So I've been pretty bad about updating the progress of the new album. Part of it is that I don't want to spam you with MP3s, and part of it is that I've just been too lazy to write about it. So here is a rundown of the new album, what to expect, and when to expect it.
First of all, the release date: Barring some catastrophic meltdown, the new album will be completed by about September 1, 2013. Once I upload it online, it usually takes about 2 weeks to become widely available on iTunes, Spotify, etc.
Second, the title: The album that is being released is not the album called "Hydrogen." Yes, I am aware that this blog is called "Hydrogen Explained" and the original purpose of the blog was to document the progress of the album "Hydrogen." However, the album "Hydrogen" has been put on hold, and there are a number of reasons for this.
The songs that I wrote for "Hydrogen" have a great deal of importance to me, and I will revisit the album and eventually complete it. However, those same songs mostly relate to my life before I moved to California and started law school. I made several attempts to record some of those songs before I moved, but I was unhappy with the sounds I was getting. As I wrote earlier, I decided to spontaneously record a couple pieces of experimental electronic music as a way to jumpstart my creative process. It was clear that this new music was not to appear on the album "Hydrogen" and it represented a new project. I decided to go with it.
This new project, which I have called "Expression," relates to my move to California. So while "Expression" is released before "Hydrogen," it is chronologically later in terms of when the music was conceived of. I will return to finish "Hydrogen" next, and hopefully not too much time will have passed, so that I don't lose of the spirit of what was going on when the songs were written.
Third, what's on the album: I have a written a tracklist, which will more or less stay constant between now and the release date. Tracks 1-8 are instrumental, 9 is spoken word, and 10 has (mediocre) singing. For those of view who have seen me perform live, this album sounds nothing like my solo acoustic show. As of today, most of the tracks on this list have already been recorded:
(Sorry that some of the MP3 links in my old posts are dead. I need to get that fixed. In the meantime, I guess I'll just build up the anticipation.)
1. My Own: This was the first track recorded during this sessions, and can best be described as weird electronic instrumental music. It was completely written and recorded very quickly, in about a day. The structure is very simple, but the layered texture is what makes in interesting. My mother says it sounds like "robots in a cruel world."
2. If You Are Awake: The title comes from my inability to call people on the east coast after a certain hour because of the time difference. That's why this track features a ringing cell phone as one of its background "instruments." This instrumental track is somewhat inspired by the Allman Brothers Band because it features harmonized lead guitar, one guitar in the left channel, and the other in the right.
3. Likeness: This track is a mellow piano improvisation I recorded in 2010. Even though it's an older track, it fits with the process of "Expression" because it was recorded rather spontaneously. And this track has sat on my hard drive for three years so it's about time it saw the light of day.
4. Do Not Touch: The only truly atonal track on here. It's nothing more than a gradual buildup of keyboard tones until finally at the end the aggregate of the Equal Temperament 15 scale plays all at once. In other words, it's very dissonant, but it's over before you know it.
5. I Drove Away: Long story short, it was Friday night, my plans got cancelled and I had nothing to do. So basically instead of sitting around moping I decided to create some music. This instrumental track was entirely written and recorded in a 24-hour time period, but I think it still stands up well. It's centered around piano, but also has overdubs of synthesizer and electronic beats, so maybe it'll sound modern...
6. The Future: This track is a kind of remix/tribute/commercial for a collaboration I was part of called People of the Future. My friend Andrew Riker and I had created two albums (with help from my friend Greg Smith and also members of my family). Each album had music along with dialogue in a story, sort of like a movie with just the sound. This tribute track features snippets and samples from those albums, along with new music that is similar in style to People of the Future. If you haven't heard those albums, this track will likely be a tad confusing because there is no narrative to guide the action. But either way, it will be a fun incoherent musical collage.
7. Heart Goes Out: This is a piano piece I wrote in 2008, and it appeared on the second People of the Future album. The piano playing on the original recording was a little sloppy, so I've been wanting to rerecord it and put it one of my solo albums for a while too since it might be the best thing I ever wrote for piano. Even though most of the album is electric, this fits on there as a nice break from the chaos of tracks 6 and 8. The goal of this album seems to be "weird enough to get your attention, but not too weird to make you turn it off." Hopefully this track fits that mold.
8. The Decision to Not Do Drugs: This is an
instrumental track, and it sounds a tad on the scary side. It has a slow
pulsing build-up, which might test your patience. But the last two
minutes of the track might be the most intense two minutes of the
album.
9. Clear: This is a short spoken word track. It's me talking about vague things, but my voice is sped up 30%. This was the perfect amount to make me sound still human, but no longer like me. It's clear that there's something wrong with this voice, but it's still natural-sounding enough that you can't quite put your finger on it.
