spoof music?

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
... the meaning intention of artists. This applies more to literary works because in order for marks or sounds to be language, the emitter has to intend them to be so taken and literature is comprised of language. It's not clear that paintings have to have the same kinds of meanings, though some of them do, and thus the same kinds of intentions behind them. In any case, this is an intention about the meaning of sentences or signs, even an intention about the meaning of a literary work. Although this kind of meaningis part of its being as an artwork, it's not identifiable with it.

Dunno. How is Duchamp's urinal different from Joe the plumber's?
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
... the meaning intention of artists. This applies more to literary works because in order for marks or sounds to be language, the emitter has to intend them to be so taken and literature is comprised of language. It's not clear that paintings have to have the same kinds of meanings, though some of them do, and thus the same kinds of intentions behind them. In any case, this is an intention about the meaning of sentences or signs, even an intention about the meaning of a literary work. Although this kind of meaningis part of its being as an artwork, it's not identifiable with it.

Dunno. How is Duchamp's urinal different from Joe the plumber's?

Sorry, I've actually written 20 pages on this one. Except for those into the theory, it would probably be more Buffy bonkery.

On the chance that you are one of those into theory, surprisingly, at least for the moment, you can read the book free at google books. Go here:


Either go to ch. 2 or go to the index and look up Duchamp. Have fun.
 
I guess I had better chuck that Motown boxed set.
You make the same mistake that so many others make: conflating "spoof" and a qualitative judgment. For some it is, but it doesn't have to be. Many of us (not all) like many spoofed wines, and many of us (possibly not all) like plenty of spoofed music.

That said, you don't (and probably can't) know whether or not Motown's artists would have been improved by less top-down control.
 
I've got the music in my head today!

They said we'd be artistically free
When we signed that bit of paper
They meant we'll make a lotsa mon-ee
An' worry about it later
 
originally posted by David M. Bueker:
Just to stretch the point a little:

If Pro Tools is spoof then what is 64-track recording where every bell and whistle is on its own track & can be revised/reworked ad infinitum? Is the only "natural" (recorded) music a live to the final tape performance with no further processing?

That'd just be 64 input tracks which could be eq'd prior to be assigned to subgroups and recorded onto the 24 track work reel, although it was not uncommon in the olden days of 2" tape to use two recording machines simultaneously in order to work with 48 separate tracks. This would be mixed down to a 2-track master tape. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your contention that it's spoof, but I just see music recorded to tape in this manner as being less spoofy than what you can do these days. The more tracks you have, the longer you can put off making decisions about which sounds will go where in the final mix. The beauty of Sgt. Pepper or Magical Mystery Tour is that whenever tracks were bounced, they had to think about the gain levels and how (and where) they'd sit on the final release. Having a gazillion tracks to work with in Pro Tools means that you can throw everything into the digitizer and make it fit. Automated mixing was a luxury at one time, now it's just a matter of programming Pro Tools during the mixing process. I'm not saying that the old way was better, only that it's different now. As was stated above, there are sounds that my ear gravitates toward and they tend to be older, less fucked-with sounds (and sounds from vinyl when available).

originally posted by David M. Bueker:
I say this as an unabashed fan of live albums, especially those where at least some of the warts have been left in (e.g. Horowitz's comeback concert in the '60s).

I once worked on a concert recording for the "King Biscuit Flour Hour" radio show where we got started "fixing" a few little things here and there and by the time the recording was sent off for broadcast, the only thing remaining from the concert were the tracks of the audience sounds. We wound up improving everything, from the drum tracks to the background vocals to the rhythm guitar and even the tambourine. It was disconcerting, to say the least (pun intended).

On a related stream of unconsciousness, I picked up a couple of the remastered Beatles CDs over the week. I love the stuff that was plucked from the mix in the remastering process and the sound quality was definitely improved to a great extent. But I played them for a friend who was over here and she didn't notice that there was anything different. She's listened to these albums since their release and loves the songs, but was so caught up in the music that she's never found the need to think about the sounds. This is actually pretty cool, because isn't getting lost in the music is the whole point of music?

-Eden (who doesn't know his oeuvre well enough to know whether or not Horowitz had any warts to be left in)
 
originally posted by Eden Mylunsch:


On a related stream of unconsciousness, I picked up a couple of the remastered Beatles CDs over the week. I love the stuff that was plucked from the mix in the remastering process and the sound quality was definitely improved to a great extent. But I played them for a friend who was over here and she didn't notice that there was anything different. She's listened to these albums since their release and loves the songs, but was so caught up in the music that she's never found the need to think about the sounds. This is actually pretty cool, because isn't getting lost in the music is the whole point of music?

-Eden (who doesn't know his oeuvre well enough to know whether or not Horowitz had any warts to be left in)

I also picked up a number of the remastered CDs this past wek, and completely agree with you. What's really important to me is Abbey Road, regardless of whether it's coming from vinyl, CD, car radio, or iPod ear buds.

As for Horowitz, I used the example because in the '64 Carnegie Hall recording they left in a devastating miss on the first flourish of the first piece of the performance. The rest is magic, but that miss proves it's a human playing a piano.
 
I use spoof in the sense of "something made to appear to be something other than it is." That often includes at least a slight connotation of parody, another sense of spoof. I admit that's neither a formal nor rigorous definition, but it does separate the technology used from the result. It makes sense to me in the context of wine (e.g., wines made to taste exactly the same every year regardless of vintage conditions, or inexpensive wines concentrated and oaked to death to simulate more expensive wines). I leave it to anyone interested to apply it to music.

While we're on music, I just picked up the recording "Kinsmen" by jazz saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa. The recording also features Kadri Gopalnath, who adapted the saxophone to Carnatic music (Gopalnath is amazing; i have a recording of him playing just Carnatic music). On first listen, it's an invigorating fusion of the two styles. Wild.
 
originally posted by Steve Guattery:

While we're on music, I just picked up the recording "Kinsmen" by jazz saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa. The recording also features Kadri Gopalnath, who adapted the saxophone to Carnatic music (Gopalnath is amazing; i have a recording of him playing just Carnatic music). On first listen, it's an invigorating fusion of the two styles. Wild.

I read an interview with with Mahanthappa in which he sounded a bit embarrassed about the style of his "Black Water" recording (from 2002), but I still enjoy listening to it. I've only listened to "Kinsmen" a couple times so far.
 
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