Ahh... Music Hack Day. What a wonderful concept. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can check out my blog post on it here. Here's a really cool idea that came out of Music Hack Day London 2010: TrackDropper.
As I'm sure many of you net savvy readers are aware, geocaching is one of the neatest things to catch on in the last decade. With the advent of cheap GPS devices and the internet, the nerdy scavenger hunt has become an accessible and fun way to discover things about the places you go to - whether that is your local neighborhood, or somewhere in a foreign country. It lets you be just a little more connected to your surroundings, to your fellow human beings in a way that is strangely personal.
And then comes Trackdropper, created by Andrew Bruce, Chris Lowis and Yves Raimond. The concept is very simple: instead of just sharing music online to anyone who has an internet connection, this app associates a specific location with the music file. In other words, you have to actually go to the location to download the music. Geocaching....with music!
Yes, it's illegal, and it's piracy with a twist... but the potential to make this something extraordinary makes this really exciting.
By associating a specific location with your music, a musician could write a song that is specific to that place. You could dictate the surroundings, the atmosphere, the noise and smells that a musical piece is associated with! And because you have to go there personally to get it, that strange sense of being "personal" could be experienced by the listener. Imagine singing a song about a specific scene, a part of a river, a famous building.. and you can have the listener actually see the real thing as they listen. On a more practical usage, You could also easily release a song at a specific location to be timed with a public performance/signing, or other publicity events.
The app is currently limited to the Android phone, but isfree for download here. Go re-discover your own neighborhood!
I don't know how I completely missed this until now, but better late then never!
The new music video - although calling it that doesn't really describe everything that's going on in it - by Arcade Fire is one heck of an interesting experiment. It's a joint project between them and google. "...google? Google made videos?"
...well, not exactly. This is where it gets interesting.
Instead of a normal video, it's an interactive experience that combines traditional music videos, google maps, your own text input, mouse movements, and browser technology. Using a specific video clip as the basis, it uses the ability to place different sized browser windows to create a seamless experience that is custom made to each person. By adding a location - and google streetview's photos of that area - the video renders 3D images of your address, while adding 3D animations over it. At the same time, the multiple windows create a split screen (split several different ways) viewing experience that jumps between the windows, rendering different things. It's really quite neat, not just as a music video but as an internet browsing experience. Indeed, it's a refreshing and surprising way to enjoy the internet itself. This really changes the concept of the music video.
But really, this won't make any sense unless you see it yourself. To see it properly, you'll need to download google chrome.
So go see The Wilderness Downtown - An interactive film by Chris Milk, featuring "We Used to Wait" by The Arcade Fire.
To learn more about this project, and how it's done, go here.
If you're a musician, song-writer, or composer, you've probably been faced with the following dilemmas: You have an awesome idea, but you don't have the instruments to put it down in a recording. You can't afford to pay for a professional studio musician, but you really need a drummer. You have a great snippet of a song/piece, but maybe you don't know what to do with it.
In other words, you want to collaborate with someone...but you don't have the right people around you.
In the age of the internet however, this shouldn't be such a problem. Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a forum for this specific niche - you had craigslist to jam with locals, you had music forums to discuss technical/equipment related things, and you had sample library websites where the focus is a little different. The closest thing were electronic music forums, but there wasn't much out there for composers and other musicians. What musicians wanted was a forum where they could post snippets, ideas, or even entire songs - and have other musicians and composers add things to it.
Well, we seem to have finally arrived at such a forum. The Musical Collective is brand spanking new website that is aiming to become the hubris for musical collaboration. It's still in it's infant stages, but I am hoping that it takes off - as the founder, Brad Westness says:
I wanted to make a place where people could collaborate on music, kind of like the famous stories of "The Postal Service" completing their album by mailing tapes back and forth. I thought this would be a little more convenient than mailing tapes.
I'm quite a bit behind on videos, music, and pieces of news that should be of interest to the readers of this blog... I'll try to get them up as soon as I can.
Here's something was in the news this past July, which you may have missed. A group of scientists at MIT have created a cloth that can "hear" and emit noise. It's a functional fibre that can detect sound and change them into electrical signals on one end - so it acts like a massive, body microphone. On the other end, the fibre can vibrate at specific frequencies if it is connected to a power supply - like a massive speaker.
So your clothes could be your own ghetto blaster - just hook up your ipad to your clothes and you have a massive speaker that surrounds you - literally - in sound. Or it could record your heartbeats, environmental surroundings, and of course your vocals for later use..... imagine the creative possibilities!
Naturally, this seems more useful in medical (keeping track of biological signs on a wearer) or military/surveillance (how easy would it be to record conversations, if all you needed was a piece of cloth?)....but the musical creativity that could emerge from such a product would be so fascinating.
African musical influences - whether it be North, South, East or West African - have shaped the development of reggae, blues, rock, jazz, calipso, tango, mamba, salsa...and many other styles of music. But in all of these cases, the African influence evolved into a brand new genre, effectively becoming it's own style of music. Yet for all it's musical influence, it is rarely used as the primary motif of a piece of music.
"What do you mean?" You say?
This might be explained easier if I compare it to Latin music. When a piece of music has a Latin flair to it, it is usually quite prominent - the rhythm, the scales, the melody, and even sometimes the language - is used in a way that it is front and center of the music. If the basis is rock music - such as Santana's music - you can hear the Latin influence on the melody and rhythm, all the while still being undeniably "rock". Or Indian music and the role it plays in "Norwegian Wood" by the Beatles, or "Beware..." by Jay-Z and Punjabi MC.
African styles of music however, don't often get that kind of creative usage in Western music. And I don't know why.
There are exceptions of course, and I find them very refreshing - such as Shakira's Waka Waka song, Paul Simon's Graceland, or even the Lion King soundtrack. But you probably haven't heard much else that prominently has an African flair to the music.
Given that rarity...would you be curious what Indie Folk with African flair would sound like? Of course you would be!
If you've watched the MLB playoffs this year, you may have noticed a new Blackberry Torch commercial. While the commercial itself isn't incredibly memorable, the music in the background completely floored me - and I found myself hoping that it's an actual artist that plays this type of music, instead of it being a jingle that was written just for the commercial. In fact, it was only the last few seconds that really stood out, because it clearly had a twangy, nasal, multi-voiced rhythmic feel - a prominent African flair.
The song is by tUnE-yArDs, which is the moniker of an Oakland based musician named Merrill Garbus. It's really rough sounding - it's recorded at home, using non-professional equipment - but it makes the sound that much more raw and honest. She has one album out right now, and it's full of little gems that are African influenced, yet unmistakably indie folk. Where does her African flair come from? She spent some time studying and living in Kenya! Very cool.
