Where Words Cease
Because of the fact that music lies beyond any possible criticism, it seems impossible to take the melody apart. What seems organic and indivisible cannot be taken apart to be subjected to a brutal analysis. Nevertheless, trying to understand what makes a beautiful melody is worth trying, especially if the music in question is the unforgettable melody Lily Was Here by Candy Dulfer. The melody invites to be explored. It is an incredible mixture of the guitar and the saxophone playing. A jazz hit for all times, it makes the audience listen to it again and again to understand what there is so gripping and capturing.
Like any other melodies recorded in a studio, Lily Was Here has passed all the stages needed to become a hit. Speaking of the musical pattern development, the necessary stages mentioned above must be taken into account. These are the studio music and the pre-recorded music parts, which every single song or melody consists of. Unless there are the given elements present in the musical pattern, the melody is doomed to die unborn.
The studio stage was of great importance for the melody, mainly because it was not a solo of a single artist, but involved cooperation between the two. The guitar and the saxophone were supposed to be tuned together so well as if it was a single man playing both instruments. The sounds floating together in the same direction, meeting and parting to meet again on the next musical junction are not magic but the result of hard work. A romantic tint of the two artistic souls joined with the help of the enchanting melody was following the ritual of studio recording. As a matter of fact, working over the studio version is much like working on an alchemic substance which is supposed to turn iron into gold. One single step taken wrong can ruin all the pile of work, but when the efforts prove fruitful, the result is splendid.
The incredible harmony which was born during the process of studio work, and the effect of pre-recording which allowed the artists to focus on the melody itself, naturally dissolving in the music, has worked wonders on the song. It can be suggested that, without the stages which have been discussed above, there would have been no melody at all. Composing the music is the most important process. This fact is beyond any possible doubt. However, the process of polishing the song, letting it sound to the full, discovering every possibility given by the new melody is extremely important as well. Without working on the melody in the studio, it is risky to let the song sound in public. Since the raw material is literally hard to chew, the song which was underdone is just anther failure. Lily Was Here is a perfect example of a song which is the result of hard efforts and much working on the quality of the sound, on the performance, on the background music and other important niceties which add to the greatness of the music.
Because of the use of pre-recording techniques, the musicians managed to focus on the key components of melody and make it sound heart-rending. The pre-recorded music in the background provided the necessary frame for the musicians to create their work in.
Taking the Melody Apart
Using the tools available in Audio Culture, write critically about a piece of music. This can be a work of your own choosing or one we’ve done in class.
In spite of the numerous styles and genres of music appearing with the speed of light, the basic criteria for the music evaluation do not change with time. Even such music as the electronic one, which is the symbol of the new century with all its attributes of the modern technologies, has not changed the evaluation system. The same old criteria are applied to it as well. In these terms, such modern musicians as Bjork and the rest who play electronic music are counted for a novelty which needs deep consideration and the specific use of the existing criteria of evaluation.
Bjork’s song All Is Full of Love is a clear-cut example of a song which hardly fits the frames of the old tools of evaluation and needs the modern methods applied.
One of the song’s most prominent features is the combination of a beautiful vocal, the unchained melody and the specific means of music composing.
The method which involves the use of electronic means to create a musical piece is a comparatively new invention. In the given song, the singer has managed to mix the electronic sound processing and the incredible and inimitable voice of hers, thing as a string and just as fragile. What Bjork has managed to achieve here is the mixture of the rough musical shifts and the roughness and unevenness of her own perfect voice, which sounds like the one of the mythical siren. It calls for the travelers to follow it into the depth of her marine kingdom.
Like a witch, Bjork makes a potion out of the seven notes and drinks the audience insane with it. The use of the electronic means mentioned above does not diminish her impact on the world music. On the contrary, she becomes ever greater as she creates an isle of her own in the melody ocean. Like a creature which comes from up above to take the essence of music to the deaf mankind, she is trying to make her point with help of the unusual music of hers. Once denied by the rest of the world as too weird and defiant, electronic music has asserted itself as the most promising style of making music, all owing to Bjork and her specific talent All Is Full of Love was a combination of sounds so unusual for the ordinary musical styles that it was greeted as something completely new to the audience. Meanwhile, Bjork knew that she was simply combining the elements long forgotten to remind the mankind of the old way to listen to, hear and feel music, not only with their ears, but with their skin and their heart.
A daring experiment, the given piece of music deals with the sphere of a man’s consciousness hidden too deep for the people to feel it like they feel their fingertips touching a surface. A look from the distant past, All Is Full of Love makes the elements which make the music complete and unique. With the use of the computer technologies, the music acquires an additional depth. It makes the impression of a philosophical story told to make people see the truths which have been concealed from them for so long. Thus, the new development, originally a digital sampling, was the revelation of the modern days. it needed a lot of exploration, however. As Cox marked,
Because the tools used in this style of music embody advanced concepts of digital signal processing, their usage by glitch artists tends to be based on experimentation rather than empirical investigation. (397)
Limited only by her own imagination, Bjork creates a world of fantasy. It is inhabited by the creatures looking so much like people yet displaying more understanding and kindness than they do. They are much more humane in spite of their robot-like look. All this imagery is possible only owing to the electronic music and its specific features opening new prospects for artists to explore. With such promising start, there is hope that the future of electronic music will be most flourishing and fruitful.