10. (This is My Expression): The title of this track is in parenthesis because it is optional. That is, if you press stop on your CD player after Track 9 instead of letting it play through, you've still had a valid (and arguably superior) listening experience. I'm not sure if I actually like this song. It is 11 minutes long, and is the only one to feature my singing. It is also the song I am least confident about. It touches on themes of social awkwardness and feeling overwhelmed starting law school. The idea was that if I put a bunch of negative energy into one song, all that energy would get flushed down the toilet at once. Of course, it never works that way, and at the end I just found myself with just a really whiny-sounding song. That being said, the singing I think is still passable enough to release (maybe), and some of the instrumentals arrangements are (sort of) interesting, so I guess I'll keep it. All in all, it's not the prog epic I was hoping for, but it will have to do.
Fourth: If you're still reading, cheers to you! So that's "Expression" in a nutshell. It's been fun to make, and the recording process has been a lot more free-flowing than my last album. This is how music should always be. Thanks for listening. You'll get to hear this thing soon.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Could a Rite of Spring riot happen today?
Today is the 100th anniversary of the
premier of Igor Stravinsky's landmark ballet The Rite of Spring.
This particular premiere has a great deal of historical significance,
not just because of the music itself, but also because the of the
riot that broke out in the audience in response to the ballet's
intense rhythms, highly dissonant chord structures, and risque
choreography.
I have
seen the Rite performed twice. One thing that has not changed in 100
years is that the fact that this piece is totally ferocious. However,
at both performances the audiences were very reserved and respectful,
as you would expect from any classical music concert. I have wondered
many times, “How is it that people were so moved (or disturbed) by
the music that they would riot?” After all, such a thing would be
highly unusual today. Were listeners in 1913 just more excitable? Did
they listen to music in a fundamentally different way than we do
today?
I
think the answer to those questions is an emphatic no. A century
after the Rite, dissonance in the classical context is no longer
shocking. If one were to premiere a piece of classical music that was
even louder and more dissonant than the Rite, it would not start a
riot. But the riot was not about dissonance or rhythmic intensity
itself, but rather, the alarm came from the newness. It would take a
lot to shock us nowadays, but I think it can be done. Of course,
fights break out at heavy metal shows all the time. You can't really
say “well, that's metal, but Stravinsky was classical” because if
you wanted to hear heavy music in 1913, Stravinsky was about as heavy
as it got. The people moshing as metal shows today would probably
have been the same people rioting at the premiere of the Rite 100
years ago.
One
thing that often gets downplayed is the choreography, which was just
as much a source of controversy as the music. Audiences were not used
to seeing such a sexually charged ballet. When preparing for a
performance of the Rite, Leonard Bernstein reportedly scolded the
orchestra, saying, “Don't you get it? This piece is all about SEX!”
Of course, sex appeal in music is not that something that has gone
away in the last 100 years, and there has been a great deal spoken
and written about the proper role of sexuality in music. In a way,
Stravinsky was foreshadowing one of the great debates of 20th Century
popular music.
Despite
the riot, the Rite was not wholly rejected by the audience at its
premiere. In fact, one of the leading causes of the disturbance was a
dispute between supporters of the work and its detractors. Music
itself may move people to passion, but even more importantly, people
don't like being disagreed with. I'm sure many fights at metal shows
have starting with one person saying “this band rocks” and
another saying “this band sucks.” It was not really the music
that made people want to riot, it was the debate. Of course, we have
to give Stravinsky a great deal of credit for starting the
conversation.
So
could something similar happen today? Of course. Many things that
were shocking at first become more accepted as time goes on. There
are many people who hate metal, but few who would like to see it
banned. Jazz was considered too rambunctious when it first came out,
and now is one of the most respected of all musical styles. The Rite
might not start a riot today, but that is why we need to create new
music that will. We owe Stravinsky and others like him a great debt
for having the courage and brilliance to start a controversy.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Reflections on AmeriCorps Service, Six Months Later
Six months ago, right before I started law school, I completed a two year stint in the AmeriCorps program, first as an advocate in a domestic violence court, then as a victim assistance advocate in the local police department. In AmeriCorps we're very big on doing reflections, and so I thought I'd look back on the experience now that some time has passed. One thing that hasn't changed in the last six months is the high regard I have for the AmeriCorps program, and all of the people I met who were in it. When evaluating myself as an individual, however, I have turned a slightly more critical eye.
In AmeriCorps we worked with clients who had been through many difficult experiences. During training we were instructed in the proper way to talk to clients, but also about the proper way to take care of ourselves. We would routinely have trainings about compassion fatigue and burnout, so we didn't try to “take the work home” with us. I took these trainings to heart, but I often carved out my own approach. When I got home, I would often keep thinking about what happened at work, but just try to boil away all the negativity with thoughts like “ooh, what weird legal issue came up today?” or “wow, that was a convoluted fact pattern!” My way of coping with compassion fatigue was not to stop thinking about work, but to keep on thinking about it but just take the compassion out. This was undoubtedly not the most mature way to handle things, and I think I did my clients a disservice.