So without further ado, here is "Fiya" (Fire) by tUnE-yArDs. If at first it seems really straightforward folk, wait until it builds up. The African flair comes in slowly, but completely takes over the melody and feel of the song at around 4:00.
This is an interesting story of creativity coming out of adversity and constraint. Atomic Tom, a band based out of Brooklyn, recently had their instruments stolen. An unfortunately fairly common problem for bands. I can't imagine how bummed out they would have been - but it turns out they are garnering more attention than ever before, thanks to their creativity.
Using nothing but their iphones and a battery powered amp, they decided to make a video of them playing in the New York subway system. That's right - all of their instruments are music apps for the iphone. It's a fun little video, and the song is pretty good too.
Creativity trumps again!
"Take Me Out" by Atomic Tom
*UPDATE OCT 20* -- Turns out they didn't actually have their instruments stolen, they just said that to provide a better effect. I guess that's good news. Also, for those who are curious, we now know what apps they used:
Guitar - iShred
Drums - Drum Meister
Bass Guitar - Pocket Guitar
Piano - Piano Virtuoso
I've never done this on this blog, but I'm going to do it anyway and rant about something that bothers me: idiots at live shows.
I just came back from an - otherwise - great show, but it was practically ruined by a couple of selfish and inconsiderate audience members. I won't talk about what happened, but it got me thinking about concert etiquette. It's unfortunate, but true - some people just don't respect the etiquette of going to see live shows, and sometimes they ruin the experience for everyone around them. The worst part is that they act like it's their right to be inconsiderate, when clearly everyone is being affected.
There are unwritten rules in concerts, no matter what genre they are. For some genres, it's more obvious, like classical music and operas. It's the same thing in any other concert though: there are rules. For example, at a folk or a hip-hop concert, you don't mosh. I'm all about self expression and enjoying yourself, so if moshing is your thing, then I would say go for it. But that's not the only issue at concerts. It doesn't matter if you feel like moshing, it's inappropriate. Why? Because it disrupts everyone else trying to enjoy the show, and it's extremely inconsiderate of those around you. If you want to do that, then do it at the back. Alternatively, if you get a group of people to sit in the middle of the mosh pit at a punk concert - that would also be inappropriate, for the same reason.
There's an art to getting to the front of the stage too - you don't just push and try to break through. You weave. Don't hold up signs for the whole time either, because it blocks the view of everyone behind you.
Ultimately, it's these selfish people - who go to shows and think that "rock and roll" allows them to do whatever they want - that ruins it for everyone else. It's your right to enjoy the show, but not at the expense of everyone around you. If you, dear reader, happen to be one of those people, and you still think that you're allowed to just enjoy yourself no matter what - and everyone else be damned, it's a rock show - then you're being a hypocrite. Because even you follow certain rules of conduct, and there are things you would disapprove of. Think of this following scenario: What if I gathered a group of drunk people to sing a different song from a different band during a live show, right behind you? I can't imagine you would appreciate that, and in fact it would probably ruin the whole show because it disrupts the enjoyment of the show. There's an etiquette to be followed, but more importantly, others around you to consider. Your actions, whether it be inconsiderately pushing, or dancing, or sitting, are ruining it for everyone else. Rock and roll does not allow you to do anything you want - be mindful of others. Look around, we're all here to have a good time too, don't be an ass.
The worst part is that often the songs these people are rocking out to are about respecting the people, or getting along, or fighting oppression, or something positive. You would think that they would actually think about their own actions and how it negatively affects everyone else.
What do you think? What's the worst thing you've seen an audience member do at a show?
Everything from traffic noise, violins, to our own voices are changes in the way the air around us move. When they create a sound, they are creating a wave that oscillates at certain frequencies. In theory then, by analyzing these frequencies and wave patterns and reproducing them with different mediums, you can recreate the sound of anything from animals to instruments, to pretty much everything. This is the theory behind synthesizers - they "synthesize" the frequency and wave patterns of instruments like violins, and reproduce them through pre-programmed sin waves.
In theory then, you could reproduce the sound of say, a violin, with anything. That's right. You could make hitting lego blocks, clapping hands, even a car - to sound like a violin. Why? Because we are able to analyze the frequency of a violin and break it down to small components. If we have enough precise control over (lots of) lego blocks, then we could manipulate them enough such that hitting them would produce a similar frequency pattern as a violin. Sounds far fetched?
There's an interesting comparison that you're probably more familiar with - image mosaics. Or pictures that are made up of smaller pictures:
Not perfect, but it's clearly visible - and this next video is essentially the musical equivalent.
Created by Berno Polzer as a performance art piece "Wien Modern" is an installation for the World Venice Forum 2009. Using a detailed analysis of a recital of the Proclamation of the European Environmental Criminal Court, "Wien Modern" uses a combination of piano keys to simulate the sound of a human child. Each piano key would be like the small pictures in the image above - and the human voice like the Mona Lisa.
I'd like to see other instruments do these sorts of things too!
*I've been busy recording my own music in the past couple months, so this blog has suffered. I'll try to get this going again ASAP, but thanks for your patience in the mean time.
This is from the Chinese version of "America's Got Talent" - "China's Got Talent".
I think the title of this post is quite self-explanatory, but I think you'll still be amazed at what he accomplishes. Having lost his arms at the age of 10, Liu Wei is a 23 year old pianist who plays the piano with his toes. At 18 he decided to keep pursuing his childhood dream of being in the music business, and began learning to play the piano while studying theory.
Playing "Mariage D'amour", Liu Wei:
It's pretty incredible what some people are capable of - like Rick Allen from Def Leppard, who also plays the drum with one arm.
*This is part of an on going series highlighting some unique techniques to make the chorus in a song sound more prominent than the verses. For Part 1 go here.
Harmony is one of the classic techniques to make a chorus stand out. The typical way is to add a harmony only during the chorus, thus further juxtaposing the chorus against the verse parts of a song. But there are some neat ways of utilizing this that goes against the normal way of doing it... But first, what's the normal way?
One thing that is almost always true with harmonies, is that the harmony takes the secondary/background role. In other words, the main vocal melody line is either equal to, or more prominent than, the harmony vocal line(or lines). Otherwise the harmonized vocal line would...sound like the main vocal line instead.
*Even Barbershop Quartets - which can sometimes get confusing in terms of what the "main" vocal line is - have the main vocal line, and three harmony lines, so the main vocal line is still "equal" to the other lines (I should do an entry on Barbershops, they are quite fascinating...). Either way, it's really clear how once you overwhelm the main vocal line, it would get really confusing.*
So what is the normal thing to do if you added a choir to back the main vocal line? When there is a harmony to be sung, the choir would be split in half - with one half singing the harmony, and the other singing the main vocal line. All to prevent the main vocal line from getting drowned out, or confused with the harmony.