Making Connections
How would you connect the film So Wrong, They’re Right with (any text from) Audio Culture and/or The Artificial Kingdom?
In spite of the fact that Audio Culture and So Wrong, They’re Right are actually dealing with diametrically opposite subjects, they do have a lot of things in common, especially when the authors come to discussing the ways of the music in the ordinary world. Although the book deals with the novelties in the musical empire, while the movie is talking about the bygone times of the eight-track carriage, they still touch upon one and the same important problem of the aging of music. Since music is something that exists outside of time and cannot be framed into the context of the old and the new, it can be suggested that the book and the film are practically trying to convey one and the same idea, using different means for this purpose.
Speaking about the film, one can say that it is completely sunken into the past and the nostalgic feelings for the things and inventions once turning the history upside down. The impressions of talking to different people about the old eight-track are much more than sentimental memoirs. However, the people whom the camera’s eye catches do not seem to be sentimental about the part of their past. There is no place for the nostalgic feelings about the past. It has gone and there is nothing that can turn it back in the movie. On the contrary, So Wrong, They’re Right is all about the fun of being a man and living this funny life, and mixing with the crowd, and listening to music, and making it. In comparison with the book, it can give just as productive ideas. The only difference will be that the book will give those ideas of the essence of music all spoon-fed, while the movie just gives the range of images which the audience is supposed to compose into a clear picture. It is as if the film director was giving the audience a puzzle to solve. Meanwhile, the book, though skillfully written and composed in advance for the reader not to wander in the depth of the musical philosophy, still lacks the certain touch of vagueness. With the latter, it would have been a more gripping read, like a treasure map for a traveler, whereas without the fleur of things unsaid it is a mere encyclopedia or a route map to the contemporary music. Anyway, the both works make a decent piece of art and can be considered an input into the world musical heritage.
Experience for the Sake of Experience: Summarizing the Work
Debord’s concept of the spectacle was defined, for the purposes of his class as: the substitution of an image of, or a representation of an image of, experience for experience itself. As a theory of radical separation articulated in the hopes of bringing about an interruption of this separation – if, even, for a brief moment – how would you connect this concept with the work we’ve done this semester. Use specific examples in your response.
Defined by Debord as the substitution or representation of an image of experience for the experience itself, the spectacle practically provides an insight on the other people’s lives from the position of an outside observer. According to Debord, the art of spectacle is just another way to escape the reality. He considers the latter another imaginary world where people can hide away.
Pushing his idea further and expanding it to the scale of the society and its political problems, Debord intertwines the idea of spectacle and the idea of the various forms of society. In spite of the fact that this idea of his sounded rather far-fetched and triggered the idea of the social order as the most appropriate for the existing mankind, there were a lot of reasonable points in his speculations. With the tint of Marxist theories, he developed the idea of the social prosperity into an integrate theory of the global well-being as the result of people turning to the ideas of socialism.
Is it truly so that the spectacle is only true when it is not performed by people? Does Debord mean that the spectacle is played by the actors for the sake of the impressions of those viewing it, not for the spectacle itself? Such is the imperfect nature of people that they first focus on the opinion of the others, while they have to work on the idea on their own, without distracting to the outer factors, among then the notorious public opinion. In spite of the famous expression saying that the world is a theater and all people are the actors in this theater of insanity, there is still some hope that people will someday stop acting and change their world perception into a more humane one. The latter is the true picture of the world, without the retrospect into what the others might think. Trying to create the theater where people will live, not act, Debord creates the idea of a man who is inseparable with the ideal image of himself. This leads to people not living, but merely playing a part of the character once thought up. Can total switching to socialism change anything, as Debord supposed? It is highly unlikable, though it is worth trying. Anyway, the total change will inevitably drag the consequences which will trouble the state for quite a long time, until people get accustomed to the novelties.
Being a Realistic Capitalist: an Issue to Discuss
Critically discuss any of the issues/concepts raised in Capitalist Realism and tell me how it relates to the course.
Mainly because of the numerous rational ideas suggested by Capitalist Realism, the book seems so detached from the reality. In spite of its being centered on the vital problems of the mankind and the keys to their solution, the book is far from being close to the reality, suggesting the idealized way out of the miseries of the mankind. However, the fact that it is speaking of the realism from the point of view of capitalism, the existing form of society formation, there are some curious points to consider.
What makes the most interesting and breathtaking point in the meditations of Deleuze is that he is trying to see what is hiding beyond the notion of the capitalism so well-known from the very day the independence came into force and people felt free to develop in the way they felt like to. Unlike any other authors pursuing the same topic, Fisher makes his point completely clear, stating that the people have been fooled from the very beginning concerning the ideas of the perfect economical society. As it has turned out, the Marxist theories were even closer to the existing reality than the dazzled dreams of the world becoming united into a single economical space. Sweet dreams once broken are now the nightmare of the politicians and the concern of the citizen. However hard it might take to admit this fact, but the fight has been lost, says Fisher, and supports his idea with a bunch of facts which speak in favor of his newly born ideas. As a matter of fact, Raunig makes the point about the same idea, suggesting that the age of machines is nothing else but the decay of the mankind – or at least of those whose labour and lives are “precarious” (Raunig).
