Cecilia stuff

I'm kind of lost on what we need to be doing with this but I did play around with most of the modules and tried to grasp what exactly they were doing to the clips. I used the same short clip for each to try and get a better understanding of the effects what they were doing.

http://soundcloud.com/m-tripp/sets/cecilia-mod-practice

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Walter Banjamin's polemic is a long, though interesting argument, culminating to a resounding explanation of the society we currently live in. He begins by assigning the role of art in ancient societies as filling a ritualistic, spiritual capacity. As society and civilization advanced, works of art were taken from their natural, vernacular settings and displayed in exhibitions to a mass audience increasing both in size and in absent-mindedness. He argues that with the age of mechanical reproduction, something is lost in the object that is experienced. He likens the photographer to the surgeon. The apparatuses of still and moving cameras invade the subject with an antiseptic, scientific lense that destroys what he refers to as the "aura" of the real thing. The duplicate is consumed passively by a distracted masses that are easily manipulated into hegemonic thought, while at the same time believing they are critics, or experts in the field, due to their proximity to the media (especially with the advent of the newsreel). He also assigns a shock value or violence to film, which at once puts the audience in a submissive role and which assaults their senses, visually. Walter finishes his argument with the Epilogue, which takes the correlation between new mechanically reproduced media and violence a step further: war.

"Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property. The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life. The violation of the masses, whom Fascism, with its Führer cult, forces to their knees, has its counterpart in the violation of an apparatus which is pressed into the production of ritual values...

If the natural utilization of productive forces is impeded by the property system, the increase in technical devices, in speed, and in the sources of energy will press for an unnatural utilization, and this is found in war. The destructiveness of war furnishes proof that society has not been mature enough to incorporate technology as its organ, that technology has not been sufficiently developed to cope with the elemental forces of society. "

The end of the essay is so insightful and on-point that I am glad to have read through all of the preceding "technical jargon" . This is not where I expected to end up with this reading and I am left feeling a deep appreciation and respect for Benjamin. Academic thought with real-life importance is always a relief!

Lumpy Post

Oh, I loved every second of Lumpy Gravy...  I don't know what else I can say about it.  It's different than anything else you can imagine, but it's different in the best kind of way.  When I think about it, this album isn't even as "different" as the majority of the Zappa that I have heard.  All in all, I just think it's amazing, and I could listen to it again and again.

On to the next lump in this post

Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians:  The performance that I listened to may have just not been done so well, but the beginning tone that is repeated throughout was a little too overpowering for the first minute or two, even as it occasionally changed by a note or two.  It was a little too much.  If it had been slightly more subtle, it probably would have held my attention better.

Next lump

Six Marimbas, again with the Reich:  Definitely worth the listen.  Very complex.  The repetition kind of got to me after a while, but it really did take a long time for that to happen.  Overall, I don't know that I would go out of my way to listen to it again, but I don't regret listening to it.  Although, it is rather hypnotizing, so there might be some interesting use to it, deep down...

Last lump

Plunderphonics:  I just have one question...  with that whole Canada Copyright Act, how would they know it was a copyrighted piece if you altered it beyond recognition?  How would they catch you, unless you explicitly said what you sampled from?

Cecilia

-not a fan so far of cecilia- it crashes like crazy on me......

give me logic or give me death

Sound UnBound:

After re reading intro/ chapter 1, a major point that stuck out to me was the change in technology from simply 30 years ago. Reich talked about how he got started in the 60/70's with two cheap mono recorders and started to create his sample loops, where as today we have labtops that do everything and more. back in the day they need tape decks, thousands of cables, millions of analog synths etc. and now we have every synth ever made (digitally recreated) on our computers. This point was only nailed home as I continued to read and saw the technological advancements that made their way into Steve's musical life. Forget about the idea of sampling and the "is it music or is it simply stealing someone else's music...blah blah blah," just thinking about how they recorded this stuff and layered and mastered with such limited tech blows my mind out of the water. "In 1988 i discovered first that i could use a music notation program on a Mac computer to make scores and second that there were sampling keyboards." wow! so dated.

With that said, I really enjoyed his thought process throughout this "revolutionary" (as everyone always says) time. I like how he pointed out the question, "how will people do this live?" (paraphrased) He realized he could do this with 2 tape decks a recorder...etc... but he needed a way to incorporate this into a show or with people to perform..... "or else it will be seen as a gimmick" as he puts it. I love the idea of sampling and loops. I myself being a synth player see the musical value in it and can more adequately understand the time and effort that he went through to get some of these sounds/ recordings/ pieces.

Again, the reading was a little convoluted when it got into the FTP analogy, but all n all I enjoyed it.

-Tim

After listening to Lumpy G. I had the same impression as most people do when listening to Lumpy Gravy for the first time, cluttered, disorganized, no flow. But if you were to map out the styles, rhythms, vocal samples..etc, you start to see a structure that gives the song some kind of life to it. I definitely hear the almost cartoon like influence of Carl Stalling with that intro old school "the munsters" feel with the splatty brass and 8ths on the ride, 2 and 4 on the snare. I enjoyed the vibe/ bass break down in the middle, kind of reminded me of another 60's Private Eye show or something. This musical style (at this portion) reminds me of Chuck Mangione and his style on the flugel.

Interesting Piece

-Tim

In Through the Out Door Thoughts

I read this chapter twice trying my best to understand what the author wanted to say. Similar to other posts, I thought this was a tough chapter to follow Reich's. It was a little hard to keep my attention focused on the reading with the author's writing style. I think he uses a million complex words to try to get a simple point across. Also, I found it hard to keep up with all of the examples he uses. He names so many people and works that it's easy to lose the main idea quickly. I wish I could have something really interesting to say about this one. I understand the picture Miller is trying to paint for us when he speaks about listening and understanding that most of the sounds come from things intentionally originated by people and that silence is a rare commodity. Other than the mildly entertaining examples he talks about, I found the reading to be uninteresting overall.