But there's a wonderful exception to this rule, and it is a great example because of it's sheer simplicity.
"Weighty Ghost" by the band Wintersleep is a song with 2 chords. That's right, only 2 in the whole entire song. The melody is incredibly simple as well...really repetitive and kind of bland..and the pre-chorus part is the exact same melody as the chorus...yet I think it's a great song, with an absolutely killer chorus. Why? because of the way harmony is used...which is a little different, but super effective (I also think the drum pattern, and the stomps/hand claps add to it, but that's for another post).
What Weighty Ghost does during the chorus, is to have a small choir (or the rest of the band anyway) to sing the harmony, essentially drowning out the main vocal line during the chorus. Exact opposite of what you're supposed to do... but it works.
Here's the song. When you listen to it, pay attention to the vocal lines from 32 seconds to 42 seconds. This will be the exact same melody as the chorus, with 2 exceptions - the lyrics are different, and the harmony is sung by one person. It's neat, but doesn't truly push the chorus. Then pay attention when the chorus hits right after - there's an entire group singing only the harmony, but it somehow really really works. *I was going to post one of the amateur covers on youtube on here, to show what it sounds like without the choir harmony, but I think posting anything on this blog as a "bad" example would go against the spirit of this blog...so I didn't.
It works because it's a simple melody line. It works because the pre-chorus is exactly the same melody but with only one person singing a harmony. That extra boost of harmony somehow pushes the songs even further, thus establishing the chorus section as the most prominent part of the song.
When you hear a song for the first time, how is it that you are able to recognize a specific part of it as "the chorus"? What is it that lets you know when the chorus of a song begins and ends?
The simplest answer is that you've been socialized to recognize the structure of a pop song. Think about how many pop songs you have heard in your life (and by pop songs, I mean anything that isn't classical, essentially). All that listening has given you expectations on how songs are supposed to be structured - and the most important part is the chorus. You don't expect the chorus to be the first thing you hear in a song (with some exception, such as when it's part of an introduction phrase). Instead, you expect the first few melodic lines to be the same thing over and over...known as the Verse. After that, a pre-chorus section might follow, or the song might go straight to the chorus. Either way, the modern listener is extremely adapted to recognizing the chorus section of a song.
Maybe you don't think that recognizing the chorus is a big deal. Indeed, the modern pop structure (verse-chorus-verse-chorus pattern) might seem straight forward and obvious, but people 150 years ago would have been dumbfounded listening to modern pop structure. Why? Because it doesn't fit with the structures they were used to, such as Fugues and Sonata forms (or put simply, Classical music structures). If you ever thought that classical music was hard to follow, it's not your fault - the modern musical landscape makes it hard for most listeners to become acquainted with classical music structures. In fact, you might be surprised to know that classical music has many more restrictions and many more rules about the structure of the piece than pop songs do. Once you learn the structure of classical music, it becomes easy to follow because you know what's coming next....in the same way that we can recognize a chorus, and a verse..etc.
But songs are not just patterns of musical notes. If they were, we would be quite content looking at musical notation, instead of needing to hear them. The chorus isn't just the thing that follows the verse...it's the emotional highpoint of a song, the essence of the entire piece. We've all heard songs that have great verses...but mediocre choruses that don't hit that musical and emotional highpoint.
So how do you create a musical and emotional highpoint? Well, that's what artists have been trying to figure out for decades. But sometimes the secret isn't in the musical notes, or the structure of the song....but ingenious tricks that can be utilized in the production of the song itself. That isn't to say that these songs have bad choruses - but that the emotional highpoint is established much more prominently through these production techniques.
In the next few posts, I will be trying something new: A Series! I'll be talking about some songs that utilize really neat techniques to make a chorus sound... like a Chorus. You might be surprised at the implications! Stay tuned....
The FIFA world cup is now into it's final stages, with only a handful of countries left to compete for the worlds biggest sporting prize. FIFA has chosen a few songs as official anthems for this particular world cup, and I'm sure most people have heard them by now. One of them is performed by Shakira called "Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)".
It's a very catchy song, but what I want to talk about is it's origins. I'm not going to be saying anything new here to be honest - it's been said before in many other forums, books, news articles and documentaries - but I feel like it still needs repeating, because this is a trend in the music industry that really irks me.
The music industry seems to be very strict about copyright law, to the point that prominent artists such as CCR can be sued for plagiarizing themselves by lawyers in the music biz. And let's not even get into the horror stories of students being sued for millions in damages for having downloaded mp3s illegally. If there was anything they are extremely sensitive about, it would be respecting copyright and proper compensation to the rightful creators of the music right?
Wrong. I would argue that the most prominent criminals - when it comes to respecting copyright law in music - is the music industry itself. For proof, all we need to do is look towards Africa... and the Shakira song is unfortunately another continuation of the trend. First, listen to the chorus of "Waka Waka" by Shakira:
Now listen to the last section of Zangalewa by a Cameroonian band called the Golden Sounds, released in 1985:
These two songs are not just similar - the lyrics are even the same! You would think that the big lawyers behind Sony and Shakira would call up the Golden Sounds and ask for permission, give them writing credit, and pay them royalties...but no. Instead, they never asked for permission, writing credit was not given, nor did they pay the Golden Sounds the royalties that they deserved. Given how often the music industry flaunts copyright law, you would think they actually respect it. Turns out, they just care about it when it works for them, and ignores it when it's against them.
And this is far, far from the first time this has happened. Without getting into too much detail, such luminaries such as James Brown, Timbaland and Michael Jackson have been caught lifting/stealing entire sections and lyrics from African artists without paying the original creators. And those are just the examples that got caught (I would like to clarify that I have nothing against Shakira or these other artists. The problem really is on the industry side of things, I think). There's very little an artist in a developing world can do to force a major label in the West to pay royalties or get writing credit... and that's not even the most heinous example of this practice. For the worst, hard hitting, unjust example of the music industry ignoring copyright, we go back to South Africa, and the song "Mbube".
"Mbube" is a song written by Solomon Popoli Linda, a South African Zulu musician and composer, way back in 1939. Doesn't ring a bell? Take a listen:
This song has been covered a dozen times, been in countless movies, made millions of dollars for film and music companies, and is even in music textbooks...but Solomon Linda died penniless in complete poverty, unrecognized as the original composer. Solomon Linda was completely forgotten while the music industry stole his creation, and left the artist to die. Indeed, up until a South African journalist named Rian Malan wrote an article in the Rolling Stone about this (in 2000!), did this reality come to light. This led to the PBS documentary "A Lion's Trail", which also highlighted the unjust usage of Linda's song, the poverty that he and his descendants live/d in, and the millions that the song has made for the industry (I highly recommend this documentary, it's quite good). Fortunately, in 2006 Linda's heirs sued Disney and Abilene Music (over the use of the song in "The Lion King") and a settlement was reached, ensuring the acknowledgment of Linda as the original composer, and payments for all past uses of the song.