There are a lot of ideas which prove truth in what Fisher suggests to the people. The truth, however bitter it can be, must be taken into the life pattern and accepted as one of the life’s most powerful blows.
Developing the author’s idea, it can be said that the revelation makes the capitalism acquire a tint of realistic view. It makes capitalism closer to the reality, and thus adjusting it to the world as it is, without the blur of the romantic ideas which are so hard to put into practice.
However, in spite of the abovementioned, it is rather hard to agree with the author. It is not even the stung pride aching for justice which makes one stand straight against the ideas suggested. On the one hand, it is rather painful to agree that everything what a man and his forefathers have been struggling for proves another fake and make-believe. This is something that one will never be able to accept even if he or she makes sure about the fact themselves. The aching pride cannot let one suppose even for a tiny bit of a second that the matter of pride to struggle for did not exist. On the other hand, there are certain beliefs which are uneasy to move, and it might take a lot of time to persuade people that the result of their actions is what they see, but not what they have been imagining for all this time. The clue is that there are no measures for capitalism as it is:
There is no universal capitalism, there is no capitalism in itself; capitalism is at the crossroads of all kind of formations, it is neocapitalism by nature. It invents its eastern face and western face, and reshapes them both – all for the worst. (Deleuze 22)
Blowing the bases of the capitalistic society, Fisher does not leave any place for the hopes to rest. His assumptions are sharp and acute, yet they seem to be very persuasive and lacking the desirable flexibility. “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism!” Fisher (1) states, and the harsh and straight judgment of his sounds like an accusation. The author has managed to reprint the stiffening paranoiac mood which is so apt to capitalism.
What Could Be More Dreadful Than the Death by Hanging?
Critically discuss Death by Hanging in relation to any of the texts we’ve read in the second half of the semester.
In Death by Hanging, the film director explores the deepest and the most secret places of a human’s soul, with all the blackness of the hidden thoughts and ambitions, as well as with the sudden brightness where no one would expect it to emerge. Denying the humanism in people, the author persuades that the notion of being humane is what people should persuade to become sane creatures. Questioning the audience whether the death by hanging is the very sentence which a sane and sympathetic man can pass, Oshima explores the idea of humanity as the core notion for the entire world.
One of the questions which Oshima asks his audience is whether people should accept the existing guilt-and-consciousness relationships o to create the new ones. Once based on a mistake, a miscarried judgment can ruin millions of lives, and Oshima understands it pretty well. With all the power of his, the power of speaking words and stacking pictures, Oshima makes people see his point. According to his idea, the existing system of punishment and investigating the truth is the theater of absurd. In this respect, it echoes with the topic discussed earlier. Whether people live in the real or imaginary world has always been the question which preoccupied the thoughts of those digging deep into philosophy. So is the entire life nothing more than a string of events accidentally collided with each other to create one’s life path?
Such guess is rather frightening. It not only sheds the light on the emptiness of the existence as it is, but also proves the existential theory which says that people are doomed to wander in the insane world on their own, without any chance to encounter anyone who can sympathize with them or help them to understand what is going on in the world.
The drama of existentialism has been shown to the full in the movie. Whatever it takes to admit the bitter truth, the author, Oshima, does it perfectly well, presenting people with another portion of broken dreams. The tortured victim is the society, while the man’s ties and the torture which he suffers are the ideas imposed on the people by themselves, completely willingly and without a moment of hesitation. Agreeing to accept the ideas of capitalistic world, people practically agreed to bear the torture of being misunderstand and mistreated. Unless there are some issues clarified, the existing scheme of surviving in the world is a complete mess.
Thus, it is extremely important for a man to feel that he or she is belonging to the place where he or she lives, and that what he or she is doing is aimed at something certain, not merely chasing ghosts of the future, with the insane ideas coming right from the leaders. The staccato of insanities falling out of the movie ad tearing it apart is the reprint of the true-life situation, when a man, torn apart by his or her own ideas an the ideas imposed on him or her by the society which he or she lives in, cannot make the right choice and is bound to wander in the land of nothingness. Once dreams that people tried to catch, the theories of the modern world prove a fake. The ideas of existentialism come to the forth, and, turning the world upside down, they shift the values of people so that the latter can find nothing to follow or to stick with. Unless people want the world to collapse, there must be something done about the world picture of the modern mankind.
Works Cited
Midterm Paper
Cox, Christoph and Daniel Warner. Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004. Print.
Final Paper
Deleuze, Gilles, Felix Guattari and Brian Massumi. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. London: Continuum international Publishing Group, 2004. Print.
Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Hants, UK: OBooks, 2009. Print.
Raunig, Gerald and Aileen Derieg. A Thousand Machines: A Concise Philosophy of the Machine as Social Movement. Los Angeles, CA: Semiotexte, 2009. Print.