Orchestration

http://www.soundsonline.com/product.php?productid=EW-177

This particular product is quite incredible. The company East/West recorded every instrument of the orchestra in a world class studio doing every possible articulation. They also did this for the piano and spent months and months editing all the samples. There were no other companies that had really put together a MIDI sound set that sounded this real, but these guys have done the closest thing by just taking the time and budget, and just doing it right. Pretty much anytime you hear orchestration in TV shows or lower budget movies, this is the program they use. Its an interesting disconnect between the body and the music, because technically someone played that exact note and articulation that you are programming, but they did it in a different order and a different place. Its like you're given a bunch of legos, each one representing a specific recording of music.

Eigenharp

Some time ago, I found out about this "instrument":

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8294355.stm

To summarize, the article describes a bassoon-like electronic instrument, capable of creating basically any kind of tone you could want. It's played by manipulating the fingerboard on either its front or the sides, or by blowing into the mouthpiece (this is where it gets its resemblance to the bassoon). The video demo in the article is actually pretty cool.

One quote from the article really made me think about the body's involvement in all of this: "It's not just the sonic thing - they are visually compelling, and there's a reason for that - we've got pretty fed up with watching people twiddle knobs on stage."

This made me think of how technology has impacted our performance space. It seems logical that setting up a show with a laptop and a few speakers makes less of a corporeal connection with the audience than does a rock band jamming on physical instruments. To me, part of this stems from the idea that while their minds compose the music, it is the body itself that actually creates it, by plucking, bowing, blowing, or drumming its way to sound. This instrument attempts to re-create the impression of a human body creating the sound in electronic music.

Here is the Wikipedia page for the Eigenharp, if you're curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenharp

I lost my Mojo! (Also, That 1 Guy)

There’s a new program called Mojo that’s currently bankrupting the music industry. Mojo allows a user to connect to the iTunes library of any other Mojo user close by in a wireless network and take music at will. (Regular network iTunes connections allow you to listen to others’ music, but you can’t put it into your own library.) Or, if you know someone else’s username, you can take their music from anywhere in the world, as long as they are connected to the Internet. You can sit in the library or a big lecture hall, open up Mojo, learn about the musical tastes of about 10-15 people, and steal the entire library of any of them. As you could imagine, a person could amass a huge collection of music this way, without ever paying for it.

What else is new? All sorts of new technologies allow you to acquire music without paying a cent. But are there any benefits, and how is Mojo different?

Most people I know who use Mojo end up finding favorite users to take music from (it lists users’ real names), and often these are people they have not met. If they do know these people, they will usually engage them in a discussion about their music. Hey, I saw your library on Mojo – good taste. Any more recommendations?

Most new technologies for music acquisition are contributing to the phenomenon of music as an increasingly solitary experience. Gone of the days of going to a record store, where the employees know you and your tastes and make recommendations, then ring you up and wish you a nice day when you leave. Humans are removed from most of the process of online music acquisition. Maybe somebody gives you the initial recommendation, but then you go on your computer, search for a torrent, download it, and achieve your goal with no more human interaction.

Mojo can facilitate an engagement with the musical tastes of others, and importantly, these others are either people you know or more commonly are people in your immediate vicinity. Mojo creates a micro-community of users sharing their musical tastes with each other, and the opportunity for real human interaction is there.

On another note, I initially wanted to write about how technology offers new methods of musical creation, but I see that that topic has already been covered. However, I still want to show you guys something. This guy is called That 1 Guy, and I saw him for the first time at a music festival in the middle of the Everglades; 10,000 people were freaking out to this goat-looking guy in a top hat manipulating a giant pipe with steam coming out of the top; every once in a while he would take off his shoe and play it. It was the best concert I’ve ever seen. He is a classically trained bassist who invented a machine that he calls the Magic Pipe; it is rigged with every type of technology possible. What’s more, the music that he makes with it is actually great! Watch these videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8DdKQCgUq4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCN7k3-PUss&feature=related

Future shock?

When thinking about the topic of technology, music and body, i come up with the video i watched during my History of Jazz class last semester:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK0Pi4wC8Hk&feature=PlayList&p=DB952BF84A1DF9D4&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=1

It's the music video for Rockit by Herbie Hancock; the song is recorded in his electronic music album Future Shock during the 80s. During that time both the music was quite a blow in that Herbie exploited revolutionary special effects, including scratching and other turntablist techniques, which formed the DJ culture in the following decades,combined with electronic keyboard and drum synthesizers. The music video was even more shocking with its portrait of mechanized mannequins mimicking the life of human beings. Disassembled legs and torsos of the mannequins move around and fulfilling the tasks of everyday life. The body parts are animated by electrical signals and controlled by mechanic arms, the procedure of which indicates the absence of brain and emotion. The only part that relates to the real human body is the television presenting Herbie Hancock's own hands playing the keyboard, but the television got smashed at the end of the video, symbolizing the last trace of humanity is destroyed.

There is a contradiction of attitude shown in Herbie Hancock's creation. Rockit on one hand celebrating a whole new genre and discovery of possibility in music, but on the other hand revealing the horror for the possibility of a dehumanized future. The music became a hit and played repeatedly in pubs for both reasons, with the latter become paradoxically the obsession of contemporary people.

This kind of obsession can be more easily seen in the popularity of the electrical band Daft Punk. Here's a video of their live performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9MszVE7aR4

The members of Daft Punk only show up in public wearing the robot mask, never revealing their real appearance. Interestingly they claimed themselves robots that turned from human beings. The dance cannot be more appropriate for their music, being highly repetitive, fragmented and angular, detached from any kind of personal expression. The human bodies are represented as being homogenized, in almost a religious way, under the higher order of electrical signals and sounds.

Comparing those two videos, which are 20-30 years away, we see a lot of similarities of expression, that electrical music being de-personalized and bodies being detached from both visceral and cerebral functions. Both of them become enormously popular no matter what their stances are in their music making because they both visualized and audiblized the fetish for the mechanized corporeality.

headphones.

I think one of the most interesting things technology has brought to music and its relation to the body is concept of headphones -- portability and isolation.

We often take for granted how easy it is that we have ways of experiencing everything to some kind of soundtrack.. these days, it is rare to see people exercising or walking to class or driving a car without listening to music. this adds an entirely new dimension to the physicality that can play into musical engagement.

