MUH253: Electroacoustic Music

Live music

2008-12-08T11:19:00.000-08:00

So, I'm touching on something that we dicussed in class a while back. I totally forgot to elaborate on it in my blog, so I'm doing it now!

The discussion was on Live music in comparison to the quality of recorded tracks on an album. Some people felt that listening to CDs was more beneficial and some felt that seeing a band live had a certain quality that made it more involved and appealing. I think that it depends on the artist.

There's only been one occurance where a band performed and I just thought to myself, "HOW DID THEY GET THERE?!...Is it really that easy???--they must know people." Perhaps that's harsh, but man, we've talked abotu "ineptness" a lot this semester...and i think they just about nailed it. Of the...(i'm counting)...20 or so bands that I've seen live, this was the only one I didn't really approve of. I could appreciate there love for music and performing...but the quality just wasn't up to par. Granted, they were just an opening band that I'd never known about, but I've also seen a number of opening bands that I'd never heard of prior to seeing them live that I thought were magnificent! So, that's my opinion of inept live music....now competence...

Boy, oh, boy do I love the feeling of being at a live show. Something about the the the kick drum, and the bass just take over my entire body and I seem to become one with the sounds. Not to mention that there is NOTHING better than a musician how can still have an amazing vocal performance live. The greatest example I can think of is The Hush Sound--wow, I almost lost my marbles during that show. Of course I'm bound to love their performance---they're my most favorite band, but I'd be honest if I felt disappointed. The female vocalist and the male vocalist in this band harmonize in most songs--which I am in love with--and their live performance showed no weakness in either of their vocal abilities. I was overly impressed!

Another band that comes to mind is Jimmy Eat World. I've seen them twice now (and will be seeing them again during their Clarity 10 year anniversary tour in february!) and Woah. I'd only recently started listening to the band when i first saw them a little over a year ago. After hearing them live and then listening to their albums, there were elements of each song that stood out patricularly because I had noticed them during the live performance. I think that after seeing a good band perform live, you (or at least I am) are able to place yourself in the audience of the show and hear things that you heard live. The music in a sense, then becomes more alive.

And that is what I love about live music.

Reading Synopsis

2008-12-01T10:39:00.000-08:00

NOISE/MUSIC: MERZBOW
Merzbow--Masami Akita--is known as the master of noise. Proceeding the dicussions of Japanese noise music in the previous chapter, this chapter focuses distinctively on the strategies used by Merzbow in his work. Merzbow bases his work completely around noise....all of it is characterized as noise. Such strategies used are: duration volume, harshness, interference, luring listeners into attributing meaning,antri virtuousity, pulses, oscillations, crashes and explosive bursts.
Merzbow creates an experience for the listener that is out-of-body. His sounds do occur in sequence, but undo what happened just before. In his earlier work his equipment included mostly percussion, tapes and sample. He later moved on to analoque equipment, which primarily includes feedback, explosive residue, metallic scrapes and howls, pulses and "colored" noise.

SOUND UNBOUND: Chapter 35 - Theater of the Spirits: Joseph Cornell and Silence Catherine Corman
This chapter seems to tie the disciplines of art, music, writing, theatre and film together. Instances of each of these arts is mentioned while discussing uses of silence as well as how different mediums are used to portray silence. What I found most intersting in this chapter was that different artists have bounced ideas off of each other in various instances. This is something we've touched on in class a few times and whether or not using an idea from someone else is plagiarizing. In my opinion, boucing idea off of each other is an extremely effective way to grow as a community of artists and creators, as well as a great way to learn from each other.

SOUND UNBOUND: Chapter 20 - South Africa's Rhythms of Resistance
This chapter was great. Lee Hirsch's message that "song always has been, and continues to be, at the heart of humankind's jouner, at times arguably the fuel that keeps us going," seems to be the main point of this reading. He uses his own experience of traveling to South Africa after their civil war makes this message even stronger. Everyone can relate to the fact that music seems to bring people together, especially in times of crisis. People are able to use their emotions from difficult experience to channel into the creation of music that seems to obtain followers as the sound spreads. Music is a strong healer and this chapter mirrors this well.

Japan...Vietnam..Not the same thing, but oh well.

2008-11-18T11:09:00.000-08:00

So, while I was reading the chapter from Noise/Music entitled "Japan," I was reminded a lot of the performances I've seen via VHS from Vietnam. Although I've never really considered what I heard to be noise I could definitely see a connection, especially when describing the performer/audience interaction.