That's not to say that when I was at work, I wasn't compassionate, but sometimes I had too much of a swagger, at least in my own mind. I wanted to be a lawyer so I could help people, but I think deep down inside, I kind of liked the idea of having power. Even if you have every intention of using that power for good, it still might not be the healthiest motivation. When I was in AmeriCorps I liked wearing a tie, hanging out in courtrooms, seeing things that other people didn't see, and having access to information other people didn't have access to. The stories were sad, but they were also very interesting, and sometimes that intrigue got me carried away. Part of the problem was me, but part of it is the culture. Many of us have grown up watching “Law & Order” or other court shows, and we are trained to think of legal proceedings as exciting. But most court shows fail in their basic premise, because they are always about the cases and not the people.
The people who are actually involved in disputes rarely find them exciting. And why should they? Most legal problems are just that: problems. For cases involving individual litigants, no one would be in court if someone hadn't been through something bad or thought that they were wronged in some way. Spend five minutes in the lobby of any courthouse, and you'll find that it is not a happy place. In a perfect world we would not need courts at all.
For us as advocates, we have a great balancing act. We should enjoy our work because it helps people, and it's good to find it academically interesting. But if it becomes too academic on the one hand, or too sensational on the other, we can run the risk of trivializing it. This is not a TV show, and it's not a game. These are people's lives. I don't know if I ever really understood that. It's true, we can never know what it's like to be in someone else's situation, but I'd like to think that it's possible to give this work the mature outlook it deserves. Real life may sometimes be more interesting than fiction, but of course, it's still real.
In AmeriCorps we worked with clients who had been through many difficult experiences. During training we were instructed in the proper way to talk to clients, but also about the proper way to take care of ourselves. We would routinely have trainings about compassion fatigue and burnout, so we didn't try to “take the work home” with us. I took these trainings to heart, but I often carved out my own approach. When I got home, I would often keep thinking about what happened at work, but just try to boil away all the negativity with thoughts like “ooh, what weird legal issue came up today?” or “wow, that was a convoluted fact pattern!” My way of coping with compassion fatigue was not to stop thinking about work, but to keep on thinking about it but just take the compassion out. This was undoubtedly not the most mature way to handle things, and I think I did my clients a disservice.
That's not to say that when I was at work, I wasn't compassionate, but sometimes I had too much of a swagger, at least in my own mind. I wanted to be a lawyer so I could help people, but I think deep down inside, I kind of liked the idea of having power. Even if you have every intention of using that power for good, it still might not be the healthiest motivation. When I was in AmeriCorps I liked wearing a tie, hanging out in courtrooms, seeing things that other people didn't see, and having access to information other people didn't have access to. The stories were sad, but they were also very interesting, and sometimes that intrigue got me carried away. Part of the problem was me, but part of it is the culture. Many of us have grown up watching “Law & Order” or other court shows, and we are trained to think of legal proceedings as exciting. But most court shows fail in their basic premise, because they are always about the cases and not the people.
The people who are actually involved in disputes rarely find them exciting. And why should they? Most legal problems are just that: problems. For cases involving individual litigants, no one would be in court if someone hadn't been through something bad or thought that they were wronged in some way. Spend five minutes in the lobby of any courthouse, and you'll find that it is not a happy place. In a perfect world we would not need courts at all.
For us as advocates, we have a great balancing act. We should enjoy our work because it helps people, and it's good to find it academically interesting. But if it becomes too academic on the one hand, or too sensational on the other, we can run the risk of trivializing it. This is not a TV show, and it's not a game. These are people's lives. I don't know if I ever really understood that. It's true, we can never know what it's like to be in someone else's situation, but I'd like to think that it's possible to give this work the mature outlook it deserves. Real life may sometimes be more interesting than fiction, but of course, it's still real.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Why We Need Political Music
This may be a tad embarrassing, but after thinking doing some additional thinking, I have decided to issue a retraction of my recent post titled "No More Political Music."
(Retracting a post is a first for this blog. For the sake of contrast, I have left the post up, but I have deleted some parts I really didn't like).
That is not to say I will start writing much political music anytime soon, but in order to give a reason for this changed, I had spoken too broadly. In reality, I do not need any grand philosophical reason, other than that just I feel like focusing on other kinds of music for the time being. After doing some thinking, I decided the previous post is based on a faulty premise. If we draw too bright a line between politics and the emotions that go into them, we risk losing perspective and compassion. Here is an excerpt from the post in question:
Admittedly, I have been a little bit discouraged by the political conversation in this country. Even when "my side" wins, I still fee a nagging sense of frustration with the dialogue. Just because emotion and politics do intersect, that does not mean it is impossible to have an over-saturation of emotion. One need look no further than cable news to see a saturation of opinion with no basis in fact, and an abundance of those who make the case for fear instead of justice. Listeners no longer need to be challenged because they now have the power to seek out whatever media is in line with their pre-formed opinions. It is no longer considered virtuous to seek out opposing views.
This has spilled over into our government. Partisanship is at a peak, and the dysfunction of our media is mirrored in our elected representatives. But look one step further. Our representatives may fail us, but we have also failed them. We the people have failed to get the government we want because we have failed to listen to each other. We all need to turn off cable news. Go read a book, or a newspaper, or the blog of a person you disagree with. This is the only way our national conversation will become healthy again. Become informed. There is a place for logic and reason, however cold and dispassionate it may seem.