Even within one simple activity, exercising for example, headphones allow for a higher level of experiencing both the music and the body movement. Bodies can move rhythmically in time with the music or more aggressively during climactic phrases, and the music can be associated with the physical stimulus of exercise. Music can be enjoyed for its exercise-appropriate value (perhaps a quicker beat, a driven and energetic sound, etc.) and can be embodied and realized physically by its listener. The isolation of oneself in sound is empowering and increases focus. It may also give the listener a sense of privacy that makes exercising more comfortable. Or sometimes it's a tuning into oneself and a change of perspective from being an element of the outside world to being an outsider observing the environment. This aspect in particular applies in many more fascinating situations that exercise...

The world looks totally different when you're listening to music. When you decide to smile at a stranger you're passing by because you just heard the most uplifting and inspiring part of a song, your body interacts with the world differently than it would have without the music. The idea that listening to music in this way provides an alternative physical awareness and consequential interaction between the body and its environment in all kinds of different situations is perhaps the most powerful implication of the technological development of headphones.

Music, the Body, and Technology

Today, in music theory we watched this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnoD3NUux3M

It made me think about how so much of today's music is obsessed with auto-tuning. Recently, it's been used to the point where the voices don't sound remotely like anything that our bodies can actually create, but no one seems to really have a problem with this. I myself am kind of torn. On one side, I like some of the songs with auto-tuning, but on the other, I really don't like the overuse of this system because it makes "singers" out of people who aren't. With the abundance of technology like this that can "correct" the tonality of any singer and make their voice sound like whatever they want it to, which defeats the entire purpose of being a singer, and leads to people becoming famous for reasons unrelated to singing, or are already famous for something else and decide to "become a singer" even though they don't really know how to sing very well. The biggest problem is, society (or rather, the majority) seems to be okay with this. Will this continue to escalate (as in has since auto-tuning has been invented)? And if so, how far will it go?

Music, the Body, Technology: Joshua Fried

After thinking about an example that I could find that would adequately demonstrate the convergence of music, the body and technology, I decided to embed a clip of Joshua Fried, a NYC musician/dj/technician. Fried has a solo show entitled "Radio Wonderland" where he begins by turning on a standard am/fm radio and cycling through the stations, looking for something interesting. Then he connects the radio to his equipment and begins to create a beat/melody by manipulating the radio sound wave. Involved in this process is his mixer, a set a shoes that act as a drum pad and a steering wheel that acts as a turntable and tempo controller. All in all, what he does is utilize the technological tools that we have as an 'electronic' society and manipulate the sounds we hear on a day-to-day basis into "music". With that said, after taking a look at this video, I asked myself a few questions that I would like to share, questions I think anyone would ponder after experiencing "Radio Wonderland":

1. Is this music? There are definitely unique sounds that are being made, there absolutely is a beat, I thought I was 'moved' by the sound, but is there something inherently different in this performance that is not related to or can not be compared to the 'regular' music we normally listen to?
2. Is there musical embodiment? Clearly Fried is not playing music with conventional instruments (other than maybe percussion while utilizing his shoe drum-pad), the audience doesn't see him strain to hit a high note or utilize his digits. Has technology removed all embodiment?
3. Does technology create a some sort of 'cop-out' within the realm of musical creativity? I understand that what Fried accomplishes here is thought-provoking and certainly creative, however does his use of electronic mediums and mechanical devices remove his musical creativity from the realm of other artists we respect?
4. Is this performance purely a gimmick?

I have my own answers to these questions and I feel as though each person will relate to this performance differently, so watch the video and see if this 'music' emboldens your views, or maybe changes them.

Musical Movements

Here is the link to a brief article about an interesting program that captures 3D movements of the body for conversion into musical sound:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3873481.stm

Of course, it would take some time to learn how to interface with the software, but the goal is to make it possible for anyone to control a musical composition.

Music, Technology, and the Body: House (etc.) Music

When I think about music and technology, the first subject that pops into my mind is house/dance/trance/techno music.  (Forgive me for mashing together those terms, but I never really know what particular characteristics, if any, separate those genres.  They seem generally similar enough to me that I'd like to refer to them as a whole.)  Why?  Well, quite simply: this overarching genre exemplifies the fact that we can now create music solely via technology; i.e. our only "instruments" necessary are the computer and other such devices.

The fact that we can produce music solely by using technology is not actually that important, and indeed, many electronically produced songs mix in samples of human-sung vocals or human-played instruments.  I want to focus more on the nature of this kind of music.  Here's an example:

Characteristics I note in songs like this one include:

• a beat that is repetitive and ongoing almost throughout the song
• a "melodic line" that consists of a short phrase, also repeated almost continuously with some slight modulations
• gradual entering/fading in of more layers of repeated phrases/sounds
• vocals are often (though not always, but especially in remixes like this one) reduced to one or two lines that are layered in like all the other effects, and are also usually technologically modified

When listening to this combination, I find myself semi-consciously aware of the sense that most or all of such music is electronically produced.  At some level, my mind knows it's artificial -- but I think this is the key point that raises the body to importance.

Consider singer-songwriter, acoustic, Jack Johnson type of music.  From my experience, I listen to these kinds of songs and the lyrics are likely the most prominent feature.  If I'm paying any attention to the song, the lyrics might get into my head and start evoking personal connections and memories.  They tap into the emotional part of you.  Sometimes I listen to one of these kinds of songs and just sit still and lapse into nostalgia -- my body is not really engaged.

Now back to the house music.  The ongoing pulsating beat makes me want to get up and move my body in sync with its rhythm.  The entering layers of phrases one by one add to the energy of the piece, rousing adrenaline and excitement.  The vocals are embedded, and the lyrics are simple enough that I don't have to mentally process a whole story, but just let the words sink in as a repetitive sound.  This music tends to engage my body in what feels like a "primal" way: it bypasses personal histories and thoughts and begs me to "lose myself" in it.  All drug/alcohol-related possibilities aside, I find that this music alone can induce some level of euphoria; the body becomes so engaged with the music that higher-level consciousness temporarily becomes unimportant and diminished.

