This blog is in response to "Brainwashed" by Seth Godin. One layer is titled "Acknowledge the Lizard". The 'Brain Lizard' is our set instinct to give in to society's critiques. It wants us to cower away from creativity when our creativity is laughed at. I believe this is one of the most common ways people become less creative. Even though you might be laughed at, you must suppress the 'Brain Lizard' and become creative.
Another layer is titled "Make Art." It talks about how art doesn't follow guidelines. Art is where people create the uncreated. Art must be created, despite the risks that society might not like it. But art should not be created for society. I believe that art should be created for the sake of creating art and doing things that have never been done before.
These two layers might be in some way related to the blog I am writing this quarter. I must always "Acknowledge the Lizard" when I write my blog posts. I know that these posts can be viewed by the world, and they might completely disagree with my opinions. I have to look past that and write what I truly believe. And that is how my blogs relate to the second layer, "Make Art". Everything I write here has never been written before. All of my words are original. It is all my art. I believe this blog is very much related to the two layers I have examined here.
Lastly, this is the song i created in GarageBand using loops. It is very funky. I have titled it "Funky Blimp".
The songs I am exploring are both titled "Knock On Wood". The original was released in 1966 by Eddie Floyd. It has a pretty slow tempo and very happy feeling. The video helps portray this emotion even more. It is 109 beats per minute, giving it a very bouncy 60's swing vibe.
The brass instruments produce the melody during the chorus. During the verses, the guitar and brass seem to share the melody over the bassline. There are vocals throughout the song.
The cover song I selected is "Knock on Wood" by DJ Stephanie. This song was released in 2010. It has a much faster tempo of 147 beats per minute. It also has a happy feeling and is slightly corny, but really makes you want to get up and dance.
The lead synthesizer creates the melody. It is a very fat combination of sine and square wave oscillators, detuned to perfection. This song has a series of buildups and breakdowns before and after the 'dancy' parts. The vocals are only played during the breaks and buildups. The hard kick takes the place of the vocals during the 'dancy' parts of the song.
When comparing and contrasting music, I think it is often helpful to analyze the audience of the songs. The original song was meant to be played on the radio or played for a group of dancers at a restaurant or club. The cover song was meant to be played for tens of thousands of people with ridiculous amounts of energy at extremely loud volumes.
This being said, it makes sense that the cover song has a better sense of rhythm. The rhythm of a song is the part element that drives you to dance. The percussive elements are much louder in the cover song than in the original version. This could be because the focus of the original song was the vocals. When people listened to this music, they wanted to hear and sing along to the lyrics. With the cover song, people want to hear the kick and bass.
At large events, people will sing along to the melody of the song. To get the audience more involved, producers will use well known lyrics in a song, such as "Knock On Wood". This gives the audience something corny to scream out, but everyone knows the words. This creates a very positive relationship between the DJ/Producer and the audience. This positive energy is needed to drive the artist's success, as well as the events, which generally run until 7am.
I like the Stephanie version better. It really gives me that "hands-up" party feeling. The original would be nice to listen to with friends if we were in the mood for something real goofy. The Stephanie version is just a more modern dance production that I am very accustomed to. There we not nearly as many ways to digitally create music in the 60's as there are now. This has opened up new ways of producing music, as well as simply making it sound better. I do think that older original versions of songs can be very appealing though. They provide an interesting contrast to the digitally produced music of today. I enjoy stepping outside of the digital world every once in a while to refresh my musical palate.
Lastly, this is the soundscape I created with Ian Bullington using GarageBand. Our term was 'Affection', which was difficult to exemplify.
This blog is in response to the article "Finding Your Howl," by Jonathon Flaum. One of the described stories is about a pack of wolves who are on the verge of extinction. They are brought into captivity to safely recover their population, and are later released once again. But once they are released, they have all forgotten how to howl, and they have no leader. One wolf knows that he used to be able to howl, but can't remember how. He goes through a series of strange events and eventually acts with his instinct. He falls into a hallucination where he sees his death, as he is shot with a gun. He finally howls, and is brought back to reality as the other wolves follow suit and claim him as their leader.
The main point of this story is that we must sometimes suffer greatly, even feeling like death, to do things that we believe are impossible. When we set a goal, we cannot simply walk away from it. We are drawn into it, and there is no turning back.
The following is an audio blog restating the previously stated material, as well as new information.
I have recently read "14 Way to Get Breakthrough Ideas" by Mitch Ditkoff. The article explains 14 guidelines to help inspire new ideas and cultivate new ways of thinking. Many of these are common knowledge ideas, and are nothing new, such as "Brainstorm".
I agree with most methods described, but I am slightly bothered by a bit of hypocrisy amongst the various guidelines. Guideline 2 is "Immerse", meaning to completely surround yourself in a concept. Conversely, guideline 8 is "Take A Break". I think these are both good guidelines to follow, but you can not do both at the same time. This leads me to believe that each of the guidelines should always be considered, but only one or two will ever actually be performed at any given time.
I do find taking a break to be helpful when trying to think of new ideas. I think that too often we immense ourselves so deeply in the subject of thought that we overlook more general ideas. A lot of good ideas came about this way, almost by accident. When we allow ourselves to take a break, we allow ourselves to think of completely different possibilities in completely different ways. I often take this approach myself when I produce music. I often become so immersed in the environment i am creating that I miss many details that a first-time listener would pick up on. I often find myself so unable to move past certain aspects of a production that I will take a break. I generally head to the outdoors, something completely different from the electronic sounds I produce. This helps my brain recharge and immerse myself in completely different things to inspire new things in my productions.