...but again, this happened only because a major media outlet enabled this to happen. Without it, it's extremely difficult for artists in developing countries - or heck, any other country really - to sue the music industry for stealing their work. Yet the music industry will go after downloaders with the very same law that the industry breaks all the time. Hypocritical, to say the least.
Africa has such a rich musical history, and it keeps growing, evolving, and expanding in it's artistry (as an aside: it's a shame that most people seem to think that there's such a thing as an "African" sound.....when there's really quite a diverse set of musical traditions that are quite different, depending on where you are on the continent). They should be compensated the same way that any Western composer would be.
The good news however, is that you - yes you are all a part of an amazing era where information can't be monopolized by a select few. While it's true that Sony did not acknowledge the Golden Sounds, thanks to the power of youtube and the internet, this discrepancy quickly spread over the internet and has now been addressed. The writers are credited, and compensation has been negotiated with the original writers. What took decades for "Mbube", took only a couple months for Zangalewa. Cool.
By the way, there's a bittersweet irony in all of this. The lyrics in Zangalewa - which Waka Waka stole in whole - are actually about White colonial oppression and corruption, written in the native language of Fang. That's why in the video they are dressed as old men with white beards.
Before I get into the main story, Youtube has added - what I assume to be - a temporary feature on all videos. It's being introduced over a few hours, so it might not work on all vids, but from the looks of it, it seems to be heading towards universalization of.... the vuvuzela button.
If you go to any youtube video right now, you'll see a small soccer ball button in the bottom right corner. As most of you probably know, the vuvuzela is the instrument? noise maker? that has become ubiquitous on World Cup matches in this year's tournament. If you've watched any games, you'll know what I'm talking about. This button is hilarious, because it plays the Vuvuzela drone over the video you are watching, and it doesn't stop even if you mute the video (you have to press the vuvuzela button to stop it). It's a funny way to poke fun at the fact that people around the world are complaining about the noise. I won't get into whether we should interfere with cultural traditions or not... but what I will say is this: it's really neat how a simple sound can embody/signify an entire event and an entire sport. Justified or not, when you hear that noise, you can't help but remember the world cup. In fact, I found it difficult not to feel like I'm watching a football/soccer match regardless of the youtube video I was watching - such is the power of sound, and the power of association.
Now moving on..
The news article I want to talk about is some what related, in that it's about the power of sound and association. In a nutshell, a Belfast police officer was out patrolling one night, and came across a rowdy group teenagers who began attacking the car with bottles. So what did he do? He started blasting ...ice cream truck music at them. And it worked. They dispersed.
I find it amusing, but it really does speak to the psychological weight that music can have. I personally would probably have a hard time picking a fight with anyone... with ice cream music being blasted. It completely saps the tension in the situation.
Now as neat as it is to reflect on the power of music to define the emotional content of any given situation... there's a dark side to it as well. I think our assumptions and associations about different types/genres of music play an incredible role in defining our own musical tastes. It's really unfortunate that those who listen to classical might not enjoy jazz, and those who enjoy death metal won't listen to electronica etc...
I would like to think that this blog is playing a small part in reversing people's conceptions about what is "acceptable" as music. So thanks for sticking around and reading this blog!
I did a post on Dj Earworm's mashups in another blog post, but there's another one that recently came out that is quickly gaining hits. This time, the songs are:
Alexandra Burke - All Night Long
Cheryl Cole - Fight For This Love
Chipmunk feat. Esmee Denters - Until You Were Gone
Dizzee Rascal - Bonkers
Ellie Goulding - Starry Eyed
Jason Derulo - In My Head
JLS - One Shot
Justin Bieber - Baby
Ke$ha - Tik Tok
Pixie Lott - Mama Do
Rihanna - Rude Boy
Scouting For Girls - This Ain't a Love Song
Tinie Tempah - Pass Out
Usher feat. Will.I.Am - OMG
The Wanted - All Time Low
According to the description, this video is a "mashup to be shown as part of a concert at Wembley Stadium in London for Capital FM's Summertime Ball, where all fifteen of these artists performed."
Wow. It's really cool how this artist wasn't completely taken down, sued, and left out to dry. Instead, the industry seems to have embraced it as something that actually benefits them!
I find myself often referring to this song, because it really does something quite unique. The song is by Kelly Clarkson, called "Breakaway", and it's written by Avril Lavigne. Yes, the song structure is typical, the melody is pop, and the lyrics aren't exactly Dylan. So what am I talking about?
The harmony line.
Now at first glance, it may not seem much. But there's something quite interesting going on in this piece of music. I won't go into the details of how harmony works, because it's not about the type or style of harmonization that is going on that floors me - it's the timing.
Usually, harmonies are sung right on top of each other. That's what harmonized melody is supposed to be (as opposed to counterpoint, which I talk about in this blog post.
Yet in this song, the harmony precedes the main melody line. In other words, it's not sung together, but before the main melody line. It's just a strange thing to do, but it works. And that's what amazes me about this song. It happens during the chorus, right here around 1:09 when she sings "Make a wish, Take a chance, Make a change." Right before Kelly Clarkson sings that line - you'll hear a faint vocal line that is actually the harmony to what Kelly Clarkson is singing...but it comes before. Wow. Whoever thought of this is really creative.
Some of you might say that this is basically a "call and response" (A call and response is typically utilized in African music, where a "leader" sings a short stanza and the rest of the choir repeats it right after). But I would argue that it's a little different, for three reasons. First, it's not timed right - if the harmony is the call, and the response is Kelly Clarkson, then Kelly Clarkson is coming in too early. Kelly Clarkson doesn't actually let the harmony finish before she starts singing. Second, the fact that the harmony is leading is very strange. Third, it makes no sense to de-emphasize the leader (in this case the harmony). In short, I think this is quite a unique way of organizing vocal harmonies.
This is really fun, although by the end it sounds completely crazy. But in order to really appreciate what's going on here, you have to understand the difference between looping and delaying an audio track.
Looping is where you record a sample, and then repeat it for as long as you want. It's the backbone of most hip hop and electronic music. In most cases, the sample is pre-recorded, even when it's played live. Some artists - most often beat boxers - record the sample live though, and then control the loop with a foot pedal. Other artists in different genres have also done this too, like KT Tunstall. In all of these cases, the loop is used as a backing track - so you're playing the whole thing yourself! Totally fun.
