that Radiohead-soundalikes can be heard in Turkey and Japan alike, and most major cities around the world have an orchestra that plays some form of European Classical music. No bad thing, but imposing one tradition to make music with another is like an apple tree trying to grow oranges: it creates mutants! And sometimes, whole entire musical traditions have been altered or even lost due to this assimilation. In example in the case of Middle Eastern music, there used to be nine microtones between each whole tone in the Middle Eastern scale, but for the past century, due to the influence of western musical convention and notation, it has been simplified down to four tones, or quartertones. Thus, traditional Middle Eastern music of the past century has literally lost some of its flow. In the same way digital recordings only give a chopped up, square and simplified representation of the actual sound wave, in modern music of the Middle East, there are fewer notes to chose from, resulting in a truncated melodical form as compared to the past. Kudsi Erguner, a Sufi Master, and renowned Turkish ney player, has based his career on reviving the traditional musical forms of the Ottomans times (Tiller). His melodies stand out with their flowing, singing quality. Kudsi Erguner is dedicated to that old purist sound and has been applauded for helping the tradition be reborn. In the eighties he founded the Mevlana school in Paris, an institute devoted to the study of ancient Ottoman and Sufi music.

A prime example of a Sufi musician whose career blossomed into popular stardom due to the phenomenon of world music was Nasrut Fateh Ali Khan of Pakistan. “Transformation characterized every level of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s career – from sacred to secular, classical to popular, traditional to fusion, devotional to public” (Bohlman 16). He came from a renowned family of Qawwali singers, Qawwali being a type of ritual music chanted at the tombs of Sufi saints. He gained such popularity in his native country that eventually the international music market discovered a place for him on the record-store shelves of the west, and soon he found himself touring and giving performances to audiences around the world in far from sacred surroundings. Obviously he was not performing at such holy places any more, and his audiences could thus only delve so deep into his music. Ali Khan was well aware of this, and still held religious ceremonies in time-honoured ancestral Sufi surroundings, that were separate from his touring gigs.

On the opposite end of the spectrum to traditionalists such as Kudsi Erguner is Mercan Dede. Dede was reared from a poor family in a small Turkish village in the seventies and fell in love with the sound of the ney from an early age, though he could never afford to buy one, he built his own out of PVC tubing. He practiced as a photographer and events conspired to bring him to Saskatoon (yes that sleepy little prairie city of our home and native land) to exhibit his work. On the side he began to DJ in bars and clubs just around the time that the techno revolution gained momentum in the eighties, and getting swept up in it, he began spinning his own Turkish-flavoured ‘tribal techno.’ Realizing the great potential of blending the acoustic Sufi music of his childhood with the electronic instruments and devices of the modern age, Mercan Dede began incorporating more and more traditional instruments into his live DJ sets, eventually forming an ensemble and recording a string of records (Dede). More recent works have seen him branching out and using musicians and instruments from more varied places around the world, not just the Middle East. Trumpet, sitar, and tabla adorn his latest work: Su. Mercan Dede’s music embodies Sufi philosophies in a progressive manner:

“When you put digital, electronic sounds together with handmade, human ones, you can create universal language, capable of uniting old and young, ancient and modern, east and west. The essence of Sufism is counterpoint. Everything exists with the opposite. On one side, I am doing electronic music. The other side of that is this really acoustic, traditional music.” (Dede)

When one can find people dancing to Sri Lankan Dancehall being played in Warsaw, African tribal drumming in clubs in Vancouver, and Sufi dubstyle breakbeats throbbing from the Montreal Jazz festival, it’s hard to view much as sacred anymore, but seen through the eyes of Sufi worldview, it is precisely this converse diversity that creates elevation, cosmopolitan and all-embracing illumination, achieving Tawhid. “The world of world music has no boundaries, therefore access to world music is open to all. There’s ample justification to call just about anything world music” (Bohlman xi). If the philosophical values of Sufism embrace balance through duality: light and dark, love and fear, ancient and modern, then it also by nature embraces tradition and the avante-garde, the old and the new, and the east and west. In that way, Kudsi Erguner, Nasrut Fateh Ali Khan, and Mercan Dede alike all have their own important part to play in the narrative of so called Sufi ‘world music.’

As long as there are those musicians who are pushing in both directions, that of the purist conserving the tradition, and the radical experimenter trailblazing and blending to create new sounds, then we can rest assured that the purity of both the ancient musical traditions from centuries past is being safeguarded, and that those sounds will inevitably copulate with new techniques, mediums, and instruments from around the world to evolve into something refreshingly contemporary, of equally mystical and mesmerizing quality. Perhaps Sufism’s all encircling worldview is best boiled down in this poem by Rumi:

"Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, idolater, worshipper of fire,
Come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times,
Come, and come yet again.
Ours is not a caravan of despair
(Barks 78).

Bibliography:

Bohlman, Phillip. World Music, a Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2002.

Bordowitz, Hank. Noise of the World. Canada: Soft Skull Press. 2002.

Broughton, Simon, and Mark Ellingham, David Muddyman and Richard Trillo.
World Music The Rough Guide. New York: Rough Guides Limited. 1995.

The Essential Rumi. Translated by Coleman Barks. New York: Harper Collins. 1995.

Mercan Dede. http://www.mercandede.com/md/EN/index.html. Updated 2006. Accessed December 3rd, 2006.

Tiller, S. Between Orient and Occident. http://www.culturebase.net/artist.php?225. Updated July 16th, 2003. Accessed December 3rd, 2006.

Tomoaki, Fujii. The JVC Video Anthology of World Music and Dance, book V: The Middle East and Africa.

Recommended Listening:

Kudsi Erguner: Sufi Music of Turkey,
Mercan Dede: Sufi Dreams, Sayhatname, Nar, Su
Cheb I Sabbah: La Kahena
Omar Faruk Tekbilek: Mystical Garden
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: Mustt Mustt

Recommended Viewing:

A Whirling Dervish performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNm76HwBHvM
A slightly grandiose Mercan Dede performance in Istanbul: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWKAHtbU6eo

WELCOME

2006-09-01T10:01:00.000-07:00