This video is bad quality and a little ridiculous, but it's kind of what I'm talking about:

Music and the Body and Technology

When I think about the interface of music, technology and the body, the easiest go-to is the development of new methods of listening to music; in my lifetime, from cassette tapes to CDs to the iPod and other MP3 players. One of the common themes over times time also seems to be an individualization of the musical experience, something that I know Myles is discussing in his paper.

When I think of popular music in the 1980s, I get the image of someone walking down the street with the giant boombox, blasting music to the whole world. Music in the case was not really meant to be an individual experience, but something broadcasted to anyone within earshot. Later, music became walkmen, and finally iPods.

But this individualism is also present in the music we have access to. Gone are the days where (most people) go and buy whole albums – especially ones that they don’t know anything about, just on a whim. Music (can be) free, and even if it’s not – we all preview a song before we think it’s actually worth downloading.

I think the iPod ads that were so prevalent in the past few years speak to this idea. Music has become very much individual, and at the same time, its relation to the body has changed. Music used to be an external phenomenon – something that was listened to at a concert, or perhaps broadcasted to everyone near by. But over time, it has become more and more internal; earphones, and more recently, earbuds move the stimulus both literally into the body (moving further and further down the auditory canal), and emotionally within the body (you’re the only one really experiencing the music). At least, that’s how I’ve always interpreted the silhouettes in the iPod commercials. They may be individuals, but they are in essence becoming part of the music themselves – thus, we only really see responses to music, and minimal or stereotyped bodily features

Summary for Holsinger

In his article The Musical Somatics of Hildegard of Bingen, Holsinger proposes that the music of Hildegard and female sexual desire and pleasure, and devotional experience are in many ways inseparable, because he believes that the imagery and vocabulary of female sexual pleasure were an integral part of her musical creativity. He shows that Hildegard’s music constitutes a mode of sexual pleasure, anxiety, and fascination, exploring the techniques and implications of embodiment in Hildegard’s musico-poetic production.

The anxiety can be best described as being generated by bodily obedience. In her utter submission to God, she experienced three major visions during the time she was with the Benedictine order. She described herself as the vessel or the instrument of God, saying, “for I am a cithara sounding praises and piercing the hardness of heart with good will.” Her visions are full of the imagery of sexual anxiety and violence. Within those visions, she perceived the musical tortures of the Apocalypse, as well as the curious appearance of the lira “lying with its strings” across the body of the son of man. As to maintain the tempering of the instrumental body, accounted by Holsinger, strict musical discipline of the body on Earth can ensure a concordant harmonia in heaven.

The fascination refers to her repeated emphasis on the Virgin’s anatomy in her lyrics. The interpretive key to the musicality of desire and embodiment in her Symphonia requires both formal analysis and study of her voluminous writings. The text of Symphonia celebrates the miraculous birth of Christ, presenting a very sensual image of the Virgin’s organs. The notes that fall upon the words that relate to sexual pleasure tend to be treated with greater dramatic effects. When compared to the norms of the contemporary repertory, her melodic line is considered excessively physical and emotive.

The various forms of desire registered in the Symphonia, as written by Holsinger, pervaded Hildegard’s entire musical world. A group of nuns live in this world in intimate proximity, raising their voices together in song and allowing music, with the actual cantus resonating between the nun’s bodies as well as the Symphonia, binding the bodies of the nun together to grasp part of the pleasure of the Virgin Mary. Often she sexualized the entire body, not simply the genitals. She characterizes the pleasure in a woman as comparable to the sun, which “gently, calmly, and continuously spreads the earth with its heat, so that it may bring forth fruit.” Hildegard’s lyrics transfers the pleasure from masculine stem to feminine womb, which is related to fertility, and she implies that the female desire and sexuality paradoxically does not depend on male penetration, as the title of the article calls, a woman can be “moved to pleasure without the touch of a man” (sine tactu viri). Therefore the female-male-female constructions of triangulated desire often yield to female-female eroticized performance.

If Beyonce Were a Boy...

"If I were a boy
I think I could understand
How it feels to love a girl
I swear I'd be a better man

I'd listen to her
'Cuz I know how it hurts
When you lose the one you wanted
'Cuz he's taken you for granted
And everything you had got destroyed
If I were a boy..."

Comparison to Telugu and Tamil Padams

While reading Holsinger's article, I first noticed that every passage used to show the sexuality present in Hildegard's works personified female sexuality. The Antichrist appears from the vagina of a woman, while the male genitalia is hidden by a harp. The next few pages talk about Hildegard's vivid imagery of the female giving birth, the Virgin Mary's conception, etc.

This juxtaposition of sexuality and spiritual devotion reminded me of Telugu and Tamil padams: devotional poetry-songs. These songs often contained images of God as a customer of courtesans. Ksetrayya (one of the most celebrated authors of padams) and other writers generally composed these from the point of view of the courtesan. That is, it would be written in the voice of a courtesan searching for her lover, as the lord, to join her. While there are many cases of directly explicit sexual tones, in many cases, the expression was not directly sexual. The main theme in all of these was spiritual devotion. I was interested to see how spiritual devotion can have many sexual overtones in both forms; it seems as though the body is described sexually as a means of reconciling the mind with the "higher" pleasure of religious ecstasy. For instance, take this passage from When God is a Customer: Telugu Courtesan Songs by Ksetrayya and Others:

The whole town fast asleep,
the whole world pitch dark,
and the seas utterly still,
when it's one long extended night,
if He who sleeps on the snake,
who once devoured the earth, and kept it in his belly,
will not come to the rescue,
who will save my life? (5.2.1)

Deep ocean, earth and sky
hidden away,
it's one long monstrous night:
if my Kannan too,
dark as the blue lily,
will not come,
now who will save my life,
sinner that I am?
O heart, you too are not on my side. (5.2.2)

O heart, you too are not on my side.
The long night with no end
has lengthened into an eon.
My Lord Rama will not come,
with his protecting bow.
I do not know how it will end—
I with all my potent sins,
born as a woman. (5.2.3)

"Those born as women, see much grief,
but I'll not look at it," says the Sun
and he hides himself;
our Dark Lord, with red lips and great eyes,
who once measured this earth,
he too will not come.
Who will quell the unthinkable ills
of my heart? (5.2.4)

This lovesickness stands behind me
and torments my heart.
This eon of a night
faces me and buries my sight.
My lord, the wheel forever firm in his hands,
will not come.
So who will save this long life of mine
that finds no end at all? (5.2.6)

Ramanujan, A.K. When God is a Customer: Telugu Courtesan Songs by Ksetrayya and Others. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Pages 9–10.