However, there is also a place for action. Against the backdrop of today's noisy media, I do feel overwhelmed. Apathy always starts with a claim of "I don't know" which usually turns into "I cannot know." The noisy partisans who think they are geniuses may be driving us down, but so are all those who would like to form reasoned opinions, but don't put in the effort.
And today's circumstances require more than the apathy we give them. Our education system is nowhere close to equal. We are still killing civilians with drone attacks. We don't have equality in LGBT rights. We are nowhere near to solving climate change. Hopefully the rational arguments for justice can get us where we need to go. But to say that human emotions play no part is ridiculous because these are human problems. Everyone deserves the joys many of us take for granted.
And music is perhaps better than anything at speaking to adversity. If adversity is political, so be it, but you cannot take emotion and detach if from the search for justice. Otherwise, we make ourselves heartless. So I was clearly incorrect when I suggested that music and politics cannot mingle. Who am I to say that the victims of oppression should not voice to that through their music? What kind of hypocrisy would I preach if I were to say that expression is great, except when you're expressing thoughts about things that actually matter?
And now I'm done writing about politics (for now).
(Retracting a post is a first for this blog. For the sake of contrast, I have left the post up, but I have deleted some parts I really didn't like).
That is not to say I will start writing much political music anytime soon, but in order to give a reason for this changed, I had spoken too broadly. In reality, I do not need any grand philosophical reason, other than that just I feel like focusing on other kinds of music for the time being. After doing some thinking, I decided the previous post is based on a faulty premise. If we draw too bright a line between politics and the emotions that go into them, we risk losing perspective and compassion. Here is an excerpt from the post in question:
So why no more political music? It is because music is a vehicle for emotion, and politics should not be about emotion. As a lawyer, I believe victories should be won on argument, not emotion. If you take a position, be prepared to argue it, otherwise, you have no right to hold it. It is not enough for something to feel right. It is better to be able to say why something is right when all the noise and all the emotion is stripped away.But of course, this is nonsense. It is impossible to separate politics and emotions. This is because our emotions, and not just our arguments, inform our sense of justice. It is sometimes too easy to shut down into apathy. Caring is hard work. I still believe it is important to ready every side to every story, and give every contrarian his or her fair hearing, but at some point we we run the risk of becoming too neutral. We cannot stand by as passive observers while the world takes on important problems. Political issues are real and they affect people's lives, and therefore political discussions must take the human element into account. Our national conversation is not simply "an intellectual feast" (a phrase used by the late Judge Bork) or just one grand thought experiment. It is instead an application of our values to the very serious problems that face us. Because politics itself is a discussion about humanity, then music is fully equipped to handle it.
Admittedly, I have been a little bit discouraged by the political conversation in this country. Even when "my side" wins, I still fee a nagging sense of frustration with the dialogue. Just because emotion and politics do intersect, that does not mean it is impossible to have an over-saturation of emotion. One need look no further than cable news to see a saturation of opinion with no basis in fact, and an abundance of those who make the case for fear instead of justice. Listeners no longer need to be challenged because they now have the power to seek out whatever media is in line with their pre-formed opinions. It is no longer considered virtuous to seek out opposing views.
This has spilled over into our government. Partisanship is at a peak, and the dysfunction of our media is mirrored in our elected representatives. But look one step further. Our representatives may fail us, but we have also failed them. We the people have failed to get the government we want because we have failed to listen to each other. We all need to turn off cable news. Go read a book, or a newspaper, or the blog of a person you disagree with. This is the only way our national conversation will become healthy again. Become informed. There is a place for logic and reason, however cold and dispassionate it may seem.
However, there is also a place for action. Against the backdrop of today's noisy media, I do feel overwhelmed. Apathy always starts with a claim of "I don't know" which usually turns into "I cannot know." The noisy partisans who think they are geniuses may be driving us down, but so are all those who would like to form reasoned opinions, but don't put in the effort.
And today's circumstances require more than the apathy we give them. Our education system is nowhere close to equal. We are still killing civilians with drone attacks. We don't have equality in LGBT rights. We are nowhere near to solving climate change. Hopefully the rational arguments for justice can get us where we need to go. But to say that human emotions play no part is ridiculous because these are human problems. Everyone deserves the joys many of us take for granted.
And music is perhaps better than anything at speaking to adversity. If adversity is political, so be it, but you cannot take emotion and detach if from the search for justice. Otherwise, we make ourselves heartless. So I was clearly incorrect when I suggested that music and politics cannot mingle. Who am I to say that the victims of oppression should not voice to that through their music? What kind of hypocrisy would I preach if I were to say that expression is great, except when you're expressing thoughts about things that actually matter?
And now I'm done writing about politics (for now).