Let me first explain what I've seen. Everytime I go to my Ba Ngaoi's (grandmother's) place, she always has these VHSs or DVDs playing that she got in Vietnam. The music I hear is typically far from genius and very poppy in characteristic---and I don't jut mean the music, but also the clothes, the audience interaction and the movement. Talk about cheesy. But, whatever, the audience seems to dig it. What cracks me up the most is that a lot of the time they will sing covers of American songs and I can almost swear that the singer doesn't even really know what they are singing...to them, they are just words.---And this brings me back to the Noise/Music chapter, entitled "Inept."

Everybody wants to be a rockstar.

It seems to me that this genre and culture of music that I've seen throughout my life--not of my own willingness--demonstrates a demographic that I, perhaps ignorantly, mimic along with my sister. It's so easy to make fun of the fact that other than the singer there are no musicians playing typical instruments on stage, yet the crowd is going crazy. At the same time, however, I have to admire the fact that the interaction between the stage and the audience is one of two-way admiration. It doesn't seem to matter in the end how the performance is done...the fans are there and they are there to support the performer. This support system is such a huge part of why musicians do what they do, whether inept or not...it works.

I am not a bass.

2008-11-07T10:33:00.000-08:00

So...I've been working on my next piece which an an a capella cover of "Wine Red" by The Hush Sound. It's proving to be harder than I had anticipated to do all the different parts--soprano, alto, tenor, bass...and the solos. Sometimes the bass is just toooo low for me to even hit an octave above! It's causing some difficulties but I WILL get this done this weekend...and it's going to be great.
I've had a couple of other ideas as well, but am having trouble executing those as well. My other idea was the take the piano piece that I'm currently working on for my applied music course and added some other elements to it. I've always loved classical piano and I think it'd be really cool to take a classical piece on the piano and then add some synths or some beats (or both) to it.
My other idea was to record the songs that I've written in the past and also add some new elements to those as well. As the end of the semester is approaching I'm realizing that I'm running out of time to accomplish the goal that I had in mind, which was to create a compilation of various songs that I had worked on. So far I only have one completed piece because I've worked on so many things that I ended up just scrapping because I didn't think they were good enough. Maybe I'm being to picky.

path

2008-10-20T20:49:00.000-07:00

So, not too much has changed since my original goals for the course. I haven't yet created an a capella piece, but I'd still like to do that. I've started one and I've been playing around with the idea, but nothing worth showing off just yet. The first piece that I presented this semester was a lot of fun to produce and I really loved the sounds. So, I'm thinking that I want to create more stuff like that....Interesting instrumentals with vocals on top. I like the idea of doing really simple lyrics but expanding more on harmonies. At the end of the semester, I'm hoping to have a collection of a dozen or so songs that I've recorded...some with the help of others...all, or at least most of them with vocals.

Current playlist:
Heaven - Angels & Airwaves
Starting Now - Ingrid Michaelson
Hometown Glory - Adele
Spinning - Jack's Mannequin

Comments.

2008-10-14T19:23:00.000-07:00

First, I'd like to comment on Melissa's blog on The Dresden Dolls. About four years ago I went through a phase of being obsessed with their music and and listened to it non stop for about three months. (I do this with a lot of bands when I first hear about them and love what it is that's entering my ears) What I loved about this music was, as Melissa also mentioned, the untraditional use of vocals. If there is one thing that I love the most when I hear it in music, it's the voice being used in ways totally unexpected, or "abnormal"--whatever that entails. I find it innovative and...ballsy. I also enjoyed reading Melissa's blog because of the background information provided about the musicans and where they came from as well as their ideas. Typically, I don't do much research on artists and I hardly ever know anything about the personal lives of music makers. I'm not sure why, I've just always focused on the music, solely, because to me that is what matters. On the other hand though, I think that sometimes it can be beneficial to know the 411 about the musicians being listened to. It opens up a different perspective and can allow for the ears to hear something it wouldn't without this provided information.

Second, I'd like to comment on Joanna's blong on Lucky Dragons. I went to their myspace and found the sounds intriguing. It's not what I would typically include on a personal playlist, but, nonetheless, I appreciated the music for the genre it's within. After hearing Joanna's ea work in class today, I found that her vision and the vision of Lucky Dragons is similar. It gets me thinking a lot about influences and also about the reading from Sound Unbound about copyright and how we "reuse" sounds previously produced. I personally think that's the beauty in art...the way we can be influenced by others works and create something of our own from what we've entrapped in our minds. In Joanna's blog, I also enjoyed the segment about audience. I think its a gorgeous thing, when artists can be personable with their audiences and create a sort of relationship where there is no hierarchy and rather, just an equal level of humas enjoying sound.