In this song, the speaker is a young woman, obviously separated from her lover. This lover is identified as the various forms of Vishnu—Kannan, or Krishna; Rama; he who sleeps on the snake; and the Dark Lord are all various forms of Vishnu. The lover refuses to come, and the woman is alone at night. She is tortured with longing, and spends time wrestling with gender issues. She blames herself, her "sins," her womanhood, and possibly the lover as well.

I thought this compares interestingly with Hildegard's use of sexual language to reconcile the body with spiritual devotion.

Red Hot Chili Peppers: "Aeroplane"

Because it's the official music video, I can't embed it, so here's the link to it on YouTube.

I learned of this song thanks to participation on Blip (basically a Twitter-for-music social network) and fell in love with it.  In search of shirtless males in music videos, for the sake of my comments on the Mika song, I looked up the Red Hot Chili Peppers on YouTube and found their official page.  So I checked out the video for Aeroplane.  It wasn't the best example of what I wanted, but as I let the song play, I suddenly realized the lyrics seem to relate a LOT to what the chapter on Hildegard's work was talking about.

Now, as is the case with many music videos, I admit I don't have much idea what this one is supposed to mean.  But some of the lyrics in particular hit me.  I'll copy/paste the full lyrics at the end (from Sing365) and pull out a few lines in particular to relate back to the reading.  [Note: pardon the profanity; I've starred-out a few words in the original lyrics.]

I like pleasure spiked with pain - This reminds me of the bodily/erotic pleasure, on one hand, and the pain and strain of pushing the vocal capacity to its limits, found together in singing Hildegard's compositions.

and music is my aeroplane - Music is the vehicle (okay, terrible accidental pun) via which the pleasure and pain merge.

songbird sweet and sour Jane - another pleasure/pain dichotomy.

Someone better slap me,
Before I start to rust,
Before I start to decompose - Clear references to the body and description as if it is literally deteriorating.


My melancholy baby,
The star of mazzy must,
Push her voice inside of me - This is a reference to some female, her singing ability, and penetration (which has a decidedly sexual flavoring).  Unlike Hildegard, though, whom the author interprets as talking about female-only sexuality (and sexual space, in the sense of the womb and flowing of winds in and out), this singer is a male referring to a female's voice interacting with him bodily.

Just one note could make me float,
Could make me float away,
One note from,
The song she wrote,
Could f*** me where I lay - This imbues the music itself - produced by a female (this time composed, not just sung) - with apparently a complete sexual power over him (the singer).  This is interesting actually because it removes entirely the female's body from the scene; the sexuality is transferred to the music she produced.

Just one note,
Could make me choke,
One note that's,
Not a lie,
Just one note,
Could cut my throat,
One note could make
me die. - Now we've lost the sexual meaning of the music and instead it has a power to bring on pain ("choke", "cut my throat") and death.  In the vein of Hildegard, this almost seems like a warning: if you don't do with the music as you should, it will cause the end of you - and in a negative way.  I'm recalling her visions that threatened her to share the messages she was given, or else she would undergo further torture, I assume.


----- 

I like pleasure spiked with pain and music is my aeroplane,
It's my aeroplane,
Songbird sweet and sour Jane and music is my aeroplane,
It's my aeroplane
pleasure spiked with pain,
that motherf***ers always spiked with pain.

Looking in my own eyes (hey lord),
I can't find the love I want,
Someone better slap me,
Before I start to rust,
Before I start to decompose,
Looking in my rear view mirror,
Looking in my rear view mirror,
I can make it disappear,
I can make it disappear (have no fear),

I like pleasure spiked with pain and music is my aeroplane,
It's my aeroplane,
Songbird sweet and sour Jane and,
music is my aeroplane,
It's my aeroplane,
pleasure spiked with pain,
that motherf***ers always spiked with pain,

Sitting in my kitchen (hey girl),
I'm turning into dust again,
My melancholy baby,
The star of mazzy must,
Push her voice inside of me,

I'm overcoming gravity,
I'm overcoming gravity,
(It's easy when you're sad to be,)
It's easy when you're sad, sad like me

I like pleasure spiked with pain and music is my aeroplane,
It's my aeroplane,
Songbird sweet and sour Jane,
and music is my aeroplane,
It's my aeroplane,
pleasure spiked with pain...,

Just one note could make me float,
Could make me float away,
One note from,
The song she wrote,
Could f*** me where I lay,
Just one note,
Could make me choke,
One note that's,
Not a lie,
Just one note,
Could cut my throat,
One note could make
me die.

I like pleasure spiked with pain and music is my aeroplane,
It's my aeroplane,
Songbird sweet and sour Jane,
and music is my aeroplane,
It's my aeroplane,
That's spiked with pain.

(my aeroplane, my aeroplane, my aeroplane, my aeroplane)

...it's my aeroplane..(x8)..

Response to Holsinger - Croom

According to Holsinger, Hildegard viewed the musically embodied life as a disciplined life; taking proper care of one's body "lead[s] to musical "tempering" of the body, the strings of which will resonate correctly only if the body is properly fed" (p. 96). The idea seems to be that, without disciplined action towards the regular maintenance of the body (e.g. eating moderately), the human body may no longer "bind together its parts into a musical whole" (p. 96). But if this really is Hildegard's view about the musical body, then it seems that it might contrasts with her musical style in, for instance, O viridissima virga. This is because, deviating from standard practice, Hildegard's use of internal centonization in O viridissima virga was for the purpose of avoiding to use "the same melodic fragment over and over as a simple reference point" (p. 118). That is, in order to achieve greater expressivity, Hildegard strategically deviated from the regularized, "tempered" use of simple repetitions of melodic fragments. Further, Holsinger later explains that Hildegard's compositions anticipate Bach's in that the works were intentionally composed so as to be physically demanding to the point of inducing suffering in musicians that would resemble religious suffering (p. 135). So what I find strange is this: if it's essential to Hildegard's conception of the body that it remain 'musical' in that it remains harmoniously tempered and regularly disciplined, is this in conflict with her musical style whereby, in order to attain higher expressivity, she breaks with 'the harmoniously tempered and regularly disciplined' technique of standard centonization? For Hildegard, is the musical life one that is tempered so as to be healthy, one that is untempered so as to be expressive, or harmed so as to be religiously humbled? Or is the musical life a struggle between all of these?

