Sound Unbound 35 – Joseph Cornell and Silence

Post 11:

Hello, I’m here to summarize the 35th chapter of sound unbound. I won’t bother to summarize Merzbow (My chapter) as I have already done so in a previous blog (blog 9 I believe).

The chapter begins by stating how most poets love the silence in Cornell’s work. Several poets, including John Ashbery, Octavio Paz, and Charles Simic have all written about Cornell. They all had different perspectives of his work but all appreciated it in their own way. Cornell’s work has been called litearary. Octavio Paz wrote about the trasformative power of Cornell’s art. It would appear that Joseph Cornell was appreciated for his art as being silent yet saying so much. It appears as if Cornell was somewhat contraversial. Jonas Mekas said that Cornell’s films were so unimposing that it was no wonder they slipped past the mind of men who need loud bombardments to keep them interested. It is apparent however that upon watching Cornell’s silent version of East of Borneo Salvador Dali knocked over the project upon screening and told Cornell he was a plagarist of his mind. The chapter continues to discuss works from Joseph Cornell (movies that he had done). In 2002, Stiney called Cornell’s films “the area where the concious and the subconcious meet.” Mekas again writes, “Cornell’s films have something to do with retracting our feelings, our thoughts, our dreams, our states of being on some other, very fine dimension from where they can reflect back to us in the language of the music of the spheres.” In concluding the chapter, it is stated that Cornell mutes the exterior world to more clearly witness teh ephemeral spirit of another person. He formed a “silent mirror.”
It would seem like Cornell was appreciated for his work on movies and other art, slowing them down and making them silent. Mixing the concious and subconcious I assume comes from watching movies (conciously) with no sound (the subconcious).
But I have never heard of Joseph Cornell before this chapter… Who is he?

Joseph Cornell (December 24, 1903-December 29, 1972) was an American artist and sculptor. He lived in New York City and was an avant-garde experimental filmmaker as well. Cornell was a surrealist, or at least influenced by them. Rose Hobart seemed to be his biggest piece, to which he played Nestor Amaral’s record ‘Holiday in Brazil’ upon screenings. Cornell was a unique artist, and he apparently added collage techniques to films. Dali apparently was outraged and said that he had basically the same idea of collage technique but Cornell had beat him to the punch. Dali told Cornell that he should stick to making boxes and stop making films. Apparently Cornell being shy was upset at this and never showed his screenings publicly again.

It almost sounds like a sad story for Cornell about his films, but he seemed to be well respected. His work seemed to jump out at people and perhaps his work is worth taking an interest in.

Anyway, that’s it for me, summary and all. I’m not going to bother to post a playlist because I haven’t been listening to anything differently. I’m still focusing on the same people as the past month.

The beginning of the end for the dark side of 300.

Post 10:

Off the record, this project has helped me decide what I want to do with my life. My mind does not honestly allow me to focus on one thing for very long, but sitting at a computer writing music or writing music to video in general I can do for hours. Sometimes I’ve sat in the lab for eight hours straight just to get the sound I think is right. As of now, I think my best carreer plan is to go to graduate school for electronic/composing music? I’d like to go to New York or a place where I can get known. For the four years I’m doing music at another school, I’d love to just take my music to clubs where I could get recognized. I may be a fool too far ahead of time, but I still believe someone like Bob Dylan can get on stage with a message and be great. I have the same type of message, and I want to try it. My belief is I have one life, and I do not want to spend it doing something I hate. Money is important, but if I can play music (and become famous or something like that) it would be great. I know the chances are hard and slim but I don’t really care. I’m going to do it anyway.

Anyway, enough of that, time for some hardcore blog:

This project in my mind is okay, it’s not great. By that I mean, the way it is coming out. The actual project is awesome. Anyway, I still have time to mess around with it and make it better to my standard. My presentation is in the classroom on December 9th from 6:00-8:00PM (be there). I think I know what I’m going to do. I will have to practice like crazy for the time remaining, but the plan is simple. The goal is to take the first two pieces I’ve written and Imovie them. I will show the videos with the music together in the classroom, each of which will probably take 5 minutes including technological set up time. Then I want to surprise everyone for the third part if they like the performance so far. I want to take a third scene and just play it quietly. I would love to play the music live on the piano in the classroom. I have a piece written and a video chosen, I’ll just have to practice it.  So all in all, if this comes out right, I’ll have two action fighting videos with electro music and one video on silent with me playing the piano live. I think all in all it could become a great performance and I hope my audience takes whatever they want from it, just as long as they thought it was cool in any way.

