patti labelle sings the abcs

awesome

copy and paste

Periodically throughout our class, we were reminded of the copy and paste "trick." But who are we tricking? Ideally, this shortcut can help us use tags that help us figure out how do put things on our pages. But if we take copy and paste too far, aren't we really just cheating? One complication of the internet is the idea of authorship. How much of what we code is creative work that we can take credit for? How much is just the equivalent of selecting options on a multiple choice test? Where is the line between appropriate and inappropriate?

memories

I have two favorite pieces that I have performed in orchestras.

The first is Morton Feldman's "Intersection 1"
Everyone read off the entire score. There were different line for different instruments groups. There were three pitch markings: high, medium, and low. The beat remained constant, and the pitch markings lasted for a certain number of beats. This was the most thoughtful playing I think many of us had ever done.




The second is Wojciech Kilar's Krzesany.

Kilar is a Polish composer. This work had strains of Polish folk music running through it, but also many tone clusters. The piece ended with the strings playing a folk tune and the winds playing anything they desired, loudly.






















Both of these pieces expanded my ideas of music, notation, and composition.
I think it is interesting that they are both smoking in these pictures...

socialist media?

Anyone can be a star.

Perhaps this is what makes some technologies so excited and terrifying. People can connect with people without any middlemen.

Those in control no longer have it, because anyone can produce professional quality recordings from their living room.

Composition for the people, music for the people, videos for the people.
Hm.

Audacity

editing sound samples is not easy. perhaps the learning curve is a very different shape from composing a contrapuntal fugue or even learning to play an instrument, but it is challenging, can be frustrating, and requires a great deal of direction and creativity to create a satisfying final product. i'm not sure if i've reached it.


My thoughts on my experience with audacity are scattered and I'm not sure exactly what the appropriate terminology is, but here is what I'm thinking about:

Too often, I think people see composing with computers as some kind of junior composing. After working to create my :40 song, I can no longer identify with that position at all. Composition and editing technologies give a very different sense of control to the author.

The prerequisite skills in editing sounds in audacity and composing a piece with traditional notation do not necessarily overlap. I think this scares people away from creating music on computers, as that might send a message that more traditional composition is no longer worthwhile (the medium is the message, perhaps...can anyone tell me if I'm using this phrase correctly? I still get a bit confused).

In a way, the instruments on Audacity are sound samples that exist within the computer. The notation is illustrated in waves rather than notes. Form can remain a guiding principle. In some ways, I think audacity allows people to experiment with music making in a medium that does not have strict rules of right and wrong, inappropriate or otherwise. It can open the doors to composition in way that three semesters of music theory just can't do.



I think the following clip uses sound/video editing to spectacular effect (see 1:40, though the whole clip is rather hilarious and that bit with the copy machine is kind of staggering...)

can you hold my song?

Computers and the internet have revolutionized the creation and sharing of music. Gone are the days when you have to hand someone a physical object in order for them to have the capability to play whatever music is recorded at will. Now, with file sharing technology and the seemingly infinite advances in home recording technology, it is much, much easier to obtain a copy of a song - though it no longer physical.

While the law argues that even an intangible file is an object that can be bought and sold, I am inclined to think that music does not have to be that way. After all, music as an activity can be an extremely spontaneous, organic, and fleeting experience that can never be bought and sold. Maybe easier access to a musical product could encourage easier access to musicking, from recording yourself and putting it on youtube to creating a really killer mix tape for a dance party with friends.

Of course, the music industry is a business and if a musician wants to create a livelihood based on his art, he needs to make money somehow.

Enter Radiohead's "In Rainbows." The band self-released this album and made it available on a pay-as-you-wish basis. Downloaders had the option of paying $0.00, and many took it. Many others paid more, with the average payment for those who paid in the first week hovering around $6 - the album took in over $10 million in that first week alone. Enough people who desired the album recognized the cost of production and the band's need to make money, and oh, did that band make money. Without major label backing, Radiohead did not need to give up royalties. The total cost of production was much lower, so the chain of producer to consumer was much smaller than in the standard record industry business model.

(side note - as soon as I typed "In Rainbows," a track from that album came up in my Itunes Shuffle...hmm...)

