Final Flashcards
Jali/Griot
- Ancient tradition of travelling praise-singers, musicians, and oral historians of West Africa
- Gatekeepers of their culture, repositories of oral tradition
- Ambiguous social class
- Poetry/spoken word is linked to this
Ring shouts
Worshipers move in a circle while singing and using body percussion
Spirituals
Christian-themed songs with double meaning
Blues
- Secular storytelling
- AABB form
- Everyday issues
R&B
- Draws on blues, gospel, pop, jazz
- Secular lyrics
What causes the relationship between commerce, politics, and genre in black popular music?
Wanting/needing to make a living from their music
Contested meanings
Like “Keep on Rockin’ In The Free World” or “Born In The USA”
Pre-civil rights, artists had to be ___ when presenting a political message in their music. An example?
Subtle; “Chain Gang” by Sam Cooke
Which two cities had more political messages and why?
Detroit and Chicago due to less oppressive politics
An example of a post-civil rights song with a political message
“Message from a Black Man” by the Temptations
Typology
A classification system according to the shared or distinct characteristics
Internal audience
Music with a message intended primarily for members of the marginalized community
Nationalist
Intended to promote community political mobilization
External audience
Music with a message intended to tell stories/send messages to listeners in the dominating group
Integrationist
Music with a message intended to cross over to white audiences
Double coding
- Secular songs that address particular social issues
- Common during the civil rights era
- “Respect” by Aretha Franklin
Audio imagery
- The experience of “hearing” a song without auditory stimulation
- Facilitates the transmission and retention of information because of how melodies and rhythms are stored in our brains
- Useful for encoding/decoding
Community theatre
Spaces that provide audiences with the chance to encounter and negotiate with one another
Documentary
1) Internal or external
2) Describes and documents negative conditions
3) “Living in the City” by Stevie Wonder
Jeremiad
1) External
2) Challenges outsiders to help
3) “If There’s a Hell, We’re All Going to Go” by Curtis Mayfield
All God’s Children
1) Internal or external
2) Calls for equal treatment
3) “People Get Ready” by Curtis Mayfield
Defiant Challenge
1) External
2) Demands for external forces to stop exploitive behaviour
3) “Fight the Power” by Isley Brothers
Awareness Raising
1) Internal
2) Describes negatives conditions to raise awareness
3) “Respect Yourself” by Staple Singers
Collective Self-Helf
1) Internal or external
2) Calls for collective problem-solving efforts
Revolutionary Manifestos
1) Internal or external
2) Calls for overturning political and economic institutions
3) “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” by Gil Scott-Heron
Instrumental messages (such as Disco)
Party music in circumstances where there is no reason to party as a form of defiant celebration in the face of “dehumanizing” hostility and oppression
Contemporary political music
“The Blacker The Berry” by Kendrick Lamar
“New Slaves” by Kanye West
“Mad” by Solange
- Internal/external audience
- Documentary, Jeremiad, All God’s Children, Awareness, Defiant Challenge, Revolution
Mediation
i) The ways in which messages are conveyed to an audience
ii) A process that connections production and consumption
3 types of mediation
1) Intermediary action
2) Transmission
3) Social relationships
Intermediary action
Practices of all people who intervene as music is produced distributed, and consumed
Transmission
Role of media technologies that distribute sound
Social relationships
How works of art may communicate a limited range of specific meanings which might ideologically privilege certain interests
Who invented the phonograph and when?
Thomas Edison in 1877
What did the phonograph symbolize?
Upward mobility, replaced the piano in middle-class homes
What did the phonograph play?
Music recorded on fragile wax cylinders
What was the first big-selling record?
“Celeste Aide” by Enrico Caruso
Who invented the radio?
Guglielmo Marconi
Mediators
Involved in the distribution of music, but not in a directly material way, distributing musical knowledge to people in certain ways
What did MTV and MuchMusic do?
Link sound and image
What was the first music video?
Bohemian Rhapsody
What was the first video on MTV?
Video Killed the Radio Star
What was the first video on MuchMusic?
The Enemy Within
What are the 2 video styles?
Live performance simulation and storytelling
What are the 3 ways the relationship between sound and image are mediated?