Saturday, December 15, 2012
The Lost Art of Album Art
A couple years ago I was in a used clothing store, and I was happy to find a bin of old vinyl records for $0.50 each. I did not have a record player (and still don't, unfortunately), but I thought my good friend (and co-founder of People of the Future) Andrew would like them, so I picked up a few. One of the albums in the box was Stand Up by Jethro Tull. Stand Up was an album I had enjoyed for several years prior, but I only possessed it in digital form. When I opened up the record I found something I did not expect:
Ok, maybe it's not that cool (it was 1969, after all), but it felt odd that I had liked the album for a while, and had been missing out on part of the experience the entire time. That's not to say that a paper pop-out of the band "standing up" is essential to enjoying the album, but I do enjoy little quirks.
It does raise a larger question about album art in general, and how important it is (or should be) to us as listeners. Album art, is of course, is a natural and foreseeable product of the record industry. If you need to put a record in a piece of cardboard, you might as well make it look pretty. Musicians really went to town with this, and in some cases the artwork is just as iconic as the actual music contained on the record.
King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King comes to mind:
Not only does the album cover get your attention, but most people would agree when they hear the opening riff of "21st Century Schizoid Man" that the cover pretty accurately describes the character of the music.
I personally enjoy album art that relates to the music in some profound way. Consider Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. The two themes of the album were 1) the experience of losing someone to mental illness, and 2) the band's criticisms of the music industry. These two themes intersected in the story of Syd Barrett, and the album's cover powerfully conveys the message of the music:
One can also take a different approach, and choose a cover that deliberately has nothing to do with the music. This was the process behind Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother where graphic designer Storm Thorgerson was reportedly instructed to take a photograph of whatever he wanted, which ended up being a cow in a pasture:
It is my feeling that album covers featuring pictures of the artists are not as memorable, but of course, there are notable exceptions:
Well, this has certainly been fun reminiscing about the late 60s and early 70s, but now what? I believe that in 10 to 15 years discs will largely disappear, and so what does that mean for the future of album art? In the iTunes/Amazon MP3 age albums still have a picture associated with them, but you need to put on your reading glasses to make it out. One could have the greatest album cover ever, and most people will only see it displayed as a 1 inch by 1 inch display on their ipods. It's discouraging.
There are, of course, many good reasons to get rid of discs. For one, they are terribly inefficient. I consider myself an environmentalist, and to me it makes no sense to create plastic discs and ship them across the world when we could transmit the same information digitally. I do not have any hard numbers on this, but it stands to reason there would be considerable savings by replacing discs altogether, and markets will inevitably want to do things as cheaply as possible. Radiohead reportedly considered releasing their album In Rainbows in a digital-only format, but ultimately rejected this idea over concerns that not all fans would have access to the material. I personally think this will become less of an issue as internet access for the general population improves, but it is definitely something to think about for the time being. Ironically, Radiohead, as far as modern bands go, tends to be quite focused on album art. One wonders how they will react to a future that is based upon digital-only releases.
Some have noticed that MP3 files do technically have a lower quality than compact discs. This is certainly true, but one wonders if the general public really cares that much. I consider myself to an audio person for the most part, but I admit I cannot tell the difference between a CD audio file and an MP3 encoded at 256 kbps. That is not to say I think the distinction is unimportant. (I'm sure I'll write about this issue soon). In any case, I think that improvements in bandwidth and increases in hard drive space will mean that in the next few years you will see a shift toward a sale of lossless audio files.
It is worth questioning why there should be such a thing as album art at all. For most of music history it would seem that musical compositions were not generally tied to a specific piece of visual art created for the purposes of promoting the work. (I could certainly be wrong about this, and it sounds like an interesting topic for research). Either way, we do not now usually associate classical compositions with a piece of "cover art" per se. One could make the argument that an album with no cover is actually a restoration to what music should have been all along: an absolute statement divorced from any interpretive device. Why should music be anything more than simply what you make of it? Consider the line spoken by Fran Drescher's character in the spoof rock documentary This is Spinal Tap: "You think the cover is the reason an album sells? What about the White Album? There was nothing on that cover!"
But now the lid is off the box. Some past albums are so associated with their cover trying to separate the two would be ridiculous. (Leave it to xkcd to demonstrate this point). Going forward, it is a different story. Album art came about because it was necessary. Can we convince ourselves that it is still necessary even though we no longer have cardboard to decorate? Even if we do not need album art, I think simply liking it is a good enough reason to keep it. I'm willing to let the fiction go forward if you are.
And don't forget to eat a peach for peace. Cheers.
Ok, maybe it's not that cool (it was 1969, after all), but it felt odd that I had liked the album for a while, and had been missing out on part of the experience the entire time. That's not to say that a paper pop-out of the band "standing up" is essential to enjoying the album, but I do enjoy little quirks.
It does raise a larger question about album art in general, and how important it is (or should be) to us as listeners. Album art, is of course, is a natural and foreseeable product of the record industry. If you need to put a record in a piece of cardboard, you might as well make it look pretty. Musicians really went to town with this, and in some cases the artwork is just as iconic as the actual music contained on the record.
