A Semester’s Review
Over the course of this semester, I’ve learned a lot about the internet, recording music, famous music moves like the Chuck Berry lick, and how sampling works. I learned about things like what is so significant about an mp3 file, and how audio is sometimes tested on cats.
I had a really great semester and felt as though I learned an awful lot, including our final project and how I am now able to create a song using DAW software like Garage Band. It was such a thought-provoking class that I must admit, I didn’t go in expecting a lot out of it. However, I learned a lot in the end and thoroughly enjoyed the semester taking this class. Although I took it mostly to complete my IT credit, I fulfilled not only that credit, but my own unknown curiosity to learn more about the history music and the digital past.
Zip Code Marketing
After class when we talked about how certain zip codes tailor to particular classes and groups of people, I spent a lot of time on the Nielson website playing around with certain zip codes to see which ones were accurate. I found that some were and some weren’t accurate with what I knew, so it was all very interesting. It reminded me of the quote mentioned in class that “we live in a society where state surveillance is mixed with commercial surveillance.” All business owners want these days is their business, so it seems as though that’s all that a zip code is worth anymore. Do you mean more than what your zip code says about you? Is the zip code that you live in, about as much of a storyteller as the clothes on your back? It’s all very odd to think about.
With the diversity of zip codes, I guess it means Thomas Jefferson didn’t get his uniformity that he wanted, but hey, I guess this diversity is what makes America great.
Music; The Modern Day Transformer
After being sick, temporarily forgetting my blog password, and being swamped with projects in every single one of my other classes, I am back with a post to blow your socks off. Here’s my review of the last few weeks.
I’ve decided that Claude Shannon was way too abstract of a thinker, and am still trying to decide his best addition to society. I mean, we did get pretty far thanks to him, but I can’t help but think about how he believes information and meaning are two different things. I can’t understand how one thinks that way. Isn’t meaning made from information?
We also talked about Funk music in class. I always found it to be a funny name. but never quite understood it as a genre. I must say, Professor O’Malley believes hip hop has more bounce and swing in it, but I believe you can’t get any more “all-over-the-place” than funk. It’s the kind of music that makes me tap my feet or snap along to the beat and that’s the bounciest music you can get. It is so interesting though to hear how funk music is sampled. I think about how today, so many artists are making money off of singing covers of other artists’ songs, and during the age of funk, that was so popular! Sampling is such a neat idea.
It’s fun to see how it’s been transformed too, such as the guitar lick sound. It might be taken from one song to another, but because it is such a simple “move,” it’s hardly recognizable as the same thing.
In the most recent class, we talked about the frequency or changes of pitch in music, but also about instruments such as electric organs and keyboards which can take sounds, change them into different sounds, and again, totally transform a song/bit of music. It’s gotten my so excited to think about my Final Project in creating a song for this class.
This is why, over the last few weeks, all I can do is compare music to a transformer. It can go from an everyday thing to something completely different/new. Music is awesome.
The Devil’s Music?
The term hip hop was not found in any books until 1976, in a book titled, “The Devil’s Music: A History of the Blues.”
While reading pieces of this book, I realized that it’s not about hip hop, but about the blues era of music and black culture. The contents page of the book features a lot of language used to describe African American culture, including words which would not be acceptable for me to use today.
Interestingly enough, the term “hip hop” is not described in this book at all, which makes me think that it was a term used, but not often written about. Or, it may have had a double meaning of a sort. The first quote about is seems to use the word quite lightly as it says” Rap and hip hop, an explosively percussive and urgent range of sounds fed by new electronic technologies and the urban rage of the ghetto, erupted from the youth of the Bronx and Harlem in the late 1970s” (Page 238). That quote tells me a lot about this genre of music, and also a lot about the culture it holds behind it. The next page of the book talks about how should and hip hop were trying to become the new swing beat, and be the newest music fad of the time period.
It’s a very interesting genre and one I never seemed to know much about.
