MUSI1002

1) Journalistic (Reviews, Magazine articles, Interviews)

2) Acadamic (Books/Articles frm variety of different disciplines)

It is often defined by:

1) Commercialization

2) Status as a commodity

3) Mass Appeal

1) Geographical Location

2) Time Period

3) Social & Cultural Context

Understood as the ever-changing values, tradiations, social and political relationships, and world-views shared by a group of people bound together by a combination of factors that can include a common history, language, social class and/or religion

The dominant centre of our culture still reflects:

White, upper-middle-class, Western, heterosexual male persepectives

Definitions

1) Books, music and art that have been important and influential in shaping Western culture

or

2) The body of cultural knowledge that is said to be important for an educated or “cultured” person to know

Colour of a musical sound, the quality that distinguishes one instrument from another (ex. a piano vs. a saxaphone)

We hear sound as wave vibrations. When a sound vibrates at a specific frequency, then it has a definite ____.

We identify rapidly vibrting sounds as high _____ and slower vibrations as low _____.

1. The range of timbres in a performance

2. Instruments used (includes voice, electronic sounds, etc)

1. Gradations of intensity, volume levels (loud and soft)

2. Inflection is a subtle use of ______.

Slow change within one parameter, or an overlapping of two blocks of sound.

1) The transformation of goods and services (or things that may not normally be regarded as goods or services) into a commodity.

or

2)The assignment of a commercial value to something previously valueless

 School of thought that stresses the examination and the critique of society and culture by applying knowledge from the social sciences and the humanities

•Made up of economic institutions

•It produces forms of culture that are commodities

•According to Adorno, the commodification of cultural products leads to a standardization of these products

•Standardization leads to passivity in consumers

1) a number of types that are immediately recognizable

2) a small number of structures

3) a small number of components to each song that are interchangeable

1) Degree of Standardization

2) Level of Complexity

3) Market Context

– The use of popular music in advertising is growing

– Companies are attempting to reach a wider audience with the use of music

– Musicians seem more willing to have their music used for commercial purposes

Handwritten or printed form of music notation that uses modern music symbols

•Irving Berlin was the most prolific of the Tin Pan Alley Composers

•Wrote songs such as “God Bless America” and “White Christmas”

•Other Tin Pan Alley songwriters include: Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, George and Ida Gershwin, and Cole Porter

Power centered in the hands of larger, international companies, such as:

;

• Universal Music Group
• Sony/BMG
• Warner Music Group
• EMI

Some critics have observed that periods of concentration have produced a lot of similar music

;

Some have observed that this has lead to bursts of creativity by the public

• Innovation is therefore linked to independent record labels
• A cycle of innovations and consolidation

– Music production is more complicated

;

– Webs and networks operating within the music industry

;

– Interconnections between large and small companies

For the use of musical material collected on the behalf of writers and publishers when music is performed or broadcast

Performing Rights

;

Income from rights — Copyright;

What are the three types of rights?

1) Performing

2) Public Performance

3) Mechanical

Necessitates the construction of a desirable appearance around the commodity

This stimulates the desire to purchase and possess

Positive and negative aspects of technological advancements in sound recording

New recording technologies have opened up creative possibilities that have led to the emergence of new genres

Developments in sound systems correspond to how, when and where we listen to music

• The rise of 1990s electronic dance music begins with the fall of disco
• DJs developed a number of techniques to create new music
• The DJ became central to the dance-music experience

Electronic Dance Music

• While disco was still popular, Larry Levan established himself as one of New York’s top dance DJs
• As disco faded, Levan developed his own approach to re-working and combining records
• This New York approach to dance music is often called “Garage”
• E.g. The City Peech Boys’ “Don’t Make Me Wait” (1982)

• Developed at a Chicago dance club called the Warehouse
• Frankie Knuckles brought Levan’s techniques with him to Chicago (c. 1977)
• By the early 1980s the Chicago sound was developing (would soon be called “house”
• E.g. Jesse Saunders’ “On and On” (1983)

• takes disco’s use of a prominent bass/kickdrum on every beat (four-to-the-floor beat)
• Heavy electronic synthesizer bassline, electronic drums, electronic effects, funk and pop samples