Mika, "We Are Golden"

I'm probably two or thee years behind the times, but I just "discovered" Mika while eating breakfast in Riga two weeks ago. His song/video "Grace Kelly" was playing on German MTV on the video screen in the hotel dining room.

Listening to the song, and viewing the video, what can you say about this performance in terms of not only music and the body, but in terms of gender and sexuality as well? How are the latter related to the former, specifically in Western popular culture/popular music? How do various types of bodies get presented for consumption, and what do these presentations (presume to) tell us about gender/sexual identity? To whom are these images addressed - or, to use Michael Warner's terminology, what sorts of "publics" do they create? What does a moving, singing body "do" that a photograph doesn't, and on what registers?

Of course, you needn't answer these questions; I only offer them as a way of starting things off. Add your responses as comments to this post, instead of starting a new post for each response.

(By the way - the formatting of this clip seems to be too wide for the column width on this blog, so if you want to watch it without the major cropping, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEhutIEUq8k.)

What does it mean to call music profound?

For those of you have have requested it, here is one of my sources (my favorite so far) for the 'emotional abstraction' part of my paper. It's a great read and if you're anything like me it's got a lot of those lines that make you hit the desk, like "YEAH, THAT IS SO TRUE!"

If the link doesn't work for you, just let me know and I'll send you an electronic copy :)

"The Experience of Profundity in Music", Bennett Reimer

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3333288.pdf

caryl.

The Falsetto - What Does It (Or Can It) Express?

What does the falsetto express? Initially, one might think that singing in such a high register would be expressive of 'femininity'. That is, to sing in such a high voice is to express one's feminine or more youthful nature. However, as we saw through the course of our interesting discussion in class the other day, there's nothing essentially 'feminine' about the falsetto. For instance, Maxwell features the falsetto in "This Woman's Work", but I don't find this song feminine at all. I think what Maxwell expresses in "This Woman's Work" is not femininity, but rather vulnerability. But vulnerability needn't be feminine; for instance, a man's most courageous moment can be exactly when he's expressing his vulnerability towards the person he loves. In this sense I find Maxwell's use of the falsetto expressive of both masculinity and vulnerability. So what is the nature of the relationship between the falsetto, femininity, and vulnerability? Is there some single fixed relationship, or are there several cross-cutting relationships? Maybe the falsetto is expressive of vulnerability, since in singing in that register one's voice is more likely to crack or break. Since falsetto is by definition a non-standard register in which to sing, to sing it is to take a risk and deviate from a norm, which may make one vulnerable. And maybe it's because falsetto is associated with vulnerability, that it's also associated with femininity. Or no? What do you think?

Miller, Chapter 2: Travels to the Center of the Square

In Chapter 2 of Sacred Harp Singing and American Pluralism, Miller goes into detail about the tradition of Sacred Harp conventions and singings. Originating in the Southern U.S. the late nineteenth century, this tradition draws people from all over the country to join in singing anthems and hymns according to a notation system specific to Sacred Harp singing. This reading focuses particularly on the interaction between those who attend the singings and the formation into which they arrange themselves while singing. An entire convention (2+ days) or a singing (1 day) is geared around this formation, the "hollow square". A song leader stands in the center of this square with his back toward the alto section, facing the tenor section, with basses to the right and trebles to the left of him or her. The front row singers are almost always of higher experience levels and seniority. There have been times in the past when these singing events would draw crowds of around 1000 people, but these days they typically have an attendance of around 300 people. However, it seems that the energy, loyalty and attraction to this tradition is still very much alive.

A typical singing day would start with women waking early to begin preparing food for the "dinner-on-the-grounds." The convention chairman then might make announcements or signal the start of singing. At this point, people would take places in the hollow square and follow lessons led by the leader at the center of the square or sing the songs led by them. Anyone can volunteer to lead a song, but for most it takes a good amount of time and experience to work up the courage and skill to lead. Most members consider their first lead a turning point in their spiritual experience with Sacred Harp singing. After the singing, there is a memorial service for those members who have passed away since the previous singing event, followed by dinner-on-the-grounds.

Miller describes many facets of this event in great detail. There is definitely a sense of community fostered by the way in which the singers are arranged and the way newcomers come into the group. For example, there is a lot of play in group dynamics based on voice part, genders within the voice part, and physical orientation of that voice part during singing. Also, Miller touches on the idea of place vs. people as the primary driving force of a singing event. An indoor venue in Chicago for example tends to emphasize the importance of people joining together, whereas a beautiful rural space in Georgia plays a lot more into the event than the Chicago venue might.

There is also a lot of discussion about the different roles that members can take on during a singing. People can volunteer to lead songs, act as executive members, serve as arrangers, or serve on a committee. There is a lot of thought and planning that goes into making a singing or convention as powerful for the participants as possible.

Female Falsetto?

Opera singers often talk about the "whistle register," in women, which includes the E above high C and higher. People sometimes call this the "falsetto" register of a woman's voice.

From wikipedia:

"In European classical music, the whistle register is used primarily by coloratura sopranos. Many parts in the coloratura soprano repertoire extend beyond "high C" and often extend up to high F (F6). Although many coloratura sopranos use whistle tone vocal production to sing these notes, some operatic sopranos are capable of singing up to "high F" (F6) without utilizing the vocal production associated with the whistle register but remaining in the modal register. That being said, most coloratura sopranos do utilize the whistle register, particularly when singing staccato notes in rapid succession, during high trills, or other elaborate coloratura ornamentation in the upper tessitura. Rarely will coloraturas use whistle tone when doing high extended notes. However, singers like Mado Robin were noted for doing so. Also, some rare coloratura sopranos do not need to use whistle register at all. Probably the best-known example of the whistle register in European classical music is in the "Queen of the Night" aria (properly titled "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen") [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ufeyarJxNQ] from the Mozart opera Die Zauberflöte; it calls for pitches up to F6"

Atma Means Soul

Come join us for Atma's 7th Annual Sping Show!