King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King comes to mind:
I personally enjoy album art that relates to the music in some profound way. Consider Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. The two themes of the album were 1) the experience of losing someone to mental illness, and 2) the band's criticisms of the music industry. These two themes intersected in the story of Syd Barrett, and the album's cover powerfully conveys the message of the music:
One can also take a different approach, and choose a cover that deliberately has nothing to do with the music. This was the process behind Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother where graphic designer Storm Thorgerson was reportedly instructed to take a photograph of whatever he wanted, which ended up being a cow in a pasture:
It is my feeling that album covers featuring pictures of the artists are not as memorable, but of course, there are notable exceptions:
Well, this has certainly been fun reminiscing about the late 60s and early 70s, but now what? I believe that in 10 to 15 years discs will largely disappear, and so what does that mean for the future of album art? In the iTunes/Amazon MP3 age albums still have a picture associated with them, but you need to put on your reading glasses to make it out. One could have the greatest album cover ever, and most people will only see it displayed as a 1 inch by 1 inch display on their ipods. It's discouraging.
There are, of course, many good reasons to get rid of discs. For one, they are terribly inefficient. I consider myself an environmentalist, and to me it makes no sense to create plastic discs and ship them across the world when we could transmit the same information digitally. I do not have any hard numbers on this, but it stands to reason there would be considerable savings by replacing discs altogether, and markets will inevitably want to do things as cheaply as possible. Radiohead reportedly considered releasing their album In Rainbows in a digital-only format, but ultimately rejected this idea over concerns that not all fans would have access to the material. I personally think this will become less of an issue as internet access for the general population improves, but it is definitely something to think about for the time being. Ironically, Radiohead, as far as modern bands go, tends to be quite focused on album art. One wonders how they will react to a future that is based upon digital-only releases.
Some have noticed that MP3 files do technically have a lower quality than compact discs. This is certainly true, but one wonders if the general public really cares that much. I consider myself to an audio person for the most part, but I admit I cannot tell the difference between a CD audio file and an MP3 encoded at 256 kbps. That is not to say I think the distinction is unimportant. (I'm sure I'll write about this issue soon). In any case, I think that improvements in bandwidth and increases in hard drive space will mean that in the next few years you will see a shift toward a sale of lossless audio files.
It is worth questioning why there should be such a thing as album art at all. For most of music history it would seem that musical compositions were not generally tied to a specific piece of visual art created for the purposes of promoting the work. (I could certainly be wrong about this, and it sounds like an interesting topic for research). Either way, we do not now usually associate classical compositions with a piece of "cover art" per se. One could make the argument that an album with no cover is actually a restoration to what music should have been all along: an absolute statement divorced from any interpretive device. Why should music be anything more than simply what you make of it? Consider the line spoken by Fran Drescher's character in the spoof rock documentary This is Spinal Tap: "You think the cover is the reason an album sells? What about the White Album? There was nothing on that cover!"
But now the lid is off the box. Some past albums are so associated with their cover trying to separate the two would be ridiculous. (Leave it to xkcd to demonstrate this point). Going forward, it is a different story. Album art came about because it was necessary. Can we convince ourselves that it is still necessary even though we no longer have cardboard to decorate? Even if we do not need album art, I think simply liking it is a good enough reason to keep it. I'm willing to let the fiction go forward if you are.
And don't forget to eat a peach for peace. Cheers.
Monday, November 26, 2012
No More Political Music
I would like to take this opportunity to say that I will no longer be making any more political music.
I am not going so far as to say that my previous political music has been repudiated, and I will probably continue to play some of those songs at future shows. But I no longer think that I should be writing new political music.
As I previously stated, ever since I "released" the very confused album called Nine Questions I have been increasingly uncomfortable with the album's treatment of politics, specifically, the mixture of the spiritual and the political. Is it really appropriate for spiritual tunes such as "Shifts" and "The Clockmaker" to appear alongside highly charged political tracks such as "Liberty" or "Comments on the Political Situation"? Because I am someone who is very troubled by the mixture of faith and politics in this country, I guess I get pretty mad at myself when I find myself doing the same thing.
So why no more political music? It is because music is a vehicle for emotion, and politics should not be about emotion. As a lawyer, I believe victories should be won on argument, not emotion. If you take a position, be prepared to argue it, otherwise, you have no right to hold it. It is not enough for something to feel right. It is better to be able to say why something is right when all the noise and all the emotion is stripped away.
There is, of course, an analytical element to music, and some, such as Arnold Schoenberg, have tried to remove emotion from music altogether (at least this is how I perceive serial music, but please tell me I am wrong). But to say that music is anything other than pure emotion in sonic form is to miss its beauty. Because of music's power, transmitting a political message along with it could perhaps be seen as nothing less than problematic, even if that message may happen to be the right one. The arguments should be able to stand on their own, not be propped up by a crutch, however beautiful that crutch may be.
Political music does have its merits without question. Many would point to Bob Dylan as an example of political music done the right way. I agree. But Bob Dylan is great because he was right back then. What if an equally skilled and clever songwriter had come along and communicated a pro-segregation, pro-war agenda? I certainly doubt such a person would have escaped history's dustbin in the long run, but the power of music may have allowed such a person to do significant damage in the short term. If music can give weight to a positive idea, what is stopping it from giving weight to a negative idea?
