The music sites listed on visualcomplexity are certainly interesting. Some of them it's clear that they are produced by academics or academic institutions. Some, it's not so clear who the author or creator is. I also wonder how they get the word out. The academic sites are probably being presented at conferences, sent to funding institutions, given to professors or advisers for grading or otherwise used in an academic setting. How are these sites advertising or presenting themselves? Are they waiting for people to discover them on this site, are they presenting their vision to larger companies like Apple, Google or? The parent site started out as an academic endeavor, but it's a dot-com now. The founder works for Nokia, a for profit company.
I visited http://www.formater.de/wordpress/ from visualcomplexity. I like the idea of organizing ideas around the nodes and having a zoomable interface. It also seems like it would be easy to discover new music through this interface. The interface graphics that they feature, at least in this mockup, are very unattractive to me. It reminds me of the Windows Real Player interface, which I hate. I really like the clean, light colored iTunes, however.
I also visited http://www.reactable.com/reactable/. I want one! It looks like an incredible, fun interface. The colors and graphics are attractive, and look almost like they were designed for children. I would love to play with this. Because of its reliance on physical proximity and relationships, it reminds me of the theremin.
So Google has started a music search. I played around with it for a little while. I like it, but when I followed the link to lala.com I could only listen to 30 second clips. From Google's search page, I could listen to the entire song. Granted, I could only listen to a few songs. I know lala is only one of the services that the search results use, and I'm not sure if it would be the same experience at the other sites. With lala, however, I'm a little resentful that I would have to sign up to get access to the information. You don't have to sign up when you search for videos, you don't have to sign up when you go to read a Wikipedia article. Google, as a for-profit company, rides that fine line between providing information for the public as a service like the library, or providing information to profit off of it. It's a rough little road, and I'm curious to see how they come out the other side, especially when it comes to the Google Book project. An in-depth comparison of Google and the Internet Archive would be really interesting in that regard.
Another thing I found I wanted from this week's lesson is the poster of the Genealogy of Pop & Rock Music. How cool is that? And such an attractive way to display information. In contrast to the more interactive sites from visual complexity, this is an engaging way to draw an audience in without Web 2.0 techniques.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Argh, the future of music.
So it was back to The future of music this week. Again, I found the book’s tone and message a little off key, and I’m not sure if I intended that pun or not. I did agree with the book’s assertion that the real problem will be information overload and not the piracy of copyrighted material. In my LIBR 200 class, our discussion of copyright issues solely focused on whether public librarians are responsible for insuring their patrons are using the c.d.s and other digital media in a legal manner. I thought this was sorely shortsighted. Yes, it should be discussed, but the larger issues is about the copyrights themselves and whether they’re fair to either user or creator and if they still apply to our increasingly digital age. I am glad that I can at least agree with Kusek & Leonhard on this issue.
I found several allusions the authors used annoying. First, they referred to what Paris was like in the 1980s. How do I know what Paris was like in the 80s? I was 7 and I don’t even really know what Paris is like now. I am assuming from the context that Paris had a lot of small cinemas playing art house films to small crowds. This seems a smug allusion to use and a bit alienating. I am an intelligent, well-read audience member but this escapes me. It feels the authors are using almost an in-joke when a short description would have been much more illuminating. And again a page or two later, they refer to the plight of the South Spaniards when faced with Manchester punters. Again, from context I can guess that the English tourists were at best annoying to the Spaniards, and at worse, disrespectful and destructive. The short sentence referring to it is a rather glib way to deal with a situation that sounds like it probably had many complicated cultural implications. And what do they mean, it all comes out in the wash? This sort of glib tone is dismissive and I think demeaning to situations that probably deserve consideration.
On page 166, Kusek & Leonhard talk about the amount of user generated content and whether this will be a problem or not. The tone in the paragraph rather suddenly switches to a very serious, academic tone when they say, “it cannot be really wrong to give some means of self-expression to a larger number of people, provided that potent filtering and selection methodologies exist to help the cream rise to the top.” I am not really sure where to start with this. First, of course it’s not wrong to give means of self-expression to anyone. We are not forced to watch every YouTube video of every kid singing the songs they wrote about their cat. I thought that was one of the beauties of the Internet, that many people could express themselves and find like-minded people. Maybe that kid will tap into a network of many adolescents who like to write about cats and create a community around cat-core songs.