(and see if you can find the grain of our voices, haha)

Show Info

Rolling Stone: Atma Exposé

February 26 and 27, 2010

Doors open at 7:30pm | Show starts at 8:00pm

Class of '49 Auditorium

Houston Hall

3417 Spruce St.

Philadelphia, PA 19104

If you guys could come on Friday, that would be best! Tickets are typically $8 presale and $10 at the door, but if you let me know which night you would like to attend by Thursday, I will have tickets reserved for you at the door for $7 (just tell them you're with MUSC251)

Here's a little bit of musical background about Atma for you guys:

Atma, Sanskrit for soul, began 6 years ago when a bunch of girls who specialized mostly in South Asian music (both Hindustani and Carnatic) decided to start an a cappella group in which they could experiment vocally with new styles while preserving the traditional sound of Eastern music. Since then, Atma has incorporated a wide variety of Eastern and Western music, fusing all kinds of cultures and backgrounds to produce a sound that is uniquely our own.

One thing most people don't know about our a cappella group that is different from most is the way in which we arrange our music. Most other a cappella groups rely pretty heavily on notation for learning parts, but our group arranges everything aurally and vocally through recordings. Though this method may have been chosen for convenience or because it was the only way the original group founders knew how to arrange, I believe it has become integral to our sound and our awareness of the songs we perform. It forces us to know the songs in a different way -- we make corrections and sometimes change arrangements around based on the sound we collectively produce -- not because one member is singing a C# when she should be singing a D.

I could probably go on far too long about the little oddities that make Atma a group I really enjoy being a part of but I'll catch myself and end it here... in any case, I really do hope you guys come out to see the show if you have some time this weekend.. in the very least, it's definitely something different to do on a Friday night!

The Voice: Den Tandt and Frith

Please post your responses to the Den Tandt and Frith articles as comments to this thread.

Miller and My Saxophone Experience

In his article, "The Moan Within The Tone...", Doug Miller accesses the reasons of why the saxophone, once a pure Western Classical military instrument, was and continues to be incorporated into African-American popular music. One of the key points in his paper highlights the unique physical aspects of the saxophone in regard to vocalization of pitch. He writes that as a result of the characteristic structure of the saxophone and nature of a performer - the reed used, the embouchre, the voloume and column of air - unlike other instruments, the saxophone can be utilized to produce incredibly high pitches, bend pitches or flutter pitches. The nature of the instrument, therefore, provided a means by which African American sax players could break away from the confines of Western Classical music (which stressed a rigid embouchre and being in tune).
After I read these examples I could not help but completely identify with Miller's assessment in regard to my own musical background. I began playing the piano at the age of 7 and, like most practicing piano students at that age, wholly and completely stuck to playing the 'essentials' - Classical music that would establish my ability to sight-read, internalize rhythm, and establish dexterity. However, similiar to my piano-playing peers at the time, I truely hated playing said pieces as well as my instrument - I found that I could not relate to the music I was playing nor give my performances any piece of my own personality.
Now during my third grade year in elementary school, I went to an assembly where the band director gave a musical tutorial of all the instruments available in the band, hoping to recruit some new members. I watched my teacher play the flute, trumpet, drums, and clarinet and was not very impressed. He then picked up a tenor saxophone and played the sweetest, fat, jazzy, bluesy riff I had ever heard, exentuating each 'blue' note and adding his own dazzling personal timbre. At that moment I knew I had to play saxophone. The prospect of not having to stay within the confines of an eight note scale on the piano (through pitch bending and additional vocalization) excited and inspired me to establish my own sound.
From that year on I played alto saxophone in every band, marching band and jazz band I could be a part of and to this day, I revel in the fact that my saxophone is uniquely 'mine' and can only sound the way I want it to - something I'm sure the African-American jazz performers of the 40s and 50s would agree with.

Responses to Readings on the Body and Instruments

Please post your short responses to the readings (Baily and Miller) as comments to this thread (in order to avoid having multiple new threads).

Once and for all...

After extensive research, I have determined unequivocally that the clapping in "Sometimes" is on the offbeat!

I've now watched every video of Bessie Jones on YouTube, and there is ALWAYS clapping, ALWAYS on the offbeat. "Sometimes" just doesn't have the foot-stomping to tell us where the 1 and 3 are. We have to internalize it. Check out the videos:

But here's the meat:

Historically, music from the African-American tradition (spirituals, gospel, blues) and its descendants (rock and roll, hip hop) accent the offbeat. It might be harder to make distinctions between "black music" and "white music" today, but in Bessie Jones's time, this would not be the case. Simply, those with experiential basis in the African-American tradition would feel the offbeat, and those with experiential basis in the Euro-American tradition would feel the opposite. Today, nearly all music is syncretic. Maybe I feel "Sometimes" the way I do because I listened to nothing but ska and reggae from fourth to tenth grade (very strong accent on the offbeat), and maybe Dr. Amico listened to a lot of Russian opera. Who knows. But anyway, watch the following video clip. Look at the way the children clap. The white children immediately start clapping on the beat, and the African-American girl claps on the offbeat. Eventually, Bessie starts clapping on the offbeat, and all the children correct themselves (to the best of their abilities). This is not a racist observation. In those highly segregated times, less cultural syncretism would lead to differences in the races' treatment of music. In the most politically correct terms I can think of, Dr. Amico and Moby are just too white to hear the clapping on the offbeat!

I hope I've made my point without being too offensive or confrontational. It's all in the spirit of debate!

Berio - Sinfonia

This is the piece I mentioned in class as a prime example of temporal/rhythmic dissonance. There is harmonic dissonance also, to be sure, but I think the real key to this piece is the fact that each of the individual excerpts is played with the same tempo and style as one would hear in a performance of just that piece. An example of 20th Century musical "scrapbooking," if you will.

When I listen to this piece, it reminds me of a "time travel" effect seen in movies, where excerpts of memories float by the main character. Perhaps this is the effect that Berio was going for; after all, the quotations span from a Bach chorale to graffiti on Parisian walls with everything from Wozzeck to James Joyce in between. The YouTube clip attached seems to be trying to do just that... so, apologies for the 80s-tastic "cinematography."