And do not forget about Richard Wagner. For the past 150 years we have been trying unsuccessfully how to reconcile the beautiful music he created with the toxic political messages he placed beneath the surface. It would be unfair to say that music alone was responsible for the rise of Hitler, but evil will easily disguise itself as beauty whenever it can. As I wrote earlier, I do believe we as listeners have the right to take the music we enjoy and weed out the political messages we do not like, but that does not mean the process is anything close to easy.
Certainly on some political questions we have decided as a nation that there are clear right answers, and no music, however skillfully constructed will change that. But what about the countless other issues where the "correct" answer is far from clear? Many issues in today's dialogue fall in this category. Is music equipped to weigh in on the nuances, or does it run the risk of over-simplification? All in all, I have come to distrust political music not because I doubt music's effectiveness to at conveying a message. Quite the contrary, I find music too powerful to be trusted.
And in many ways I do not trust myself. If I thought I was right about everything, perhaps I would still be interested in writing political music. But part of growing up is realizing your own limitations and seeing all sides of an issue. On some issues I know I am right, but on many more I am worried I may be wrong. Before you can have true conviction, you must know what it is you do not know, and then you must learn where to go from there. As for me, I fall under the former, but not the latter. Nine Questions is artistically inadequate because, despite its title, it was more interested in answering questions than asking them, and these supposed answers came out before they were ready. Don't get me wrong, I plan to live a life of argument, and I plan to win. But for right now, my arguments will not appear in my music.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Music For Edgy and Intellectual Musicians
As I walking to class I saw one of my classmates. This would have been fine except that both of us were listening to our ipods, and I'm sure we both had that sinking feeling "Oh no, I have to talk to someone now instead of staying lost in my tunes." To her credit, she acknowledged this conundrum and laughed about it, and then decided to ask me what I had been listening to. This reminded me of something one of my friends had told me about, where ipod listeners in New York City would confront each other and whichever one was listening to more obscure music was the "winner."
"Dave Matthews Band," I said, acknowledging my defeat.
I made sure to clarify that the reason for this has been mostly to revisit my high school self, and that I don't fit into the usual stereotype of DMB fans. I am not a drunk frat boy with a popped collar, etc.
"Oh I never made those assumptions about you," she replied. "I just assumed you had terrible music tastes."
Ouch!!
I told her that I usually listen to enough weird music that I had built up the credibility to occasionally listen to DMB, but by that point the music snob in me had officially evaporated. The truth is, I'm used to people saying that the music I like is too weird, so being caught on a day when I was listening to something "mainstream" really threw me off guard. I then started to second guess myself. Even for those of us who claim to be interested in music as a pure art form are still influenced by the tastes and opinions of those around us. For most of college I didn't listen to much DMB, perhaps to protest how popular they had become. Only recently I've come back around.
So when I saw my classmate again the next day I said, "Today I decided to listen to something edgy and intellectual."
"Oh, is it Steve Reich or something?" she asked.
Sure enough, the music playing on my ipod was Steve Reich's 2009 Pulitzer Prize winning composition "Double Sextet." I sounded amazed that she guessed correctly, but she just said "Oh, I just know what edgy and intellectual means."
So I asked myself, if Steve Reich, one of the greatest composers in American history, can be put so neatly into a little box, then what makes him so artistically different from all the rock bands of the world? What is the basis for the value judgments we make?
It's a hard question, but there has to be an answer. Music fans of all genres cling to greatness, and if greatness doesn't actually exist, then all of us are under a collective fallacy, governed by no standards other than our own tastes.
I went to a concert in Rochester where "Double Sextet" was performed at the Eastman School of Music. The concert was very well-attended, much more so than many other concerts I had seen at the same hall. Particularly striking was the number of faculty members present. The audience was pretty much a who's who of musical importance. If you want people to know that you know what's up in modern music, then going to a Steve Reich concert is the way to do it.
Of course, nothing ever begins this way. If the classical music establishment loves Reich now, it's only because he had rebelled against a different sort of establishment back in the 60s and 70s. Reich came of age when dense dissonant music was still the norm, and by creating his signature free-flowing minimalism, he had the courage to do the exact opposite of everything that was expected of him.
So why is it that we can put Steve Reich in a neat little box? Maybe it's because he invented the box. But so did Dave Matthews.
When I was in 7th grade and all of my friends listened to Green Day, DMB's Before These Crowded Streets was "edgy and intellectual" by comparison, and most importantly, it felt authentic. For me, DMB as fratboy champion didn't come until later.
I think we all want authenticity in the music we listen to, but that is balanced against an acute awareness of what everyone else is listening to. If all the music you listen to is purposely obscure, then you can't sit around on Saturday night and compare favorite albums, because no one's lists will overlap. At the same time, people do want to be the innovative listeners who have discovered something no one else has. Listening is a social activity, and no one wants to be left behind, and certainly no one wants to be embarrassed.