Also, I'd like to add here that I haven't been doing the whole playlist thing....I suppose it's slipped my mind....so, here's a lengthy one. I hope that people take a listen at some of the songs/artists I'm listing in this blog. I'm kind of one of those people who when she finds a song/artist she likes, she craves to share the music and have people around her enjoy it as much as she does. Yupp, so, here it is:

"Silver Lining"- Rilo Kiley
"Sunburn"-Muse
"Free to Say"-Smoosh
"Wake the Sun"- The Matches
"Falling For You"-Ronnie Day
"Speeding Cars"-Imogen Heap
"Pumpkin Soup"-Kate Nash
"For Me This Is Heaven"-Jimmy Eat World
"Happy Ending"-Mika
"I Know, I Know, I Know"-Tegan and Sara
"Lullaby"-Cary Judd
"Take It From Me"-The Weepies
"Zwei Sreifen Im Blau"-Couch
"My Only Swerving"-El Ten Eleven

Angels & Airwaves

2008-10-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

Angels & Airwaves (referred to sometimes as AVA) is a solo music project by former Blink-182 member, Tom Delonge. Also, in the group is guitarist, David Kennedy from the band Box Car Racer, former drummer from the Offspring Atom Willard, and former 30 Seconds to Mars bassist Matt Wachter. So far the band has released to albums: We Don't Need to Whisper (2006) and I-Empire (2007). They have also released a documentar entitled Start the Machine, which focuses on the break up of Blink-182, the creation of Angels & Airwaves and the making of We Don't Need to Whisper. They also plan to releasing a feature film, entitled I-Empire, that will feature their music.

With the hiatus of pop-punk superstars that make up the band, you would expect the sound of Angels and Airwaves to be much different than what it is. punk+punk+punk+punk=punk...right? NOPE. AVA is for sure characteristic of the Alternative-Rock genre, however, AVA achieves a certain uniqueness that is unprecedented in this certain music scene. This band creates a multimedia supergroup (all members were hand picked by DeLonge) that devotes their sound to providing a true musical experience for their fans. Having been to one of their live shows, I can truly say that listening to them and watching them paralleled any potential religious experience I would personally have. Their sounds are simple to get lost in and at the show I nearly felt as though it were an out of body experience...completely uninebriated.

When the band first started in the studio the would play 2001: A Space Odyssey in a dark room on a big-screen TV. World War II posters of battle scenes and destruction were hung up on the walls around them. This is where they found inspiration for recording. This band, unlike with Delonge's previous work, concentrated on the expression of personal emotion through metaphors to space and the conflicts involving love and war. If you listen to the music, this metaphore shines through...particularly the space theme.

Secret Crowds
The Adventure

Ratatat

2008-09-29T11:13:00.000-07:00

Ratatat is an instrumental project by two musicians, Mike Stroud and Evan Mast. The two had previously worked together under the name Cherry, but then started working on releasing a self-titled album to be released in 2004 using the name Ratatat.

How it works is that they plug a synthesizer, a guitar, and a bass directly into Evan Mast's PowerBook. What results is an an ingenious mesh of techno, instrumental, hip-hop, electronic, and pop sounds. Because their work wasn't costing them a lot of money and because they had no A&R to tell them what to do with their sound they were able to take some pretty artistic gambles. Fortunately they seemed to have won their bets are a successful music project was on its way.

All of their songs are completely instrumental with no vocals used at all. Typically I wouldn't find this type of music to be as appealing to me as it is. I'm an avid fan of voice and lyrics, however...Ratatat's use of contrast and change in melody within their songs keeps me listening with interested and amused ears.

In an interview with Fader Magazine, they said that when creating their music they start with a melody first always. After that, the order of layer varies from song to song. And as far as layering different sections, Evan Mast said "You kind of just get into each section, make it feel as full as possible and then realize that, 'Oh this is not the complete song,' and then you have to backtrack. It’s different with some songs because you are working horizontally.
Mike: We sort of try out every possibility, we’re kind of just playing around with things and then reorganizing over and over. You know it’s bad when you get bored listening to it."

One thing is certain, at least for me, that the music definitely never becomes boring. There are so many separate sounds to appreciate and then when all these integrating parts come together, its even that much more mind-blowing.

"Seventeen Years" on Youtube.com