The difference between those tracks and the video I want to talk about today... is that this one is not using a foot pedal, or loops. It's using a long delay. A delay is more like an echo: have you ever been on top of a mountain, and yelled something really loud towards another mountain? When that happens, it echos everything back at you, with the delay time defined by the distance it takes the sound to travel. It it was sufficiently loud enough, the sound that echoes back will bounce back from the mountain you stand on, and repeat again and again...until it fades out. A delay effect is essentially doing the same thing: repeats the sound, but each time it repeats, it fades away a little bit. In short, there are two settings to a delay effect - the time it takes for the delay to repeat the signal (the distance between the mountains), and the number of times it repeats it until it completely fades away (how "loud" you're screaming at the mountains).
So when is the delay effect used? It's most often used on vocals and guitars, but with much, MUCH shorter delay times. The most famous examples would probably be earlier U2 songs like this one. In this song, the guitar is delayed the whole entire time. The Edge is actually playing about half of the notes you are hearing: the rest is the delayed notes. Notice that it sounds almost machine gun like, and it plays over itself while it chugs along at a really controlled pace. This is more or less the "typical" way of using the delay effect (back then this was really cutting edge though). The time it takes to return the signal is so short, that the return signal starts even before you've finished playing the original note.
Getting back to the actual video I want to show - this video uses a delay effect instead of a looping effect. It has the delay time set EXTREMELY long, with the time it takes to fade away at a maximum range. In other words, if you screw up, you can't just re-do it... you have to start over, because it will keep returning that signal back at you until you turn everything off, or until it fades away on it's own. But then again, if it was any other way this video wouldn't really work - you have to have the older sounds fade away at some point, unless you just want completely un-listenable cacophony.
This is an art installation that is also a musical creation. From the artists website:
Installation and performative Instrument: Two fabric loops, driven by a motor, create a division in space. Light sensors measure the opacity of the textile;
The way all pieces are sewed together for a fabric sound track is responsible for beats, breaks and rhythms. It makes your individual clothing hearable. without any special effects
So in other words, this installation/instrument converts the information on a piece of fabric into digitized instructions for sounds. I've certainly never heard of fabric being used as a basis for music, so this is really fantastic.
That being said, I wonder if there's more that you could do with this. If it truly is the case that opacity is the only thing being measured, then there seems to be lots of information in a piece of fabric that is lost. Colour for example, will only matter in terms of its capacity to let light through - much in the same way that colour reacts to a black & white photocopier: it get's mostly lost, although the shades are still there.
Other aspects of a piece of fabric, such as shape, weave, and even smell are lost in this current installation. I wonder how these things could be incorporated? You would need a different way of scanning the fabric obviously... hmmm!
Don't get me wrong, these aren't criticisms. I would never have thought of fabric in this way, and I think it's really cool that the fabricmachine is doing something new. Instead, these "criticisms" are the possibilities that this installation has opened my eyes to, and I think it's absolutely great!
Since there seems to be confusion in the English speaking community about the specs and info on the Sony PS-F9 (and since my blog post on it is one of the more popular ones), I decided to find as much as I can from the Japanese speaking community and translate it here. Hope this helps! (If you're looking for more info on the PS-F5 than I provide in my other post, go to this website. It's a great website dedicated to the PS-F5.)
I'm not going to bother repeating info I mentioned in my older blog post, in order to keep things as short as possible.
*Everything I say here is from other websites, forums, auction sites etc. I don't take any responsibility for any of the info here.*
1 - In Japan, the F9 completely outsold the F5. It's rare to see an F5 up for auction in Japan, where as the F9 comes up once in awhile. It's interesting to think that the exact opposite is true elsewhere in the world... I don't know why. So if you're looking to buy an F9, go to a Japanese auction site. Some F9/F5's are sold with the Flamingo logo on it. These one's were sold with an extended warranty of up to a year....but this makes little difference now.
2 - There's some confusion in the English community as to whether the F9 has an FM transmitter. Well according to all the auction sites I visited, and all the old brochures I saw, this seems to be a definite yes. There wasn't one single PS-F9 being sold in auctions in Japan that lacked that feature. In all the old brochures I read, they also proudly proclaimed the FM transmitting capabilities of the F9. In all the websites reviewing the product, everyone mentions the FM transmitter as well - like here, and here.
Speaking of brochures, here's a great collection of brochures that doesn't show up on English Google searches as easily - although that might change now that I linked it. Again, FM transmitter is mentioned several times as a standard feature of the F9.
However, there are some noted instances when the FM transmitter doesn't seem to work. There are a number of possibilities for this:
A conflict with commercial radio stations. If a commercial radio station is broadcasting in the same frequency in your region, it obviously won't work very well. Some have indicated that if you set your radio to Mono (instead of Stereo), it can alleviate this problem.
If you happen to have a Japanese version of the F9, it might not work as easily if you reside outside of Japan. Why? Because FM radio operates in different frequencies in Japan compared to some parts of the world, such as North America. Test on a radio made for Japan.
The transmitter itself is broken? But this seems to be a rare problem...
3 - If you're looking to buy a PS-F9, there's some advice on things to look for that aren't obvious:
A lot of them no longer come with the AC adapter
Taking off the cover is actually quite finicky. As such, some of them have a broken tongue/lip/plastic hook, making it look imbalanced. Not a deal breaker (since it doesn't affect the sound or operation), but something that is often broken. Here's a visualization of what to look for. In the big left picture, the line between the cover and base is straight and balanced between left and right sides. This isn't the case in the other smaller pictures to the right.
Minor, but if you're paying a lot of money for this, might be something to look for...
4 - If you don't own the instructions manual, this might not be obvious: Sometimes, the needle starts to rise during use. This is actually noted in the manual as something that happens when the batteries are dying, and not a defect in the product. Just change the batteries.
That being said, if you need to change the needle, detailed instructions are as follows, translated from here.:
First, turn it off and take off the front cover carefully, by pushing in the sides. Slowly slide off the cover.
Turn it back on, and change the settings to EP. Hold the "DISC HOLD" button and press start. A cartridge should come up. Turn off the power.
There's a hole/groove in the frame that is meant to hold the arm. Place the arm in the hole/groove to make it easier to pull off the cartridge (and to prevent damage to the arm). Pull out the cartridge.
The needle make number is ND144G (although some have said that you can get the same thing under N439 off of this website. It seems to be that you can also use the needles for the Aston SP145, Jelco MC50D, as well as Kenwoods KD22,33F,40R,44R,N50,51,P7 products and it will work.