Seriously, I am curious about what ‘potent filtering and selection methodologies’ the authors envision. We are already seeing Google and YouTube favoring corporate content in searches, making it harder to find the homemade content that used to be the only content. Is this what they want? Yahoo’s popular searches always show celebrities who are part of the corporate media that Kusek & Leonhard seem so disillusioned with. I think this touches on a wider issue that I am now convinced that Kusek & Leonhard are either ignorant or not well-informed of: information literacy. I discussed this in an earlier entry, but I think it bears repeating. How do people master filtering and searching? By executing better and more effective searches. And learning how to do so is part of information literacy. On page 169, Kusek & Leonhard assert that younger generations are going to know how to deal with this deluge of information because they will grow up around it. It’s the adults, they argue, that will have the biggest adjustment. I find this argument faulty. I feel like it’s saying that kids are going to learn how to read because they grew up in a house with lots of books on the shelves. Only if an adult takes the books off the shelves and teaches them the alphabet and helps them will the child learn how to read. And, for digital media, it will only be if someone assists the kids in learning will they really become adept at navigating the digital world. I do think it might be a bit more intuitive to someone who has been around the media their entire life, but that is very different than what Kusek & Leonhard assert.
I found several allusions the authors used annoying. First, they referred to what Paris was like in the 1980s. How do I know what Paris was like in the 80s? I was 7 and I don’t even really know what Paris is like now. I am assuming from the context that Paris had a lot of small cinemas playing art house films to small crowds. This seems a smug allusion to use and a bit alienating. I am an intelligent, well-read audience member but this escapes me. It feels the authors are using almost an in-joke when a short description would have been much more illuminating. And again a page or two later, they refer to the plight of the South Spaniards when faced with Manchester punters. Again, from context I can guess that the English tourists were at best annoying to the Spaniards, and at worse, disrespectful and destructive. The short sentence referring to it is a rather glib way to deal with a situation that sounds like it probably had many complicated cultural implications. And what do they mean, it all comes out in the wash? This sort of glib tone is dismissive and I think demeaning to situations that probably deserve consideration.
On page 166, Kusek & Leonhard talk about the amount of user generated content and whether this will be a problem or not. The tone in the paragraph rather suddenly switches to a very serious, academic tone when they say, “it cannot be really wrong to give some means of self-expression to a larger number of people, provided that potent filtering and selection methodologies exist to help the cream rise to the top.” I am not really sure where to start with this. First, of course it’s not wrong to give means of self-expression to anyone. We are not forced to watch every YouTube video of every kid singing the songs they wrote about their cat. I thought that was one of the beauties of the Internet, that many people could express themselves and find like-minded people. Maybe that kid will tap into a network of many adolescents who like to write about cats and create a community around cat-core songs.
Seriously, I am curious about what ‘potent filtering and selection methodologies’ the authors envision. We are already seeing Google and YouTube favoring corporate content in searches, making it harder to find the homemade content that used to be the only content. Is this what they want? Yahoo’s popular searches always show celebrities who are part of the corporate media that Kusek & Leonhard seem so disillusioned with. I think this touches on a wider issue that I am now convinced that Kusek & Leonhard are either ignorant or not well-informed of: information literacy. I discussed this in an earlier entry, but I think it bears repeating. How do people master filtering and searching? By executing better and more effective searches. And learning how to do so is part of information literacy. On page 169, Kusek & Leonhard assert that younger generations are going to know how to deal with this deluge of information because they will grow up around it. It’s the adults, they argue, that will have the biggest adjustment. I find this argument faulty. I feel like it’s saying that kids are going to learn how to read because they grew up in a house with lots of books on the shelves. Only if an adult takes the books off the shelves and teaches them the alphabet and helps them will the child learn how to read. And, for digital media, it will only be if someone assists the kids in learning will they really become adept at navigating the digital world. I do think it might be a bit more intuitive to someone who has been around the media their entire life, but that is very different than what Kusek & Leonhard assert.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Journal Week Eight
Musicovery.com is a very fun website, I must say. I enjoyed exploring it this week. I really like the websites Professor Simon has shared with us that use software to suggest music. It’s a much more interactive and attractive option than Amazon.com’s suggestions. I don’t buy much from iTunes, so I’m not sure what that experience is like. Of course, I still prefer a friend telling me that I’ll like certain music because they know how many times I’ve listened to a Ted Leo and the Pharmacists’ album on repeat.
The reading on improvisation was fairly captivating for me. When I first began playing music, I would make up songs and play a lot, but as I got older, I thought I couldn’t improvise. Part of this was because most of my playing experience was on the violin, in a classical manner. My grandfather played country fiddle, but that was very different than what I did, at least that was what I was taught. It was very intimidating to be put into a situation with much older musicians in my family and being expecting to come up with something to play. I would usually just pick a drone note - I still do this when I’m improving and I’m stuck.
In Part Five, section MIC- the Instrument, Bailey talks about how people learn how to play an instrument. I think much of the ‘natural’ process of learning how to play an instrument the author and the musicians’ he quotes is stopped. Some of it is seen as abusing the instrument, or simply not the ‘right’ way to play an instrument. I agree that instruments should be treated with care and respect, but I do not think this means that musicians can’t experiment with coaxing new sounds of an instrument in a non-conventional manner. How else will innovations happen?
