Dan Pemberton - Phoenix

The sonorous form starts quietly with a deep, metallic sound; it begins to rotate and oscillate with increasing fervor. As it progresses the sound crescendos and swells, folding back on itself and growing with each added reverberation. A sharp, breathy exhale punctuates the hollow metal swelling, which now begins to grow darker and thicker; some barely audible ascending sound bytes trickle into the mix. The metal reverberation suddenly catches on itself and stutters, pounding and throbbing inside the piece with the discomfort of a hangover. Gradually the pulsing fades out to allow an uplifting electric organ to take its place. The tranquil tones gently glide in and float upwards, playing a soft, slow melody and allowing itself, much like the disconcerting metal in the beginning of the track, to vibrate and fold back into itself, creating a chorus of ethereal voices. Eventually each voice decrescendos to silence one at a time, allowing the metal oscillations a small resurrection before fading out completely. The title of this track is Phoenix: does this piece aurally simulate the life cycle of this mythological creature?

Kraftwerk - The Man Machine

A taping starts to play with a rapid, hollow, crispness. But is quickly interrupted by the start of some great classical symphony only being played by electrical instruments out of a Mario brothers video game and the tapping is layered into the background. Flowing at a constant speed each section of the electronic Mario brothers orchestra getting its chance to play its own part and layer itself on top of its neighbor beat by beat patter by patter. Each section of the orchestra interacting with each other and playing off each other, building the structure of the beat in a monophony than homophony than polyphony type of way. Only to be slightly broken up by an unrecognizable at first synthesized, chopped, and stretched voice that comes out of the back ground and from underneath all the layers of the electronic orchestra playing to announce its dominance over all the different layers of the electronic Mario brothers orchestra.

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel

The entrance of the song is very recognizable, through out the entire track the beat of Queens “Another One Bites the Dust” comes back when you think that the track is going into a different direction switching the rhythm and the beat it still reverts back. When it changes the tempo speeds up into something unrecognizable in the rest of the track with voices and beats unlike previously heard. The tempo is played around with and controlled sourly through the turntables, with a delay here and there. Clicks and clacks are heard in certain sections of the Grand Master verse. How can someone take turntables and a few sound bites from various artists and create something that sounds completely different from anything that was used in creating the track.

John Oswald - Dont

The easily recognizable sounds of Elvis fill the start of the song, but something is off about the background. The surroundings of the voice click and crackle; start and sputter off with a disjointed rhythm. Now Elvis is interrupting himself, with an echoing embrace of his words. The background is becoming stronger now, both in volume and constancy. And then it tempers off quickly to almost complete stillness and silence. A single, strong pitch wavers in the air for a moment before Elvis resumes, but quickly the different pitches and influxes in volume of the background smacks and clicks overwhelm the voice and my ears, toying with the original rhythm, but quickly losing its rhythm in the excitement. Then the barrage heightens, with overbearing timbre and ever-increasing tempo and volume, fighting with the Elvis’ voice, eventually winning the struggle and fading off into silence. How do the sounds of one of the most recognizable voices in history become drowned out by its own self in a chaotic battle of rhythm and volume?

Marvin Gaye - What's Happening Brother?

A well-worn rhythmic mechanism—effortlessly equalized, synchronized and syncopated—impels the sound forward with a self-assured, steady gait. There are luminous voices hovering above that seem impossibly distant. They are garnished with exuberant swells of horns, strings, and a tiny precious bell, almost overpoweringly effusive, for a centerpiece. Marvin’s lead vocal is imbued with a tender determination; its coarseness is charmed into clarity and its straining is seduced into something much sweeter. His voice is bound to the rhythm beneath by chains of cacophonous consonants, but stretches nobly, tonally upward toward the heavenly hosts singing “ooh” and “aah” above. The rising and falling of Marvin’s voice functions in a frustrated teeter-totter with these untouchably close singing sirens. It seems just as Marvin relinquishes his side of the struggle, cascading back into a tired sigh, the sonorous objects of his affection take notice and reach down towards him. The rhythm, meanwhile, remains indifferent to this antagonism and continues chugging along below it. Ultimately, it seems the consistency, between the song's words and sonic illustrations, is what serves it well in articulating a case for listeners to stop and consider 'what's happening?'

The Music of Mario - Time, Space, and Nostalgia

“All games have unique rhythms.” - Koji Kondo

The notion of progress is built into the Super Mario series, also the notion of resolution. That music needs to resolve implies that it is problematized to begin with, and we can relate that problem back to the motivation to complete a videogame, and the fact that the “rhythm of the game” is something complex that we all (players, composers, and designers of games) feel. Videogames are often spoken of in a way that relates their value (either in dollars or whether they are worth a player's time) to the amount of gameplay they offer, given in units of time. Fifty hours of gameplay is widely considered a good value. Part of this can be attributed to the high cost of videogames, but I think another reason for this is that the sense of progress built into them is satisfying, and the Super Mario series represents this progress by collecting items, defeating enemies, and moving through spaces, each action having a specific associated sound. The quote above, from the sound designer for almost all of the Super Mario series, relates to the entire soundscape of a game but for the purposes of this paper I am interested in the musical themes (the background music, or BGM) of certain levels and items, how these relate to time and progress, and how the simple themes of the Super Mario series mixed with the interactivity of the videogame medium create such a strong nostalgia for players and encourage the remixes that are featured as part of my audio mix. Specifically, I review the classic “Main Theme,” the “Underground Theme,” “Starman,” “Overworld 2 Theme” (from Super Mario Bros. 3), and “Ragtime Theme” (my title, from Super Mario World).

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Gendered Sounds -vs- Gendered Scene

Is it possible to hear gender in music? By exploring sonic dimensions of electronic music by six composers, I locate and describe what could be considered stereotypically feminine and masculine sounds. I also detail electronica that lacks explicit gendered sounds. In these instances, I discuss the gender neutrality of the compositions in relation to their gendered composers. Complicating matters further, I discuss gender-bending in electronica, where gendered sounds do not match their composer’s gender. Lastly, I consider the artistic and political ramifications of classifying electronica by gender, as in the case of music compilations presented specifically as “women’s music.” I explore the possibilities of gendered sounds, but also its politics. I will post this paper on my blog.