Former Beatle John Lennon is Dead (he remains alive in my conciousness)

There is undoubtedly a strong connection between human speech and music. This podcast considers the implications of how new sound and recording technology has changed the way we hear voices, and connect with their singer, as listeners. In particular it focuses on John Lennon whose split from the Beatles in 1969 and murder in 1980 both stand as symbolic events which occurred at the crossroads of broader cultural change.

Creative Sampling

My podcast explores how the changing technology has pushed musical composition from classical techniques to the current sampling / mashup culture, and the impacts of this trend on our established ideas of individuality, creativity, and innovation. Sampling John Oswald, Cornelius, Girl Talk and RJD2 as well as authors Chris Cutler, Daphne Keller and Paul D. Miller, I explain how the recycling of old music is a natural response to recording and how this “plagiarism” can be seen as a truly novel creative work in two ways: first, the art of the collage, and secondly, close examination of a small segment of sound to find a new meaning, arriving at the conclusion that “the sum created from audio collage leaves its original elements far behind.”

Recyclation: A New Aural Collage

I chose to talk about recycling within music. It happens all the time, but some pieces are more specifically geared to or created out of that idea of recycling. This podcast looks at the idea of some music being either abstract or figurative. The aural collage created by the work of men like Pierre Schaeffer and John Oswald take the pre-existing and morph it into something new, arguing that their works are new pieces despite being created from what already existed. Dub artists like Prince Jammy and King Tubby reuse and recycle base tracks, showcasing the interest of vocal and instrumental art, for versioning is a common practice in the dub genre. The podcast also suggests that mash-ups of songs like that of Danger Mouse and the Legion of Doom are created not to create something different, but perhaps help listeners discover a new way of listening to what they've heard time and time again.

http://www.archive.org/details/PodcastRecyclation

Spatial Effects of Dub vs other Genres

My podcast describes how the use of different production techniques give Dub a spatial effect, specifically focuses on the techniques of reverberation and layering. I was really interested in how the reverb effects made the Dub songs sound as if they were drifting off into the distance or were being heard from a another room, or big concert hall. In order to demonstrate this, I take samples of Dub, and compare them to other songs of different genres where reverberation is used, but not in the same way that it is in Dub. I also briefly discuss how the use of vocals contributes to this spatial, or tangible difference.

Link: http://www.archive.org/details/SpatialEffectsOfDubVsOtherGenres

Augustus Pablo & King Tubby - "King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown"

Michael Veal explains in his book Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae that “the most important understanding of the dub mix is as a deconstructive, B-side remix of a 45 rpm single; the remix engineer draws on various strategies to manipulate the listener’s anticipation of musical events, and defamiliarize the vocal song on the A-side” (64). Some “various strategies” commonly employed by engineers and producers of dub music are the effects of fragmentation, reverberation and delay. Fragmentation, which refers to the technique of cutting out vocals of the remixed tracks to create a more poignant and interpretive lyrical content, was used to “create abrupt shifts in ensemble texture” (64). Then, sound engineers used delay to create rhythmic effects, which gives the dub track its characteristic echo; the reverberation technique then takes the delay effects and creates an environment in which one hears the song. Veal describes the function and relationship of these techniques in the genre of dub mixing: fragmentation creates the tension, and reverb connects it all back together. In the track “King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown,” from a collaborative dub album with the same name by Augustus Pablo and King Tubby, we see these techniques demonstrated by some of the earliest in the dub scene: the vocals in the song are simply “Baby I’ve… that love,” and at the very end “Baby I love you so,” a grossly fragmented and deconstructed version of the original “Baby I Love You So” by Jacob Miller. The lack of much vocal content makes the few words heard carry a stronger message. The instrumental portion of the mix is punctuated with delay echo effects and reverberation techniques such as panning to give the track a sense of movement within the sound space, and a laid-back rhythmical cohesion. The strategies used in this track are not exclusive to the pioneers of dub: they continue to be used in more recent dub remixes, such as “Radiation Ruling the Nation [Protection],” Mad Professor’s dub remix of Massive Attack’s track. The same fragmentation of lyrical content can be heard, as well as frequent use of delay and reverberation.

The Poetry of Dub

In Michael E. Veals book Dub he states that “although dub music is largely an instrumental medium, one of the most immediately recognizable sonic features of the dub mix is the way song lyrics are omitted and/or fragmented…”(P.64) along with “the interplay of echo and equalization enabled engineers to make simulated sound spaces as if they were continually morphing in dimension and texture”. (P.73) With in the first ten seconds of the song “A Rougher Version” by King Tubby featuring The Aggrovators we hear song lyrics but it is only about a 20 second clip of an echoing voice talking about being oppressed and humbling yourself, which is slowly being smothered by underlying rhythm of trumpets or horns that is coming forward. At the end of the snippet of lyrics the voice trails off in an eco that morphs into the underlying rhythm that is smothering it. The voice echoes back into existence about half way through the song. Stating only time will tell and not to end badly. Which the words are accented by the rhythm of random horns or trumpets that can be heard through out the song. The voice echoes back one more time towards the end of the song but the lyrics are sung and the echoing effect makes the words non distinguishing from one another and eco into each other making there own beat on top of the already slow and methodical tempo. Because of the use of the eco effect on every note in the song the beat is very jerky and almost gives you the feeling of walking around with something weighing you down. Which would make since that the feeling of the song matches the topic of being oppressed.

Les Baxter - Celestial Nocturne

"Celestial Nocturne" by Harry Revel represents what was contemporarily a "new" direction of music more in thought than in terms of what music actually shipped on the album. Timothy Taylor writes of Revel's music that it "Pushed the envelope in ways that weren't strictly technical." (Strange sounds, 73). Essentially, the music heard on the album is an almost fundamentally generic easy listening sound from its era. Taylor, however points out that this album did in fact make two firsts in musical history. The first, indeed, was not musical at all: the cover of the record was the first to ship with a color LP cover. The second is central to the music's theme but not structure: the use of a theramin. This instrument is used on the album, but it is backseat to lounge piano and choirs, and even to trumpets and other traditional band music. Nonetheless, "celestial Nocturne" and and "lunar Rhapsody" are among a host of other tracks on Revel's Music out of the moon that tie themselves to outer space to grant legitamacy and freshness to what would, without its minor use of new technology in production and packaging, have been an altogether unremarkable album. Nor was Revel alone. He was, in fact, indicative of a trend that would follow of similar easy listening albums like Ron Goodman's music in orbit that would market a technological progress rather than a music one with space imagery.