That is all I have for now, but next week I will try to write about someone’s blog that corresponds with my project and hopefully make it interesting. I would like my performance not only to be my videos and music but a brief description of what I did, how I did it, and why. Anyway, that is all for now. See you again in a week.

Sean Chase

Playlist:
Blonde on Blonde – Bob Dylan
Highway 61 Revisited – Bob Dylan
Layla (acoustic/electric) – Eric Clapton
Tangled Up In Blue - Bob Dylan
Christmas Eve Sarajevo 1224 – Trans Siberian Orchestra
Wizards in Winter – Trans Siberian Orchestra
Mozart//Figaro – Trans Siberian Orchestra

P.S. Sorry for all the Bob Dylan always. Bob Dylan is simply my idol and I want to do a few big shows as him, like an impersonator of Elvis or the Beatles, only with Bob Dylan. I think it could be great and I’m trying to master his style and his music. He never gets boring.

Merzbow – His Experience

Blog Nine:

Masami Akita is a was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1956. Akita created Merzbow. Merzbow is a noise music artist and he has formed two record labels since 1979. Merzbow is really an interesting noise/music artist and I am quite interested in his ideas. He takes things from life and utilizes them in his writing. One of the things in my reading that captured my absolute interest was Venereology. In medical terms, venereology is the study of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV. Merzbow released his first of five albums from the American Heavy Metal label Relapse Records. Venereology was Merzbow’s take on death metal and grindcore.

Eugene Thacker defined his album and what he interpreted the sounds as in Noise/Music:

“Venereology: The conjunction of sex, disease, and death; the diseased body in an intense, often anguish-filled zone of hyper-sensitivity; coitus expiation, and decay; technology and electronic abnormalities, illnesses; sound and the microbial transference of bodies.”
Considering that venereology is the study of STD’s, this would only make sense.
Merzbow basically takes things he finds interesting and makes noise/music to them. In 2005 he released a few albums including “Frogs.” Merzbow puts in his own interpretations in his music of whatever it is he is writing about.

Merzbow has written some rather interesting pieces and I am interested and looking way more into him. He is quite appropriate for an electro/acoustic music class. At some point I would like to take something like a medical field (not necessarily but as an example) and write my interpretation of noise and/or music to that. I do not have an outstanding knowledge of Merzbow or his music, especially this album. As of today it is completely new to me. I would like to find his album and listen to it, as well as hearing other pieces he’s done throughout his carrer. Actually, I think a future project of mine might be to write a piece titled “Merzbow” and write my interpretations of his interpretations.
Well that’s all I have for this week, but I’ll be back here same place come next Sunday or Monday. Have a good week.
Sean

Youtube Videos of the Week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkW3cQiH-pE (Merzbow – Live in London 2008)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGzrL8J0t-c (Merzbow) – Minus Zero

Playlist:
Minus Zero – Merzbow
1930 – Merzbow
Venereology – Merzbow
Clint Eastwood – Gorillaz

 

Do genres die? Response to Tyler’s blog (response 3/3)

Blog 8:

In one of Tyler’s blogs, he asks the question, does a genre ever die? He discussed emo bands like Taking Back Sunday, Armor for Sleep, etc. and how they seem to die as a musical genre. His final conclusion though, states that he does not think genres die. “I say no because it will evolve into something else a new sound a new culture until that too is overplayed, destroyed, or forgotten for some time and then rediscovered.”
As a response to Tyler, I completely agree. Bands, and not just some, all of them, get boring. Let’s take for an example Hey There Delilah by the Plain White T’s. Once upon a time it was written, it was played, the radio aired it, and a year later nobody wants to hear the song anymore. This, in fact is what made the Beatles such a fantastic band. They started out in the early 60’s playing 2 minute pop songs that were just about love and that’s what people wanted to hear. As the years progressed and time progressed so did the Beatles. They were always current and always creating music that made people stay always interested in them. I think the key for any band and any genre is to remain with the time. Sometimes it is hard today because a band is all of a sudden classified “Country” / “Pop Rock” / “Punk Rock.” They stay in that line. What happens when punk rock isn’t popular anymore? People stop caring. How do you classify a band like the Beatles? Classic Rock? Yes, they were classic rock, but they were also “Experimental Rock” / “Acoustic Rock” / “Psychedelic Rock” etc. They were so many genres they never got boring. The same goes with someone like Bob Dylan. Dylan was “Folk” / “Classic Rock” / “Experimental Rock” / “Country” / “Religious Rock” etc. He had so many genres he never got boring either. Now when someone is country they are country no ifs ands or buts. Unfortunately when the world decides they have no need for some genre anymore it’s basically forgotten. A band like the Plain White T’s I hear on the radio from time to time, then I might not again for months, maybe a year, then hear from them again.
So I agree with Tyler, genres do not die, but they get boring. Some avid Taking Back Sunday listeners will always listen to that band, and some that listened before might go to a concert if they are touring the area. Hell, some might even download (hopefully legally) their music for those special occasions, but when it comes to buying albums, listening to them on the radio, and so on, some bands and genres suffer. They never seem to die but they will suffer. All the bands from the 80’s/90’s, an example such as Fuel, Fastball, and Maroon 5 aren’t really anything anymore. I don’t think I’ve heard from Fuel or Fastball since a long time back. There are so many bands but I don’t even remember them, that’s how boring or forgotten they truly become.
So for my conclusion, basically, genres will never die, for people will listen to them once in a while, but genres do suffer and are forgotten.

Playlist:
Creep / Karma Police – Radiohead
Bob Dylan Discocraphy

“If we can’t be great, why even bother playing?”

Post Number 7:

So this week I read my chapter in the Sound Unbound book. It was chapter 32, “What One Must Do: Comments and Asides on Musical Philosophy.” At first I thought it was going to be a long story of musical logic which most people argue are necessary to be a good musician to which I disagree. A music teacher in the past once told me, “Music is a set of rules and you have to follow them to be good.” As of late I completely disagree and try to break the rules and make music even better. Instead of a long story about the ethics of music, the writer (Daniel Bernard Roumain) lists a whole series of things that one must do to be great, and it’s not a list of logical reasoning. Some that jumped out at me were “you have to think about your mother’s murderer and play to him” and “you have to think of your first child.” Though I do not actually have a child I understand what the writer is getting at. Through his list he states in so many ways that you have to feel the music. It has to be emotional to be great. If you get on stage and play a song it may sound good but it means nothing. This jumped out at me, because it’s what I do. One of the things in the list says “you have to not take it for granted, and I think you do.”
Wow… The fact that it said “and I think you do” almost scared me because I do take what ability I have for granted. I can play piano, not too fantastic, millions of people can probably play piano. The book makes me realize however that I can have what most people might not, extreme emotion, making the notes and the sound almost 100% better. His list is convincing in the sense that you, as a musician, MUST be into what you are doing or it will not work. 

So how does this connect to me?

I thought about it after reading this chapter and realized that the music I do can be great. For example, my 300 piece that I played in class last week; I like it, but I don’t appreciate it. I thought it got a pretty good reception from the class and I was proud of that but once I’ve listened to it a few times what I thought was great almost means nothing again. It’s the same way with almost all music. The fact is, it was pretty simple and almost anyone I can imagine with basic training could put audio and visual together: music and movies. I like the path I am on with this project and I will continue it, but I’m thinking after reading this that I should really take some hard time and spend it only on one piece. I want to write the slower piece I’m thinking of doing on piano. Garage band has some great sounds, but nothing as good as I have to potential to create if I really think about it long enough. Therefore, after all is said and done, I was glad I read this chapter. It gave me a whole new perspective on what I want to write and how I want to create my next pieces for the movie 300.