This is the third movement, "In ruhig fliessender bewegung" from Sinfonia (1968). This title comes from Mahler's Resurrection Symphony -- the only quotation that spans the entire movement. The instrumental quotations Berio uses are listed below (thank you, Wikipedia):

• Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra, fourth movement (violent opening scale played by the brass)
• A brief quotation of Mahler's Symphony No. 4 (Mahler) just before.....
• Mahler's Resurrection Symphony, third movement (the only quotation that is ongoing)
• Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé, flute solo from the Pantomime
• Berlioz's idée fixe from the Symphonie Fantastique (played by the clarinets)
• Ravel's La Valse (orchestra plays octave motif with piccolo playing a chromatic scale)
• Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps (the "Dance of the Earth" sequence at the end of the first tableux)
• Stravinsky's Agon (upper oboe part from the "Double pas de quatre")
• Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier (one of the waltzes composed for the opera)
• a chorale by Johann Sebastian Bach
• Alban Berg's Wozzeck (the drowning scene late in the third act)
• Beethoven's Pastorale Symphony, second movement (melody stated with the clarinets)
• (Schoenberg segment quoted again)
• Debussy's La Mer, second movement "Jeux de vagues"
• Boulez's Pli Selon Pli, very first chord of the entire piece from the first movement ("Don")
• Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen for three orchestras (during the introductions of the vocalists near the end)

Enjoy!

Functionalism and the Body

This site gives a good overview ofthe way the body is invoked in cultural theory - specifically, functionalism (which Stockmann uses as one of her bases for the discussion of music and work):

http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/Faculty/murphy/function.htm

Messy bodies, indeed

I came across this post, Bewitching "Sexual Color" Photography, from Twitter.  (It includes a bunch of large images, so click to the article to see them.)  I couldn't help thinking of the "Corporeographies" article we read when I saw these images.  It seems that the aim of the photography series is to intentionally emphasize a connection between sexuality and, well, messy fluids.  Most of them look like paints in the images shown, though, so there's an artificial element here - whereas it seemed more like Longhurst was referring to fluids naturally produced by the body.

I also noted that most (all?) of the subjects are females, and this plays directly into Longhurst's point about the associative imagery of females as the soft, fluid, not-rigid, (etc.) bodies.  In contrast, though, I don't think this photography is depicting such characterization as a negative one.  Instead the association is supposed to enhance the sexuality, or more specifically the sexual attractiveness, of the subjects.

Ride - Samuel R. Hazo

With all the examples of interesting rhythms that we discussed and to which we listened in class today, I could not help but think of this symphonic band composition which I played in high school.  Honestly I am so captivated by listening to the song that I have trouble putting my head into analytical mode to try to determine the meter; the best I can remember from high school is that I think it's 7/8 sometimes but interspersed with measures or sections in other meters.  (I struggled to find any kind of image of just a single page of the score or one instrument's part to this song, but I neither had a scanned page on my computer nor could find anything online.)  To me it all fits together seamlessly, though, and I think therein the piece accomplishes the ultimate goal.  Even if, as a listener, you don't always know how to count along with what you're hearing, the beats and ebb and flow are powerful enough that you can move to it rather easily and intrinsically.  To wax poetic for a second: you just have to remove your mind from the pathway and let the music go straight to your body.  (In other words, don't think.)

For background on the inspiration behind this song, see Sam Hazo's story about it.  I love that it has both a totally physical experience as well as an overarching symbolic meaning attached to it.

Vitruvian Woman

One part of Longhurst's 'Corporeographies' that really struck a chord with me was the discussion of "genderizing" the rational as masculine and the "Other" as feminine. That is, the idea that contained, orderly and complete form is masculine, whereas femininity connotes messiness, passion and incompleteness.

I thought immediately of da Vinci's Vitruvian man and the structure of the anatomy and containment of the body within the boundaries drawn. In art, men of most desired form are almost always depicted in an almost rigid way -- chiseled features, deliberate stance -- while women have always been presented with more organic forms and undefined boundaries.

Positive and negative connotations aside, this difference in male and female physique can be seen in many forms of dance. Men tend to rely more on the rhythm, power and straight lines while women draw on fluidity and curvature with moves that don't necessarily illustrate the beat of the song.

Rhythm

If anyone has any observations regarding any of the listening assignments, please feel free to add them as "comments" to this post.

Via Gra Translation

http://www.allthelyrics.com/forum/russian-belorussian-ukrainian/64112-english-translation.html

Music as an Analogy to Geographical Space

Throughout reading the Longhurst chapter, to be honest, I was not sure exactly what concept she meant by the many references to geography.  Going with the assumption that she is speaking of physical places and environments in which our bodies must exist, I want to make the analogy of thinking about music (particular pieces/songs, even) as a place, or more abstractly, as a "space".  (It is slightly different because we cannot physically place our bodies within a song as we can place them within locations in the physical world.)  She posits that we are not effectively grappling with the body's fluid boundaries because--to give one reason--the fluids produced that characterize the body as "messy" are viewed as abject, unclean; we do not want to acknowledge them because they tarnish the model of the human.

This phenomenon of skirting around the truth of the messy body is something I have seen in the "geography" of some popular music.  Some songs are quite sexual in nature, but the fluids that are inherently involved in sexual acts are pretty much avoided in lyrics by way of using implications rather than more direct language.

Examples...

• "Taste It", by INXS (lyrics, video): The title alone is suggestive of fluids; the video clearly shows the sexual subject material of the song; an excerpt from the lyrics is "Sweet, sweet, sweet / Could you taste it?", but to look at the lyrics, they are still rather abstract, not explicit.
• "Birthday Sex", by Jeremih (lyrics): The lyrics contain some pretty specific references but still step around the messiness of the act.
• "Secret", by Maroon 5 (video - lyrics in description): In this case the lyrics are not explicit at all, more poetic in nature, but the sexual nature of the song (enhanced by the music) is evident.

To ponder for a moment: Perhaps partially we are avoiding bodily fluidity and messiness in music (as an example of popular media) because it seems distasteful and human-image-tarnishing.  Because this is music, though, we may not just be avoiding something, but rather trying to glorify the actions without including dirty details--yes, they exist, but we know that in the back of our minds, so we need not include them directly.  Additionally (as came to mind for me via the third song above), part of the game is creation of mystery (through abstraction) and thus the desire to uncover more.  In that "more" could be all the "dirty" details.

"Wit" - Emma Thompson

Historically, the body has been seen -- in medicine at least -- as a male being. Longhurst provides Vesalius and Galen as examples to this end, and indeed, research projects have consistently focused on the "70-kg male," and then extrapolated their findings to females, minorities, etc.