1) Illustration
2) Amplification
3) Disjuncture
Illustration
Video tries to tell the story narrated in the song or incite the kind of engagement the song intends
e.g. “Super Freak” by Rick James
Amplification
Video adds things that cannot be immediately grapsed from the song
e.g. “I Want to Break Free” by Queen
Disjuncture
Lyrics/mood of the song are not connected to the video
e.g. “Triumph of a Heart” by Björk
Capitalism
A form of social and economic organization, typified by the existence of extensive markets by which production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services (including labour) is organized
Anti-capitalist music
“Merchandise” by Fugazi
The music field
A structured social space with its own rules, schemes of domination, valued objects/practices, legitimate opinions and so on
Institutional autonomy
- Corporate interests control what musicians and producers make
- Musicians and producers are like the research and development people because they are closer to the audience
- Musicians can make the music they want until it is no longer profitable
Surplus value
When something can be sold for more than it costs to make
Overproduction
- Creating more than necessary in attempt to reduce the risk of a specific product failing
- Record labels produce many recordings annually, then only promote those that seem the most profitable
Proto-market
- Small, local scenes where people make music for their the enjoyment or the potential to make a living
- Functions as research and development, a labour pool of people who will work for little or no money for the chance of “making it”
- e.g. Canada Music Week, North By Northeast, YouTube, Soundcloud
What does fans claiming direct links to musicians do?
Protects the artists from corporate control
Contradiction
A cultural commodity is difficult to valourize, requiring exceptional routines in its production or association
Why is music subordinate to visual culture?
It doesn’t demand unidirectional focus
Self-determination
Creating artist-controlled institutions for the production and distribution of artwork to attempt to avoid the corrupting influence of capital and potential exploitation of labour
Field theory
Independent models of production and distribution are just transformed versions of “big business” models, as we are all regulated by the demands of capital accumulation
Prince “SLAVE”
- Protesting his contract with Warner Bros.
- Didn’t own his music and was prevented from releasing the music he wanted
- Self-released his own records after
Motown
- Founded by Berry Gordy
- Largest black-own corporation in the US at the time
- In-house songwriters and producers
Motown charm school
- Run by Maxine Powell
- Taught musicians how to appeal to white audiences
Civil rights in Motown
- Typically politically neutral
- Marvin Gaye threatened to leave the label if he couldn’t release What’s Going On?
- It became a hit, Gordy then allowed songs with political messages
What does Timothy Taylor say about MTV?
It’s playing more programs and less videos, therefore selling-out
Jingles
Commissioned pop songs written specifically for ad campaigns, must be memorable and suit brand
Licensing
- Obtaining the rights to use an existing pop song in an ad campaign
- Puts certain musicians and composers out of business but creates new jobs too
- Artists allow it in exchange for exposure
Of Montreal & Outback Steakhouse
- Of Montreal didn’t license the song, but allowed it to be rewritten
- Accused of selling out by fans
- Band said there’s no such thing as selling out anymore
What does Jessica Hopper say about selling out?
- Bands need to do it in order to survive
- Brings attention to bands in ways other media no longer can
What does Timothy Taylor say about advertising
It is the union of commerce and art, as advertisers try to connect to people to show them what the next thing is
Parity products
Products that are more or less interchangeable but marketed as different
Lovemarks
A marketing concept that is intended to replace the idea of brands as products with better utility than their competitors
What are the 3 types of lovemarks?
- Mystery
- Sensuality
- Intimacy
Groove Armanda
Signed a contract with Bacardi
Rubber Tracks
Converse’s record label
Copyright
- A law that gives you ownership of things you created
- Grants the owner exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish and sell a work, usually for a limited time
Why does copyright exist?
- To give developers temporary monopolies over their work to encourage further development
- Allows people to profit from their ideas and creative practices
Resistance to copyright
- Not of benefit to society, instead serves to enrich a few at the expense of general, collective creativity
- Needs to adapt to digital culture
- Copyleft/open source
What musical aspects are protected under copyright?
- Melody
- Lyrics
- Recognizable hooks
- Riffs
- Tunes
What is wrong with the musical aspects that can be protected under copyright?
It’s eurocentric
What musical aspects can’t be protected under copyright?
- Harmonic chord progressions
- Rhythms/grooves
- Song titles
- Instrumental arrangements
What is the complication with musical copyright?