There’s a nickname for the Pink Floyd album Dark Side of the Moon with the Wizard of Oz… Actually there are two: Dark Side of Oz and the Dark Side of The Rainbow…

Hopefully by the time I am done I have a nice name for my pieces.

Playlist:
Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd
Lay Lady Lay – Bob Dylan
Hurricane – Bob Dylan
It’s Gonna Rain – Steve Reich
Four Winds – Bright Eyes
Barrel of a Gun – Guster

Comments via blogs 2/3

For my second review of another classmates blog I decided to pick Matt H’s on Linkin Park. The specific reason I chose this one is because recently my roomate decided that I should get more Linkin Park music so I bought more and I have been listening to them a lot recently. Linkin Park to me is one of those bands that I listened to in 1990 something when they came out with “In the End” and I thought it was the best song going. Then shortly after I fell off the planet of Linkin Park and common present day bands and went for a magical hardcore trip through the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s which has consequently led me right back to the music I missed while it was happening, the postmodern era of the 90’s and the new millenium. So what did I miss?

In his blog, Matt wrote the following:

“I really like the fact that lead vocalist Chester Bennington has a distinctive range of singing styles, whether its melodic singing on a slow song, or growling and screaming in another, he really explores what music and the emotions are all about which are tied so tight within each lyric. Mike Shinoda is one of the founders of the original band and is the member that lays down backing vocals and the rapping portion of the bands music.”

So  I read this blog about Linkin Park as Matt wrote it and decided he was right. Chester Bennington has a great range in voice and he uses it well both by himself and when he is harmonizing with Mike Shinoda. Back in the nineties I listened to Linkin Park a little bit, with my favorite song being In The End. Shortly after this I started going on a magical trip through the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s music which consequently led me back to the now. Instead of buying a couple songs on Itunes I bought the whole album Minutes to Midnight. I listened to it and was very impressed by some of the music actually, compared to how I may have felt before last year. I’ve better learned to keep an open mind about such things and I’m learning how to the new sounds and technologies of today. One song struck me in particular. Hands Held High was a great song for me. It was today’s Imagine. Imagine back in the 1970’s from John Lennon was perfect. Nice piano with a little drumming and light violin sounds. The words mattered, and the message came across clear. I’m unaware if Linkin Park had done anything like this before but they captured perfectly how a version like that would become great today. They used an organ sound and the perfect marching snare drum beat. The words were written something like “Healing the blind I promise to let the sun in / Sick of the dark ways we march to the drummin’ / Jump when they tell us that they wanna see Jumpin’ / F*#$ that I wanna see some fists pumpin” The words really mean something, just as much as the classy metaphors and witty hints that John Lennon gave us. It’s as if Lennon asks, “I hope some day you’ll join us” and a band like Linkin Park is answering the call. The words and the simplicity make the song fantastic. As I’ve said, simple is sometimes way better and I think they did a great job with the song. Going back to the nineties I chose some things Linkin Park did differently in the song I used to like “In the End” to how they are now. Now they seem like a really accomplished band with a message and a great source of instrumentation. I agree with Matt that Linkin Park has quite a diverse series of things they try to do, and in my opinion they succeed. In all I would personally give the album Minutes to Midnight a B+ which by my standards of music is considerably good. I am going to continue to listen to more music by Linkin Park and others through the upcoming weeks. 

Playlist:
Hands Held High – Linkin Park
In the End – Linkin Park
Shadow of the Day – Linkin Park
Imagine - John Lennon
Strange Days – John Lennon

Where am I going?

Blog 5:

I’ve made some decent progress so far on my music but I have a long way to go. One day I found a certain video which I pray they never take off youtube of the first Sparta vs. Persian fight scene. I messed around in garage band looking for music I hadn’t already heard and tried my best to piece together music for the scene. In life I am my own worst musical enemy and never see anything I do being as great as it could be. In some cases the piece I have put together had come out rather amazing, one part in particular in which I hope the class will love as much as I did when I first witnessed it for myself. I am scheduled to present on 10/28 and I hope that it will get a good reception. If it does I will move forward, if not I will look back. As far as right now I plan to basically find a few more clips and put music to them as well. The biggest problem I am encountering at the moment is my severe lack of talent in the video/music synch department. I need to get in touch with someone who is actually good at putting music with a video so I only have to hit play once and not try to mess around with it a bunch of times until I hope it comes out right. Anyway from here I have two steps, A: Find more clips and add more music to the clips and B: Find someone to help me synchronise the two things. All in all I think this could come out pretty good. I wanted to have some live instruments play at the final presentation but I’m not sure if that will happen exactly as I would like it to. I think I will have to figure out what I need to play in order to make it sound good and just experiment from now until the end of the semester which is quickly approaching. As of right now my tune is played in B major and it is incredibly hard to find on garage band. I hope to find more instruments and more than likely my keys will change every video, maybe within videos as well. I like key changes and I try to keep things truly different or I get bored. I think this project could be one of my best ever, and if I could just figure out how to manage my time this semester between late night work schedule and classes that are literally kicking my butt I would be able to make this project one that I could remember as the coolest pieces of electro-acoustic music I’ve done since that time in high school I put music to a bear and a guy fighting by the water for tuna. As of now that is the best project I’ve accomplished but I’m hoping I make this one come out far cooler. Anyway we’ll see how it is recieved by you guys, the readers on Tuesday.

 

Playlist:
City of New Orleans – Arlo Guthrie
5th Symphony – Ludwig Van Beethoven
Santeria – Sublime
What I Got – Sublime

Other Blog Comments

So I was randomly reading blogs for class and I came across Ashlee’s and decided that I liked what she was talking about. She wrote that for her first piece, “[I] wanted to keep it simple, so I only used songs I already had from Jim Morrison, Nine Inch Nails, and Rage Against the Machine.” I like the range of artists there because in a way they can be pretty different. She said she liked where it went even though it was pretty simple. This reminded me of something John Lennon always used to say and that was, “simple is better.” Simple music can be as effective if not more effective than truly elaborate music. Simple is easier to understand for some people and it is all in all easy to listen to. For that reason I like to keep my music simple and I like the idea of just keeping basic tracks without trying to become too fancy.

Ludwig Van Beethoven

One artist I have always admired is Ludwig van Beethoven. I like political writers, and to me Beethoven seems to have been one of the earliest ones of all time. My idols are John Lennon and Bob Dylan for the music they wrote that has to do with the world and all the wrong things in it. We don’t have records of Beethoven ever talking abotu his work but he seemed to be one of the most controversial composers of his time. He used to play chords that were quite “offensive” and songs that were highly unexpected by the people. One of the reasons I admire Beethoven so much is because he did not conform with the groups. When people all stayed quiet he spoke and when people all bowed he stood. He was an inspiration to the times and he wrote some amazing music in the meantime. So basically the second artist I have paid attention to for quite some time other than Pink Floyd would have been the classical pianist and composer, Ludwig Van Beethoven.

The Dark Side of the Moon… And myself

Okay, so I could be unbelievably wrong, but I think what we agreed on last Tuesday was that we should pick an artist and tell where they are coming from and what they are trying to do. What I didn’t pay attention to is if we were to talk about our chapters in here or a random artist of our choice. For the time being I’ll write about Pink Floyd. If this is wrong I’ll redo this blog later on. But for now, let us discuss Pink Floyd the band. I chose them because they did the Dark Side of the Moon / Wizard of Oz which I am trying to create with the movie 300 all over again. For that particular project, I think Pink Floyd was trying to psych the world out. They are a dark band that played mostly music that sounded very dark and in some cases psychopathic, such as comfortably numb amongst many others. One of my favorite songs is Brain Damage which appears on the album. The lunatic is on the grass, etc. I think they were trying to make the world think that they were maybe just imagining things. What they did was took a movie that was full of hope and goodness and put very dark and mellow music to it and changed its whole persona. This is what I want to do with 300 except make it even cooler. Unfortunatley Pink Floyd always denied doing such a thing, but no one believes that the whole thing was a complete coincidence. Anyway that’s the artist I chose for this week, and like I said, if I was supposed to choose another artist, I will rewrite this blog in a sub post very soon. Good night all. Till next time,

Sean W. Chase

September 29, 2008