This is a neat little app, much in the same vein as the microsoft songsmith which I talked about in a past blog post. To quickly explain: this app lets you sing any melody you think of, and figures out the best chord progressions and arrangements that suit the melody. You don't have to have a clue about music theory or composition, but you can create a song.
Ofcourse, not everything is the same as microsoft songsmith. This app seems to use pitch correction more liberally, but more importantly, it's completely portable.
As the microsoft songsmith showed however, this type of musical creation software is probably still too early to be taken seriously as a musical creation tool for "serious" artists. If youtube is of any indication, songsmith was used as a novelty application, rather than a musical application. Indeed, it's used more as a way to insight laughs, rather than as a way to create music you want to listen to (although it was really fun to listen to "real" songs being put through songsmith, to see if songsmith would come up with the same chord progression as the original songs. It pretty much failed 99% of the time.).
Now that it has become portable, I wonder when this type of app will be good enough to break that "novelty" barrier?
This is an instrument that blows my mind. I have no idea how this works!
It's a sequencer based on lego blocks. A sequencer is a software or hardware that triggers sounds in a controlled way, such that you can create beats and sounds. It's a vital part of electronic music. (for more on sequencers, go to the wikipedia page here.
What makes this one special is the way that the lego's ability to build on top of each other is utilized. To make this clearer, watch the video below of a more standard sequencer first:
As you can see, the balls are used to indicate when and what sounds are triggered. It's quite straight forward.
Now imagine balancing other balls on top of those balls... or balancing bigger balls that cross over different slots all at once.
The lego sequencer lets you do that... and is programmed to change sounds accordingly. I have NO clue what changes it makes when you build on top of other blocks, but it does something. Furthermore, the colours also make a difference in the sound as well.
It's like sequencing with another dimension! Blows my mind.
Here's something that I some how completely missed for the past few months. But who cares, I'm not Digg and I don't always have to be about new things. Right?
Right.
So, this is a really fun music video by a Japanese artist/band "Sour". From my understanding, at one time the frontman was also based in New York. It's a video made by collaborating with the fans of the band and their webcams. It starts off as a montage of a few webcam shots of people lipsyncing to the video, but you'll be pleasantly surprised by the cutting/editing work as it progresses.
I love how the proliferation of media equipement - like webcams - makes this sort of thing possible. ...and the way the fans are included! What a great way of reaching out to their fanbase.
Also, musically I am really quite surprised by the bridge part: Check out the arrangement and the solo starting at 2:18. Very different for this kind of music. He just distorted a classical guitar and shredded it! and it doesn't sound out of place. Very very cool.
日々の音色 (Hibi no neiro) - by Sour.
Also, Check out their website here.
Put together music nerds with computer nerds, give them 24 hours to hack together a music related application/program, and you have... Music Hack Day.
It's a marathon coding session that encourages programmers to come up with new, innovative ideas about the way music can interact with computers. So far it's been a great success in London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Boston and Stockholm. Upcoming events are going to be held in San Francisco and Amsterdam. At the end of the event they showcase their apps, which can then be downloaded on their official website.
According to their homepage: "The main goal of Music Hack Day is to explore and build the next generation of music applications. It's a full weekend of hacking in which participants will conceptualize, create and present their projects. Music + software + hardware + art + the web. Anything goes as long as it's music related."
Apps range from things that apply to social networking sites such as myspace and facebook, to music streaming services such as soundcloud and last.fm, as well as standalone apps and websites. As you can expect, the products are not incredibly refined - but the ideas that come out of these events are sometimes really impressive.
Take a look for yourself at musichackday.org. If you click on the past dates you can see the prize winners from past events etc.
According to the website, The Codeorgan analyzes the "body" section of the website and translates that content into music. It seems that it is based purely on the HTML code though, so many websites based on php or java won't be as long and intricate - because there is less HTML code in the body section in those websites.
Also, here's the description from their website:
"THE CODEORGAN ANALYSES THE *BODY* CONTENT OF ANY WEB PAGE AND TRANSLATES THAT CONTENT INTO MUSIC. THE CODEORGAN USES A COMPLEX ALGORITHM TO DEFINE THE KEY, SYNTH STYLE AND DRUM PATTERN MOST APPROPRIATE TO THE PAGE CONTENT.
FIRSTLY, THE CODEORGAN SCANS THE PAGE CONTENTS AND REMOVES ALL
CHARACTERS NOT FOUND IN THE MUSICAL SCALE (A TO G), AND THEN ANALYSES THE REMAINING CHARACTERS TO FIND THE MOST COMMONLY USED 'NOTE'. IF THIS IS AN EVEN NUMBER THE PAGE IS TRANSLATED IN TO THE MAJOR PENTATONIC SCALE OF THAT PARTICULAR NOTE, IT BECOMES MINOR IF THERE IS AN UNEVEN NUMBER.
SECONDLY, THE CODEORGAN DEFINES WHICH SYNTHESIZER TO USE. THIS IS
BASED UPON THE TOTAL NUMBER CHARACTERS USED ON THE WEBPAGE – THERE ARE CURRENTLY 10 SYNTHESIZER EFFECTS AND THE ONE CHOSEN IS PICKED BASED UPON THE PERCENTAGE OF CONTENT.
LASTLY, THE CODEORGAN SELECTS A DRUM LOOP BASED UPON THE RATIO OF CHARACTERS ON THE PAGE VERSUS THE NUMBER OF CHARACTERS THAT ARE ACTUALLY MUSICAL NOTES – THERE ARE CURRENTLY 10 DIFFERENT DRUM LOOPS TO PICK FROM.
Although this video is part of a Nike Ad, it's pretty interesting. If you've seen my previous post on modifying the guitar hero controller into an instrument, it's a similar concept. Instead of changing guitar hero buttons into a MIDI trigger, the shoes have been modified with sensors that respond to how they are bent.
Gimmicky - yes - but fun nonetheless. I'm slightly disappointed that they didn't use dancers wearing the shoes, but check it out!
I've introduced a few posts that involve bottles before. Today's video is also based on a bottle, but it is different from the other videos in a significant way. In all the other videos, the bottle was either blown, or hit with a stick to produce a sound. In this video, the bottle is still blown... but it's used as a supplement to the voice. It's a really unique way to use an instrument.
Why do I see it as so unique? Because the bottle is essentially a supplement to the voice. The note that the bottle plays is always constant - by that I mean it plays the same note over and over again - but the melody doesn't sound that way because the vocal lines that are before and after it create a seamless melody. Furthermore, because the bottle has a different tonal quality than the rest of the vocal melody, the notes that the bottle plays feels like a punctuation, a moment of emphasis in the entire melody.