Record labels hold the right over physical recordings whereas artists hold the rights to the intellectual property
Frictionless capitalism
Internet engenders continual gains in productivity and perfect market equilibrium between producers and consumers
Eurocentrism
The practice, conscious or not, of placing emphasis on European concerns, culture, and values at the expense of other cultures
Postmodernism
An artistic movement since the 1970s defined by an attitude of skepticism or distrust toward grand narratives of truth, progress, European exceptionalism, the “Great Man” theory, and various tenets of Enlightenment rationality, including the existence of objective reality and human nature
Elements of postmodern aesthetic
1) Blending of styles, genres, and cultures (mixing the old with the new)
2) An ironic or cynical conception of art
3) Breaking down barriers between popular and fine art
4) Raising questions about nature and role of art in society
How is rap music postmodern?
1) Blends old and new
2) Oppositional to eurocentrism
3) Challenges legal system
4) Uses pop culture to deliver messages of political opposition
5) Repositions popular music as a communal resource rather than private property
Pastiche
A work of art that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists, often combining multiple references
Deconstruction
Taking apart ideas and assumptions about authorship and art
Eclecticism
Influence of diverse sources
Afrological music contains which 2 main aspects?
- Repurposing technology (double bass, 808, turntables)
- Repetition (enforces a sense of identity, continuity, and security)
Teleology
An account of a given thing’s end or purpose
- Tonal system is built on the narrative of tension and release
- Cyclical rhythms build tension through repetition
3 songs of intertextuality
1) “Don’t Look Any Further” by Dennis Edwards
2) “Paid in Full” by Erik B and Rakim
3) “Hit ‘Em Up” by Tupac Shakur
Signifying or “playing the dozens”
A verbal game of rhyme and wit
Personality DJs
Use of rapid-fire hip language
Jamaican toasting
2 turntables and 1 mic, talking/singing over an instrumental track
Sound systems
Outdoor dance parties hosted by a DJ and MC on the weekend in Jamaica (started in the 1950s)
1960s African American “beat” poetry
Intellectual movement that fused music and poetry
What are the four elements of hip hop?
1) DJ-ing
2) Rap
3) Graffiti art
4) Breakdancing
DJ Kool Herc
- From Kingston
- Graffiti artist, MC, DJ, “Father of Hip Hop”
- Credited with inventing beatmatching
- Observed that people dance most during instrumental breaks
Crate digging
- Selecting obscure records
- Aspect of turntablism
Back spinning
- Rewinding to cue up a record
- Aspect of turntablism
Beat-matching
- Transitioning between records and matching the BPM
- Aspect of turntablism
Cutting
- Seamlessly cueing back and forth from 2 copies of the same record
- Aspect of turntablism
Blending
- Combining 2 records together
- Aspect of turntablism
Beat juggling
- Creating new rhythms by manipulating drum breaks using other techniques of turntablism
Scratching
- Rhythmically moving a record back and forth
“Funky Drummer” by James Brown is sampled in which songs?
- “Fight the Power” by Public Enemy
- “Let Me Ride” by Dr. Dre
- “I Am Stretched on Your Grave” by Sinead O’Connor
- “Touch of My Hand” by Britney Spears
What does Michael Bull say about iPod culture?
It reorders social spaces of the city, giving greater prominence to media-generated privacy
Privatizing impulse
- Capitalist ethos around valuing owning space that we can control
- Desire to make active decisions about our social interaction
- Focus on individual rather than communal experiences
What did the iPod do in terms of privatization?
- Displaces social intimacy from physical to digital
- Privatizes the acoustic experience by tuning out public noise
- Freedom of movement between home, street, transit, and work
Who is John Cage?
Composer who wrote “4’33”
Who is R. Murray Schafer?
- Canada’s best-known composer and musical thinker
- Pioneer in “acoustic ecology”, studied the natural soundscape and looked for ways to incorporate it in compositions
Muzak
- A company that distributes non-obtrusive background music to stores and other companies
- Works with psychology to manipulate mood
- Designed to play in a continuous loop
Brian Eno - Music for Airports
- Intended to diffuse tense atmosphere of airports
- “Should be as ignorable as it is interesting”
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Vol.III
- Lengthy and textured with minimal percussion
- Set template for the “chill out” rooms, purposely crafted sonic environment
Sensory gating
Screening out unwanted sounds (like a pair of sunglasses for your ears)