There are also issues of quality and the quality that is currently sacrificed for any digital recording over CDs or, as some would argue, vinyl. This is another advantage to music being recorded on a physical object. Perhaps in keeping with the idea that there is some value to a physical object, Radiohead's CD boxed version of the album did quite well as well.

Of course, this is Radiohead. Radiohead has its previous success and reputation to help them as they carry on this wildly popular, ground breaking, nearly viral business model. But thank goodness someone did, pointing towards what may be the future of recorded music.

I want to talk about issues of ownership, but as I feel this is already rapidly approaching the Longest Blog Post Ever, I will continue at another time.

Group Work

I'll start this post with a confession: I often hate group projects, particularly when working with people who I don't know. I often find them a frustrating exercise in compromise and delegation that leaves no one feeling particularly proud of their work and maybe wishing they could have just done it themselves.

However, my group for our term project in my technology class seemed to gel instantly. We all contributed ideas, layering on top of each other until we came up with an interesting an manageable topic. How thrilling!

Because we have a mix of music educators and dance educators, we decided to explore something that the two art forms often share in common: expression. Using technology, we intend to manipulate songs and dances to explore the different meanings that are created with different effects such as volume, speed, etc.

I think we can use many different forms of technology to manipulate the music and dance pieces. We can edit the dance clip in imovie, edit the music in audacity, and present the entire presentation in powerpoint. We can also include interactive activities to bring our whole presentation to life.

Interestingly, our project not only explores the ways that music and dance can create different meanings and emotional effects, but also the way that technology can add a layer of manipulation to a human activity. As Amanda pointed out, our actions bring to mind questions of authenticity that carries over once technology comes into the picture. Is a piece of music the same as the same piece sped up? Is a dance the same when set to two different soundtracks? Are we creating a new piece just by pushing some buttons on our computer?

Virtual Communities

When we create content on the internet, we are doing more than presenting words, images, and sounds. We are opening ourselves up to comments, feedback, and reactions. In short, we are often creating interactive spaces through which we can create, strengthen, develop, and even weaken relationships (perhaps this can be seen most clearly in the phenomenon of couples breaking up over facebook or myspace).

Even in this class, we are forming a small virtual community. We can all link to each other's webpages and blogs, comment and send each other emails, and take comfort in seeing others deal with the same challenges that we encounter. We can share ideas and borrow ideas at our own convenience, carrying on an extremely valuable conversation at a pace that is personal and in a way that is documented and can be referenced in the future. What a thrilling resource for teachers to have - fingertip access to so many other teachers.

These technologies can be used to great effect in a classroom. Students can access other students, their teachers, and a seemingly infinite body of resources. A community that begins to form in class can continue to exist outside of a class. Suddenly, all you need to do to participate in a group discussion is log onto your computer, and I suspect most students are doing this anyway. Collaborative projects can be worked on all the time, constantly changing and growing.

And now some of my own words...

I have started this blog along with my classmates in Technology Resources for Performing Arts Educators so that we can share our thoughts and experiences with new kinds of technology. So far, in addition to this blog, we've learned some basic HTML, including how to post pictures and music on our websites.

The process of creating a personal blog and website got me thinking about the ways that we create our internet personality. Both mediums are customizable so that we have control of both the content and the presentation of the content. As website and blog authors, we have complete control over what we create, of this virtual representation of ourselves. I found some of the most satisfying moments in the initial stages of website and blog creation were when I felt that I created something that truly reflected me.

I suppose that we are always sending an image to the outside world, often packaging ourselves in various ways to give off a certain impression. But on the internet, the potential audience seems infinitely larger than the amount of people that one interacts with on a daily basis. The stakes suddenly seem higher for putting the "right" information out there, the information that says exactly what we want to say.

I find myself wondering about the following ideas: How detached are internet personalities from in-person (authentic?) personalities? How much does our internet personality reflect our personality? How much does our internet personality affect our personality? What dangers, if any, do we face by putting too much information in a public forum? How can we protect ourselves while creating a satisfying reflection of ourselves?

I look forward to exploring my own experiences in searching for some answers to these questions, and in uncovering new questions.

welcome to the webweb

(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/interblag.png)