What's also cool is that because the bottle can't change tone - indeed, it's fairly constant in tone and timbre - but it's preceded and followed by the fluctuating vocal lines, the combination creates an "electronic music" feel to the whole thing.... even though it's just a bottle, a tambourine, and vocals!
By the way, this is by the Armenian artist Arto Tunçboyacıyan, who also played on a hidden track on a System of a Down album a long time ago. He's also played with Chet Baker and Al Di Meola, for those of you who enjoy jazz.
I wonder if there are other instruments that utilize a similar methodology? It really creates a neat feel to the song, and I would love to see other instruments used this way.
Musical Anthropology, or Musicology, is an academic discipline that traces the history of musical acts, periods, and styles. If you ever get to read the history of a musical piece, or the music of other cultures (both in location and in time), it's an absolute fascinating read.
As you might have noticed, I generally avoid putting up comedic videos/music on this site. This is because I want to use this site to promote the understanding and appreciation of music, and often comedic songs are making fun of styles, or are not meant to be taken seriously as a musical piece to begin with. But I've obviously made exceptions, when they illustrate some really neat feature of music in their comedic routine.
Why am I talking about this? Because this next video is a comedic video - a mocumentary set 1000 years from now, with musical anthropologists explaining the significance of the Beatles. It's pretty hilarious, because most of it is completely wrong.
But it makes you wonder: how much of what we assume about music and its origins are actually true? It's hard to say - Not that I'm claiming that the current musicologists are completely mistaken. Instead, I think this video really highlights the long history of music in the genealogy of human kind.
It may be true that we have digital and paper records these days.... but that doesn't mean the will always be around either. When you think about the fact that no political order has lasted 1000 years, it really makes you realize how much could change in the next 1000 years too. It's scary to think how impermanent everything is! This video could potentially become true in 1000 years!
....that being said, it also makes you realize the continued relevance of certain kinds of music, and how amazing that is. Gregorian chants can be around 1000 years old, and people still listen to them, as do many other musics from different parts of the globe.
Do you think the Beatles' music will be around in a 1000 years? It's quite a feat!
I recently came across this website, which is really interesting. MelodyCatcher.com is a music search engine, but it's unlike anything else I've seen. I've seen lyric search engines, or those search engines on phones that will recognize what song is being played. This is entirely different though: you input notes in standard notation.
The technological idea is pretty cool: input a bunch of notes, search for midi files that have those note intervals (so it can be in any key), and if there's a match it lists them.
However, the usage is not as intuitive as the site seems to think: In my personal opinion, you have to be pretty good at playing by ear to be able to transpose things note by note. However, it's really useful if you already know how to play a specific piece on an instrument....but you can't remember what the name of the piece is.
Alternatively, this is a neat way to see if something you've written is a song that already exists!
It's a similar, but more expanded music search engine. It not only does a search based on a similar criteria as the one mentioned above, but also for rhythm patterns, the contour of a melody etc. It's pretty cool.
Before you read anything else on this blog post, listen to this. It's a 1932 recording by Louis Armstrong, the "original" version of Britney Spears' "Oops I did it again".
Interesting isn't it? ...now I want you to honestly ask yourself: Does this change your opinion of this song? Did you use to think it was a horrible song, but now it seems more legitimate? Perhaps because it is written and sung by a legitimate song writer/artist?
....because this is a complete hoax/fake. That's right, it's a fake. Knowing that it is fake, does it change your opinion of the song? Is it less "artistic"? If it was true that Louis Armstrong had written the song, I think there would be many more people who would accept it as a good song. Strange isn't it?
Ask yourself: How much of our "value" and judgment of music is actually our preconceived prejudices towards genres, artists, languages, etc? ...and how much is the actual piece of music?
This may come as a surprise, but the best violin strings are made not out of plastic, nylon, or metal - it's made out of lamb intestine. It's been that way for centuries. It's a long process that involves several steps before they resemble strings. Some of you may have heard the colloquial term for these strings: catgut (I have no idea why it's cat gut, because it's usually a much larger mammal, from pigs to horses).
It makes me wonder: who thought of doing this in the first place? It's a strange thing to think of doing.
If you want to see the production in action, check out the video below!
...okay, so maybe the title of this blog entry is a little misleading: after all, we can't say we've figured out everything about music. Nonetheless, there's a 4 part documentary whose title is exactly that. It's a really good documentary, even if you already know all of the things it talks about. The presentation is simple and effective, all the while explaining a range of musical theory and historical anecdotes. Really great stuff. Obviously, it's a very Western centric view of music, but it seems to understand that.
The first part is melody, and it tracks the development of melodies and song structures over the centuries. It covers topics like the pentatonic scale, which is a scale found in almost every single culture. Neat stuff.
The second part is rhythm, and it introduces some basic time signature differences, and how rhythm shapes music.
The third part is harmony, and it explores the development of harmony, and what makes it sound good to us.
The fourth part is bass, and it shows how the idea of a bass instrument is relatively new, and how it plays a prominent role in modern music.
An important note! These videos are hosted on what looks like a Russian youtube-like site. I think they limit the bandwidth of each video some how, so sometimes not all the videos will load. Don't worry! Come back and try it again in a few hours, or on another day. It should work eventually.
Here's an interesting product: SMASH guitars, by K's Japan. It's a guitar that's specifically designed to be... destroyed. It has grips in strategic places to better enable swinging and smashing the product, and is extremely light for the same reason. Furthermore, each individual part is made so that it breaks off easier! If you pick up the pieces and send it back to the company, they will recycle them and make a new one. You can also buy apps that produce visuals that are in sync with your smashing.
...and it actually works as an instrument, so it's playable too! All for around $50. Want a more explosive version? They sell one that is filled with picks, so that when you smash it, you have an explosion of picks!
Strange concept, but I guess there's a niche market out there. What do you think?
The theramin is one of the coolest instruments around, but I find that most people associate it with bad playing, or eerie sounds without real melodies. This is because there are very few true theramin players, and for good reason: it's one of the hardest instruments to play. (If you don't know what a theramin is, check out the wikipedia entry here. It's neat that it got used extensively in psychedelic music and such, but little do people know that it had a classical heritage - it was originally an instrument to play classical music!
So here's a few great theramin players: Randy George, who is a modern virtuoso, and Clara Rockmore, one of the original players of the instrument. You'll be completely surprised if you're used to thinking of the theremin as a soundtrack/psychedelic noise maker. It's really interesting how expressive it can be.