I also find that guideline 10, "Hang Out With Diverse Groups of People," is a great way to conjure up new thoughts and methods. This can be related to the "Take A Break" method. When you are always around the same people, you are immersed in the same ideas and thinkers. Being around diverse groups of people will give you different points of view. Along with those comes different ways of thinking. These diverse groups of people will also give different answers to problems that would have otherwise gone unseen.
I use this method of thinking and learning on a daily basis. I try to be around different people every day. This gives me many different perspectives and shows me that there is often more than one right answer. Many times the solution is a combination of thoughts gained by conversing with multiple groups of diverse people. Too often people limit themselves to a certain group of friends they are secure with. Going outside your personal comfort zone and interacting with many groups of people is the best way of thinking and the best way to become successful.
Method number 4, "Make New Connections", is also very important to me. If you continuously turn to the same people, you are limiting yourself to finding many new methods and thoughts. Other methods being used outside of your 'connection circle' may be just what you are looking for. New connections may not necessarily have the answers to your problems, but they will provide fresh views and possibly different methods of thinking that can be applied at a later time.
I am not the best at meeting people outside of my field of interest. However, this is often a great way to get ideas outside of your normal realm of thinking. It is very easy for me to to make new connections with people in my field of interest. I am generally as enthused to meet them as they are to meet me. I am sure this can be said for any field of special interest.
This next section is in response to the prompt given in guideline number 9, "Notice And Challenge Existing Patterns And Trends." The trend in the marketplace that most intrigues me is the shift of income for musicians. For years, the primary source of income for musicians has been from the sale of their music. Because so many people now have access to this music for free, the primary source of income for musicians is shifting towards live performance. Some musicians are now getting paid more to play at huge concerts and festivals than release a new album of music. I believe this trend will continue until purchasing music becomes virtually obsolete, save for the nostalgic purpose of owning the physical copy of a music album.
My most inspired idea and biggest life goal is to bring the huge dance festivals held in Europe to America. This is the future of income for musicians, and every fan wants the next event to be bigger and better. America seems to be several years behind Europe in music preference, and these large-scale events have just recently begun to take over the music scene. It is my belief that these events will very soon make it to America, and I want to be a part of the people who profit the most from this surge of musical performance.
I am a very crazy creative person. I like operating outside of the box. Music is my passion, so i would consider myself an acoustically creative person. Normal people watch TV, but I listen to it. I like finding new ways of doing things. While I often arrive at the same answer, I like finding different ways of getting there. This opens up new doors that I would have otherwise not discovered.
It takes a lot of creativity to create music. Anyone can go outside and use a video camera, but it takes a lot of patience and out-of-the-box thinking to create music. For example, I spend roughly 1 hour modifying a snare drum for my productions. There are so many things you can do to that snare drum, and so many different ways you can do it. It is easy to get frustrated and just give up. But often, the solution just requires taking a different approach.
The people I admire the most are the duo know as Noiscontrollers. This is a group of electronic music DJ/producers; Bas Oskam and Arjan Terpstra. They joined forces in 2005, releasing their first EP in 2007, and have since become one of the top hard-dance groups. Both members help in production, as well as performance.
This song is from their first official release in 2007.
The reason I admire them is because of their creativity and innovation. You can easily hear the progression of their early work, and their work of today. The sounds they produce keep becoming clearer and more innovative. I see innovation as something that I have never heard before, and it sounds good. This definition can be slightly altered to define innovation in TV, movies, painting, etc.
The Noisecontrollers have also just begun a track in their career that I too hope to someday accomplish. Along with Wildstylez, another hard-dance producer, they have started their own record label; Digital:age. Their mindset is to create sounds that no one has heard before, but to keep the essence of hard-dance music faintly visible for the more 'traditional' audience.
This song is a good example of Tension and Release. The tension is built up starting at 1:25. This part lacks the kick and bass that the intended audience is waiting for. The song builds up and is is finally released at the climax at 1:50. This is almost what the hard-dance culture considers an anti-climax, as the music becomes more simplistic, but is still very danceable.
After listening to both songs, you can clearly see that the Contrast and Affinity are well at work. The first song is dark and scary. This is probably due to the fact that it is easiest to make hard-dance music that is dark. Thus it is harder to make hard-dance music about subjects like love. Creating different sounds and using them in different ways creates the contrast, but the genre is still held together by its structure and basic percussive features. This is the affinity.
I do believe, however, that there are many things to consider with the Text and Subtext of hard-dance music. Unless you know about hard-dance music and how it has progressed, you might think, "It's techno, and it all sounds the same." Which is not at all accurate, but I am aware that this is how many people view the subject.
This music is very influential to me. In order to keep becoming innovative and stay within the realms of a genre, you have to listen to music that was created before you, adding your own twist on things. I turn to the Noisecontrollers when I need inspiration for sounds I need to produce. Listening to the ways their music is progressively changing helps me alter alter my own sounds. This is how I become innovative with my music.
I'm ending my blog entry with a video showing that the Noisecontrollers are just regular people. They take you through the production of one of their tracks, and you can get an idea of how much creativity is put into their music.