• The Belleville Three (Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin saunderson) began producing a refined, futuristic, and sonically sophisticated version of dance music that many called “Detroit House”
• Style now referred to as Techno
• E.g. Juan Atkin’s “No UFOs” (1985)

• Emerged in the early 1990s
• Fast tempo broken-beat drums
• Tracks often used ragga vocals
• E.g Goldie “Angel” (1995)

• This subgenre includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses
• This music is not always intended for dancing (unlike most other types of EDM)
• E.g. Moby “Natural Blues”

• Mashups embody musical collisions
• They often rely on irony and nostalgia
• They have the potential to convey cultural critique
• When listening to mashups, “we discover correspondences, connotations, and critical readings of performances that we may not have given a second thought” (307)
• They have turned consumption into production

Mashup Poetics as Pedagogical Practice (2011), Wayne Marshall

• Brought the genre into public discourse
• Combined vocals from Jay-Z’s The Black Album (2003) with backing tracks from the Beatles’ White Album (1968), creating The Grey Album (2004)

The documentary is particularly interested in the legal grey area of remixing existing works. The film features appearances by:

• Gregg Gillis (better known as Girl Talk) an American musician specializing in mashup-style remixes, which often use a dozen or more unauthorized samples from different songs to create an entirely new track.
• Director suggested we should take control back from government/industy
• Issue with who is benefitting from copyright? (how much goes to the artist)

RiP! a Remix Manifesto

Directed by Brett Gaylor

– Article gives us othe side of Manifesto Documentary

– Focus on sampling in Hip Hop

– Criticism on artists who make hit songs by sampling old songs

– MC Hammer “Cant Touch This” samples Rick James “Superfreak”

– Strauss:  “Popularity not due to rapper skills, but due to sample of other song”

– Questioned whether this was a sign of a creatival slump

Bracket, “Sample Mania”

Neil Strauss, “Sampling is a Creative Theft or Theft?)

What is popular music text?

“Text” refers to any media form that is self-contained and conveys cultural meaning

Ex. Recordings, Album Covers, Music Videos, Live Performances

•Intertextuality is the idea that a text communicates its meaning only when it is situated in relation to other texts
•Preferred reading: dominant messages set within the codes and conventions that went into the creation of the text
•A song’s meaning is not definite
•Context plays a large role in how meanings are interpreted
•Cultural meanings are made by consumers

Graphic, Musical, Video

•Graphic Texts
?Concert posters
?Street flyers
?T-Shirts
?Packaging of albums
•Contribute to advertising/branding

•Musical Texts
?Includes the study of both music and lyrics

•Music Video
-Music videos are promotional devices
-There is often a pre-occupation with visual style
-Music videos abolish traditional boundaries between an image and its real-life referent

– A category or type

– An organizing element
    Musical chracteristics

    Time periods

    Uses

    Types of listeners

– Defined in part by distinctions made by the music industry

Genres

– Genres standardize codes and conventions (Musical, lyric, visual, ideological)

– These codes are fluid

• Placed in the context of historical roots and social context
• Stylistic traits in the music
• Non-musical stylistic traits
• Primary audience
• The style’s durability

Dimensions of Popular Music Genres

Metagenres

Genres

Subgenres

1) Copyright

2) Creativity

Appropriation

The artistic use of another’s work in the creation of a new piece (ex. Andy Warhol: Campbell’s Soup Can Art)

Authenticity
1. Author’s Intent
2. Style and Genre Manipulation
3. Musical Originality

Shuker talks about authneticity in terms of

Pop and Rock polarized:

– Pop = artiface (trick people)
– Rock = Authentic

A modern visitor to a museum may not only see an object in a very different context from that which the artist intended, but may be unable to understand important aspects of the work. The authentic _______ may be impossible to recapture.

Covers
– Originating moment

Spectrum of Copies
– Original
– Direct Copy
– Minor Interpreatation
– Major Interpretation
– Parody

• Appropriation
• Authenticity
• Intertextuality
• Context

  – Genre
  – Time period
  – Gender
  – Race
  – Location