Here is Randy George playing "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley:
Here's Clara Rockmore playing "The Swan" by Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns:
If you wanted to show someone the emotional power that music can have, showing them a national anthem being sung at sports events might be a good example. National anthems are funny that way: most people certainly don't listen to their own national anthem on their own leisure time, and I suspect most people wouldn't say it's reflective of their taste in music either. Yet there's an appreciation and joy out of singing it with lots of people, or when we hear it being played at sports events. Now imagine being responsible for writing a national anthem! The pressure would be incredible - what do you say in it? what kind of music would it be? what language?
Now imagine that you're responsible for writing the national anthem for a deeply divided country with a history of oppression and violence between different groups....and you have South Africa in 1994.
As most of you know, South Africa emerged from apartheid in 94, with just such a history. It's totally fascinating what they did with the national anthem. At the time, Die Stem van Suid Afrika (written in Afrikaans, a language that is derived from Dutch) was the national anthem, with an official english version of it, The Call of South Africa. As you can imagine, the anthem represented oppression for most of the black population in South Africa. Instead, unofficially the song Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika was adopted as an anthem by anti-apartheid groups (which is, or has been, the national anthem for other nations in that region). If you've ever seen the film "cry freedom", one of the scenes involves a huge anti-apartheid meeting where the song is sung as an act of defiance, and it shows how significant the song became. It was a symbol of freedom and human rights. At the same time, the song represented terrorism and communism for the most of the whites, since that's what they were told by the government and media. So one divided country, with two national anthems, both hating the other. *This is a crude summary of the complexities that existed in South Africa at the time, and in no way am I doing justice to the views that existed. I'm just trying to quickly show how divided the country was. If you want to know more about it, I suggest doing more research. This is not a forum for political discussion.*
In 94 - when Nelson Mandela became president - he ordered that both national anthems be adopted. So for awhile, South Africa had two official anthems. Then, in 96, both national anthems were combined into one, which is the current one that still remains. It's incredible - it starts off with Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika in Xhosa, then Zulu, then Sesotho, then switches keys and goes into Die Stem van Suid Afrika in Afrikaans, then in English. Since it doesn't go back to the original key, it is also the only national anthem to be Neo-Modal. In total, the music is written by 2 writers and the lyrics are written by 5. How amazing is that? Hear's what it sounds like:
Here's a video of it being sung by the national rugby team during the 2007 world cup, which they won!
This is a fun piece, where all the sounds are made from sounds that a car can make. Although there has been other pieces made out of cars/car parts, this one is in one take, with no edits! I have to admit, the first 40secs or so of the piece wasn't all that impressive....but wait until it kicks in. It'll surprise you.
Julian Smith - the one who composed this - talks about how he first had the inspiration when he heard the seats on the jeep make a weird noise. It's that kind of recognition/creativity that's really needed to make music, and I totally admire people who can "hear" musical potentials in everyday life.
The first video is the original vid. The second is a "making of" video, as well as the actual video. ....um, ya, I guess I could just post the second video, but whatever.
Ever wonder how vinyl records are made? For most of us, this is a process which is totally foreign. Check out this short documentary (about 10min in total) about the manufacturing of Vinyl. It's really interesting. I certainly did not know how the master disk is created (the original disk that is made out of silver and used to copy all the other ones).
This is making the rounds on the net right now, and I find it really fun to listen to. I've talked about the similarities in chord progressions in pop tunes before, and this is more or less a creative way to showcase it (of course, there's some heavy manipulations going here, so it's more than just putting together bits of each song). It's a mixup/mashup made by DJ Earworm, called "United State of Pop 2009", based on the Top 25 billboard hits for the year 2009. It contains the following songs:
The Black Eyed Peas - BOOM BOOM POW Lady Gaga - POKER FACE Lady Gaga Featuring Colby O'Donis - JUST DANCE The Black Eyed Peas - I GOTTA FEELING Taylor Swift - LOVE STORY Flo Rida - RIGHT ROUND Jason Mraz - I'M YOURS Beyonce - SINGLE LADIES (PUT A RING ON IT) Kanye West - HEARTLESS The All-American Rejects - GIVES YOU HELL Taylor Swift - YOU BELONG WITH ME T.I. Featuring Justin Timberlake - DEAD AND GONE The Fray - YOU FOUND ME Kings Of Leon - USE SOMEBODY Keri Hilson Featuring Kanye West & Ne-Yo - KNOCK YOU DOWN Jamie Foxx Featuring T-Pain - BLAME IT Pitbull - I KNOW YOU WANT ME (CALLE OCHO) T.I. Featuring Rihanna - LIVE YOUR LIFE Soulja Boy Tell 'em Featuring Sammie - KISS ME THRU THE PHONE Jay Sean Featuring Lil Wayne - DOWN Miley Cyrus - THE CLIMB Drake - BEST I EVER HAD Kelly Clarkson - MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU Beyonce - HALO Katy Perry - HOT N COLD
Totally fun! ....someone should make something similar to this, but with all the standard songs that get played at wedding receptions. I think it would be hilarious.
I'm surprised this has not been taken down yet, due to copyright reasons. As of right now, you can also download the mp3 version of this song at his website here.
Who has collaborated with Frank Zappa, Soundgarden, Phish, Aerosmith, appeared on Letterman and other tv shows.... and plays the spoons? "Spoons?" You say? Yes. Spoons.
I bet if I had said that this musician played the violin, cello, guitar, or any other mainstream instrument, you would have been less surprised. It's an interesting thought: As much as most of us claim to judge music and artistry on its own merits, we still harbour prejudices against non-traditional instruments. The classical instruments seem to get the most respect, then modern rock band instruments, and then perhaps electronica and DJ equipment, and then ....others, such as the spoons, get a bad rap for being a "lowly" instrument. I wonder why that is...
It's unfortunate that this prejudice exists, because Artis the Spoonman is an awesome musician. He is a street performer who is based in Seattle. Again, I believe we have a prejudice against street musicians as well, compared to "real" musicians who play in concert halls, or even bars. ...but I'll talk about that in another post...
So why is Artis the Spoonman so amazing? Well take a look for yourself! You'll be blown away by what can be done with a few utensils.
By the way, if you're a 90's kid, you will undoubtedly know a song that's actually about him. Ever wonder what "Spoonman" by Soundgarden was about? Here's what Chris Cornell had to say:
"It's more about the paradox of who [Artis] is and what people perceive him as. He's a street musician, but when he's playing on the street, he is given a value and judged completely wrong by someone else. They think he's a street person, or he's doing this because he can't hold down a regular job. They put him a few pegs down on the social ladder because of how they perceive someone who dresses differently. The lyrics express the sentiment that I much more easily identify with someone like Artis than I would watch him play."
He's quite prominently in the video as well, so if you've never noticed before, here it is!