You Can’t Stop (Counting) the Beat
Every type of song, of every different genre, has beats which make the song flow. Counts usually vary from 1 and 3, to 2 and 4, but what’s so interesting is that some people may hear them differently. Based on the music you grew up listening to, or where you’re from, you may hear different emphasized beats. From John Philip Sousa to Pharrell Williams, the way we listen to music varies.
One thing stays the same though, once you start counting beats, you can’t stop.
This Week’s Favorite Topic of Choice: Minstrel Shows
Minstrel shows are quite the unique concept if we think about them now, but back during the time of 1800’s, they were no off topic. They were displays of popular American music back in that time, in which white men would wear blackface makeup, insulting the African American culture which was seen as comedy show at the time.
Now, if a minstrel show were to occur, the entire country would be up in arms and upset about this. It’s interesting to think about why perspectives on this show changed.
The internet and what’s come of it…
In class we learned about the Internet, how is was formed, and why it was created. I became fascinated with the fact that it was created for the purpose of being built to withstand any possible attack during the Cold War. I think about how now people will complain about if their internet signal is low, but during the time of the Cold War, with all the servers they had throughout the U.S., that was never a concern. It’s also incredible to think about how far the internet and the World Wide Web have come.
Learning about the creation of web pages and so on made me very curious for the continuation of these lectures.
Can a machine be intelligent?
This was a question I’d never once thought of before class yesterday, but it made me think. Yes, a machine like an iPhone may have all the answers, but is is the machine that is intelligent? No, it’s the creator of the machine who holds the knowledge. I believe someone had to put all that together and program to make the machine as intelligent as it is. Therefore, I agree with John Searle’s argument against Alan Turing.
Idealist or Realist?
It wasn’t until class the other day that I wondered about Idealism and Realism. To me, they were just topics of discussion I had never gone into, nor ones I ever understood.
Though I wouldn’t say I identify as an Idealist, I would say Idealism is a practice I relate to more. As one of my fellow classmates brought up a topic I agreed with him on, I know I’m not perfect, but I also have some idealistic picture in my mind of the perfect person. I don’t know who that is, but I know it’s not me.
Realism is more for folks who think of something as it is in that particular moment and address it accordingly.
Now that I know what each of these topics is, since I hadn’t really thought of them before class, I know how to cope with either of those groups of people. I know how to react to their comments and how most of them work. It’s quite an interesting concept.
The Over Compensation of Music
For yesterday’s class, we read about the increase in the volume of music; how the music of the millennial generation has gotten increasingly louder and louder as the days go on. I mean, of course, it has to get louder. How else are music producers going to catch the ears of attention-seeking millennials? It’s a little-known fact that this is a generation who is drawn to the most eye-catching article, or the most expensive gadget, or the loudest most basic tune.
But while the music is getting louder, it’s also becoming easier to listen to. Producers are compressing this music so that the whispers are the same levels as the snare drums, and the belting tones are the same level as the piano background. Not necessarily for the attention-seeking millennials, but the lazy ones who are tired of raising and lowering the volume of the radio as they drive.
While is may be pleasing to the ear, is this the music industry over-compensating for simple music? Is the loudness their way of making us believe the music is 10x better than it actually is. I believe so, and here’s why.
When I personally am trying to find a fun song to listen to as I drive, I’m often looking for one that I can sing along to and not have to hear my own voice. As I’m flipping through the radio, I’m more likely to choose one which is already above my volume of singing. It may not be my favorite song, but I’ll listen to it for the sake of making my ride a little bit better. I also know that when I choose that song, I don’t want certain verses to be as soft as a whisper and the chorus to be so loud that it blow my eardrums out. I want to be able to listen to my music at all the same volume without causing myself a headache. Whether there’s actually a scientific study proving this hypothesis of mine, I don’t know. What I do know, however, is that I like my music loud and compressed because I’m a lazy millennial who enjoys good, over-compensated music.