Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Rhythmic Cinema - "If you play, you get something out of the experience" (85).  I really like this quote a lot and know how true these words really are. In the world of art, when learning to use new mediums and objects the best way to get familiar with them is to play with them and see what happens when different things are done to them. With hip hop this is relevant because a lot of great artists 'play' around with different beats and mixes to come up with what they are looking for. Sometimes the best art comes from things just being 'played' around with.

Rhythmic Space - "Speaking in code, we live in a world so utterly infused with digitality that it makes even the slightest action ripple across the collection of data bases we call the web" (89).  DJ Spooky is saying that we live in a world that is almost totally engulfed in in the digital world.  Communication barriers are broken so that information is so easily widespread that even the information that we do not want has the possibility of reaching us because of how connected we all are in digital media.  He also notes on the end how each of those programs (facebook, blogs, twitter, etc.) are interlinked and each program has a part that can be linked to others. An example of this would be the # like we use on twitter (#dtc356).

Errata Erratum - "Rhythm becomes the context for the performance and the artist becomes part of the sonic palette he describes" (97).  I think this comes across as a very smart quote. It is saying that the underlying rhythm is the first thing that is noticed by the viewer. Also that after the song is made and heard by other people. It leaves a lasting impression on them that directly relates to the artist. In short, the artist becomes the song during and after the song is heard.

The Future is Here - "It's almost exactly a social approximation of the way web culture collapses distinctions between geography and expression, and it's almost as if the main issues of the day are all about how people are adjusting to the peculiarity of being in a simultaneous yet unevenly distributed world" (105).  The first part of this quote explains how, like in the first quote that I chose, geographical barriers are broken down in the digital world.  A persons can express whatever they like and have someone half way around the world understand them and possibly even react to what their words are saying. The second half talks about how people are able to so many different lives (facebook, twitter, blogs, etc.) and still be able to maintain each of them individually.

The Prostitute - "You can never play a record the same way for the same crowd. That's why remixes happen" (113).  This quote basically speaks for itself. If an artist performs the same song twice during a concert the crowd would not react in the same way. They would probably even act the exact opposite way and things would come out badly for the artist.  I think that the same thing goes for digital media. Too much of the same thing and people start to become uninterested and bored with the product.  It it is the same thing but slightly altered to make it different and better there will be a positive reaction. Much like how Facebook took over the world that myspace created. I think that Coldplay is a good example for this because almost all of their music basically sounds the same but each song is slightly altered so that it is different from the rest but it still sounds good. (Dont get me wrong, I do enjoy Coldplay from time to time but you have to admit almost all of their songs sound very similar.)

On the website, www.whosampled.com, I searched for Wiz Khalifa.  Seeing how he is a fairly new artist I did not expect to find much on him from the description of what the website does.  After searching for him I found that he has 62 samples, 2 remixes and 5 covers.  I went looking through the website a little bit and found some really cool stuff about who has sampled his songs and found a couple of really cool covers to his latest hit, "Black and Yellow," one of which was a rock cover.  All of the different parts of the website including samples, covers,and remixes reminded me of my last quote from miller the 'The Prostitute' chapter about how people want something different after they have already heard the origional. People are always expecting new and improved songs to come out whether that be just including samples from other songs or an epic dubstep, techno, crazy remix.  It does make me wonder how much of a sample/remix is too much of the original to where copyrights come into play. This is a very cool site though!

4 comments:

  1. I think the last part of your blog is really intriguing. It makes you think about how an artist can maintain themselves. I love Coldplay, but you're right - you can only listen to them so much before you've heard all you can hear. I think it's important that an artist evolves and changes. Sometimes, an artist needs inspiration from another artist to create something new. Also, when a hip-hop artist covers a rock song (or vice versa) it opens that song up for a whole new group of listeners. Black and Yellow is a song about a love for Pittsburgh and the teams there, and I think that it's awesome that people are remixing it to their own favorite team colors, or remixing it within a different genre. I really liked the site too, I just wish it had better usability!

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  2. Nice job unpacking the Miller reading--I know it's a beast. Also, I like this point a lot but wish you said just a bit more about the connection:

    "All of the different parts of the website including samples, covers,and remixes reminded me of my last quote from miller the 'The Prostitute' chapter about how people want something different after they have already heard the origional."

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  3. oh, and fyi, just to make sure you didn't accidentally miss it: you're missing post 7.

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  4. I really like what you said in the Rhythmic Cinema section. I love the quote you pulled out of the book and I definitely agree with you, "the best art comes from things just being 'played' around with." DJs and other artists constantly play around with new sounds and a lot of times, probably accidentally, come up with cool sounds by doing so. I am currently playing around with Photoshop and it's true, the best way to get familiar with the program and all of its tools is to play around with them and see what happens, discovering as you go.

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