Similarly, Longhurst supports that culturally, the body is also a male being:

"The body [humanist geographers] refer to here is ... a man's body. ... They do not want a body that is messy, incomplete, out of place and not possessing clear boundaries. They do not argue for the menstruating, birthing or lactating body -- that which is associated with the feminine." (p. 16)

Longhurst's implied feminism here made me curious: how do we think about the woman's body, particularly if the disease affects this "male/female" dichotomy. In "Wit," Emma Thompson is diagnosed with stage IV (disseminated) ovarian cancer. Losing the ovaries (literally, or in terms of function) is clearly a defeminizing process, yet we don't see it as masculinizing. Does this get in the way of the dichotomy Longhurst seems to see in baby diapers and cultural history?

More significantly, Longhurst's continuing discussion on the interface between mind and body also seems relevant here. How does the mind deal with a failing body? Emma Thompson confronts this challenge in the scene, excerpted below.

Longhurst Reading

Longhurst talks of how those that occupy the space of the mind transfer knowledge, that there is a palpable separation between mind and body. The body has needs and is subject to its own set of rules. Sometimes, when composing music, I wonder what it would be like to be an incorporeal being. My body requires me to eat, go to the bathroom, get exercise, etc… While these tasks can be fulfilling in their own right, at times they get in way of working, and limit my ability fulfill my mind. That being said, I need my body to play instruments and sing, so it ends up being a balancing act between my body and my brain’s requirements.

Abjection as societal or biological?

As I was reading this, I had a hard time really buying what Longhurst was saying. While I can see some of her points, she fails to acknowledge that some abjection of fluids, for fluids like vomit and urine, is more biological than societal. She seems to focus purely on the humanitarian element, lamenting society's taboos, but fails to consider the biological element. For instance, it is evolutionarily advantageous for the person who sees his peer vomiting to be repulsed. Otherwise, he may not avoid the food that cause this in the first place. Along the same lines, nausea inducement in groups is also common. If one is in a group and someone vomits, many other people in the group will feel nauseated. While this might have societal overtones, the biology of this process cannot be denied.

On a less critical note, as I was reading this, I thought of this scene from Dr. Strangelove.

Longhurst reading

Longhurt's discussion of the extension of the body into fluids and how we divide bodily fluids into "dirty" fluids like vomit and sweat and "clean" fluids like tears makes me think of the noises we make with our voice and which ones we consider music as opposed to just noise. We can make a wide range of noises including screaming, crying, talking, yelling, but for some reason we only consider "singing" musical. If someone were "crying on pitch," would that be music?

Longhurst's "Corporeographies" and Music

Among the scores of points that Longhurst addresses in "Corporeographies", she asserts that to understand bodies, "it is necessary to pay attention to discourses and/on/in flesh". Therefore, the 'common', fundamental definition of 'body' - what our skin covers - does not adequately describe said concept. Instead, Longhurst explains that "body" (or geographer's definitions of body) is influenced but one's sociocultural environment, colored by values, politics, and prejudices.
After reading this paper, I found a strong connection between how Longhurst approaches the body, and how our 21st century approaches music, more specifically, instrumentation. Just how Longhurst moves away from the fact that the body is not solely 'organs' (no pun intended), music today can be created and/or performed without instrumentation - it is no longer concrete and substantial, but rather an amorphous, sonic experience. To prove this point, I chose a youtube clip of Tiesto, a popular European DJ and the Blueman Group.
The fact that Tiesto never plays any instruments to produce his sound, I believe, provides visual evidence to my point. In addition, the incorporation of the Blueman Group - a genderless performance troop - may also stimulate conversation as to how 'body' - or lack thereof - can be connected to musical performance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXd9XQsvkSY

The "Otherized" Body in Music (Karp)

In "Corporeographies," Longhurst stresses that the body has been treated as the "Other" in most academic discourse (specifically in geography). The body and its normal functions could detract from the neat and tidy rationality of such discourse, especially in an intellectual tradition that treats humans as dichotomous, with reason contained in the mind and lustful passions in the body. Music harbors some of the "Otherization" of the body. Recordings often seek to minimize what is human and bodily in order to create a more "perfect" sound. Just think of the wildly popular Autotune trend in pop music. It is basically no longer acceptable in pop music to even sound like a human, whose voice slides along an analogue continuum of pitches and often does not rest perfectly at the exact desired frequency. Rather, we aim to sound like computers: digital, perfect, and squeaky clean. Any signs of the body - voices cracking, breathing - are treated as deviations from the norm. I've attached a video of YouTube sensation Tay Zonday's "Chocolate Rain" to demonstrate how musicians make concerted efforts to minimize breathing noises, even though singing itself is a variation of breathing. Fast forward to 0:25.

Breathing Bodies and the Soul in Sax - Croom (25Jan10)

If you stood in a vault and the air was suddenly sucked out, it wouldn't be long until you realized just how interdependent the body is with the environment. You may even justifiably wonder: is the air I'm breathing, the air sustaining my very existence, included as internal to my body or excluded as external? Is such an internal/external distinction always apt? In Bodies: Exploring Fluid Boundaries Longhurst suggests that "In ingesting objects into itself or expelling objects from itself, the subject can never be distinct from the objects" (p. 29). This made me think of Maceo Parker's Soul of a Black Man. Where does Maceo's instrument begin? Surely not in the sax, but within his lungs, within his body. And when you hear him play, you not only hear the sound of the sax, but the sound of his breath, the style of his exhale. Growing up I always felt intimate with my sax; I think for some, it's an extension of one's soul.

Kalahari Debate Article

This helped me understand what was going on in the Grauer article.

Kalahari Debate

Specifically, the Arguments section is helpful.

Longhurst's "Corporeographies"

Longhurst's chapter does not deal specifically with music, yet there is great potential to apply her ideas to musical products, behaviors, processes, etc.

How might this be done?

New Research On Music Therapy

I know we haven't discussed music therapy yet, however I just found research that came out a few days ago suggesting a profound link between Mozart's Sonatas and baby growth. Take a look:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100107132551.htm

Bodies as Cages

His body's still a cage...

At the request of Tori (not Amos), I've started a blog for the class. Feel free to post whenever the spirit moves you.