But embarrassment has little connection to truth. When someone says that a particular artist is their guilty pleasure, it says nothing about the content of the music itself, only that somewhere in society there exists a negative judgment about it. But if you're anything like me, you don't want to be caught listening to something that may give away that your tastes are terrible. All of these social issues go through the mind of a listener, and curiously, very few of these issues actually have any relation to the sound coming out, and how it moves us on an emotional level
So if authenticity exists, I have found it difficult to boil away all the other factors that determine why we listen to the music we listen do. If you treat it like a sport, you're likely to lose often. Ironically, it is the people who love music the most who try to outfox each other. Perhaps we should not define ourselves by what we listen to, but rather how we listen to it. If we listen to popular music with the attention any music deserves, then shouldn't that be better than listening to classical music just because we think it will make us seem smart? Reich had it right when he said that the distinction between popular music and classical music is only artificial. Similarly, I would say the the stock we put in someone else's opinion is also artificial. If you like something, listen to it. It should be that simple. Of course, it never actually is.
"Dave Matthews Band," I said, acknowledging my defeat.
I made sure to clarify that the reason for this has been mostly to revisit my high school self, and that I don't fit into the usual stereotype of DMB fans. I am not a drunk frat boy with a popped collar, etc.
"Oh I never made those assumptions about you," she replied. "I just assumed you had terrible music tastes."
Ouch!!
I told her that I usually listen to enough weird music that I had built up the credibility to occasionally listen to DMB, but by that point the music snob in me had officially evaporated. The truth is, I'm used to people saying that the music I like is too weird, so being caught on a day when I was listening to something "mainstream" really threw me off guard. I then started to second guess myself. Even for those of us who claim to be interested in music as a pure art form are still influenced by the tastes and opinions of those around us. For most of college I didn't listen to much DMB, perhaps to protest how popular they had become. Only recently I've come back around.
So when I saw my classmate again the next day I said, "Today I decided to listen to something edgy and intellectual."
"Oh, is it Steve Reich or something?" she asked.
Sure enough, the music playing on my ipod was Steve Reich's 2009 Pulitzer Prize winning composition "Double Sextet." I sounded amazed that she guessed correctly, but she just said "Oh, I just know what edgy and intellectual means."
So I asked myself, if Steve Reich, one of the greatest composers in American history, can be put so neatly into a little box, then what makes him so artistically different from all the rock bands of the world? What is the basis for the value judgments we make?
It's a hard question, but there has to be an answer. Music fans of all genres cling to greatness, and if greatness doesn't actually exist, then all of us are under a collective fallacy, governed by no standards other than our own tastes.
I went to a concert in Rochester where "Double Sextet" was performed at the Eastman School of Music. The concert was very well-attended, much more so than many other concerts I had seen at the same hall. Particularly striking was the number of faculty members present. The audience was pretty much a who's who of musical importance. If you want people to know that you know what's up in modern music, then going to a Steve Reich concert is the way to do it.
Of course, nothing ever begins this way. If the classical music establishment loves Reich now, it's only because he had rebelled against a different sort of establishment back in the 60s and 70s. Reich came of age when dense dissonant music was still the norm, and by creating his signature free-flowing minimalism, he had the courage to do the exact opposite of everything that was expected of him.
So why is it that we can put Steve Reich in a neat little box? Maybe it's because he invented the box. But so did Dave Matthews.
When I was in 7th grade and all of my friends listened to Green Day, DMB's Before These Crowded Streets was "edgy and intellectual" by comparison, and most importantly, it felt authentic. For me, DMB as fratboy champion didn't come until later.
I think we all want authenticity in the music we listen to, but that is balanced against an acute awareness of what everyone else is listening to. If all the music you listen to is purposely obscure, then you can't sit around on Saturday night and compare favorite albums, because no one's lists will overlap. At the same time, people do want to be the innovative listeners who have discovered something no one else has. Listening is a social activity, and no one wants to be left behind, and certainly no one wants to be embarrassed.
But embarrassment has little connection to truth. When someone says that a particular artist is their guilty pleasure, it says nothing about the content of the music itself, only that somewhere in society there exists a negative judgment about it. But if you're anything like me, you don't want to be caught listening to something that may give away that your tastes are terrible. All of these social issues go through the mind of a listener, and curiously, very few of these issues actually have any relation to the sound coming out, and how it moves us on an emotional level
So if authenticity exists, I have found it difficult to boil away all the other factors that determine why we listen to the music we listen do. If you treat it like a sport, you're likely to lose often. Ironically, it is the people who love music the most who try to outfox each other. Perhaps we should not define ourselves by what we listen to, but rather how we listen to it. If we listen to popular music with the attention any music deserves, then shouldn't that be better than listening to classical music just because we think it will make us seem smart? Reich had it right when he said that the distinction between popular music and classical music is only artificial. Similarly, I would say the the stock we put in someone else's opinion is also artificial. If you like something, listen to it. It should be that simple. Of course, it never actually is.
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