I object to Bailey’s describing ethnic instruments as having, “very limited capability and that very little instrumental skill is needed to play” (p.101). I had a hard time telling if this was his assessment or if he was only trying to convey what the anti-instrumentalists felt about ethnic instruments. First, I think it reveals an ugly prejudice against non-Western musics. Many people only think that Western music is complicated or capable of being considered virtuosic. This is simply not true. Two examples of non-Western virtuosic instruments spring to my mind: the West African kora and the Indian sitar. Both have long, long histories of music and musicians. Each are at least as old as the violin, and much older than the guitar, which I think of two of the most obvious examples of virtuosic instruments in Western music, the other being the piano. Also, I think it’s dangerous to make blanket statements about all music that is not Western music. Can you really say anything very intelligent about a group of musics that includes Tuvan throat singing, reggae and Native American drumming? Most likely, you will make a generalization that will border on offensive and slip into the assumption that all non-Western cultures are primitive.
I enjoyed seeing Alain Danielou’s name pop up in the book. I suspect it might be in the section on Indian music more, too. I did a little bit of research into Danielou as an undergraduate when I was researching tuning modes in Indian music. The research I did contradicted some of Danielou’s assertions in terms of the srutis in Indian music having very exact measurements. My research was probably not nearly as broad as it could have been, so I would be interested to revisit the topic and see if my earlier findings hold up.
The reading on improvisation was fairly captivating for me. When I first began playing music, I would make up songs and play a lot, but as I got older, I thought I couldn’t improvise. Part of this was because most of my playing experience was on the violin, in a classical manner. My grandfather played country fiddle, but that was very different than what I did, at least that was what I was taught. It was very intimidating to be put into a situation with much older musicians in my family and being expecting to come up with something to play. I would usually just pick a drone note - I still do this when I’m improving and I’m stuck.
In Part Five, section MIC- the Instrument, Bailey talks about how people learn how to play an instrument. I think much of the ‘natural’ process of learning how to play an instrument the author and the musicians’ he quotes is stopped. Some of it is seen as abusing the instrument, or simply not the ‘right’ way to play an instrument. I agree that instruments should be treated with care and respect, but I do not think this means that musicians can’t experiment with coaxing new sounds of an instrument in a non-conventional manner. How else will innovations happen?
I object to Bailey’s describing ethnic instruments as having, “very limited capability and that very little instrumental skill is needed to play” (p.101). I had a hard time telling if this was his assessment or if he was only trying to convey what the anti-instrumentalists felt about ethnic instruments. First, I think it reveals an ugly prejudice against non-Western musics. Many people only think that Western music is complicated or capable of being considered virtuosic. This is simply not true. Two examples of non-Western virtuosic instruments spring to my mind: the West African kora and the Indian sitar. Both have long, long histories of music and musicians. Each are at least as old as the violin, and much older than the guitar, which I think of two of the most obvious examples of virtuosic instruments in Western music, the other being the piano. Also, I think it’s dangerous to make blanket statements about all music that is not Western music. Can you really say anything very intelligent about a group of musics that includes Tuvan throat singing, reggae and Native American drumming? Most likely, you will make a generalization that will border on offensive and slip into the assumption that all non-Western cultures are primitive.
I enjoyed seeing Alain Danielou’s name pop up in the book. I suspect it might be in the section on Indian music more, too. I did a little bit of research into Danielou as an undergraduate when I was researching tuning modes in Indian music. The research I did contradicted some of Danielou’s assertions in terms of the srutis in Indian music having very exact measurements. My research was probably not nearly as broad as it could have been, so I would be interested to revisit the topic and see if my earlier findings hold up.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Journal Week Seven
So much to talk about in this week’s readings! First, This is your brain on music. Second page into chapter 6, Levitin begins talking about something that resonates very deeply with me: the performance chasm prevalent in Western culture. This is something I abhor. I am sure that many of my classmates (and probably my professor) have come across this as musicians. Many people who have little to no formal training in music but play or listen avidly seem to imbue musicians who perform as professionals or amateurs with a certain magic. Yes, being able to get in front of a room of people and sing, play or otherwise perform is a big deal. It is nerve-wracking and scary. It does not make the performer magical, or even necessarily more talented than those who don’t. It just means they face that scariness. I get very frustrated with people I know who play who shy away from performing, especially in informal situations. Music is not a museum piece, or even a radio piece! It is living, and I want to share it with others and want others to share it with me.
I wish that Levitin had chosen slightly different wording on page 206. He says, “Some people have a biological predisposition toward particular instruments, or toward singing.” I understand what he means, but I think a more accurate statement would be to say that, “Certain biological predispositions may give people advantages with particular instruments, or toward singing.”
The discussion of emotion and performance was very interesting. I think this aspect of musicianship is very related to that of acting. I would not be at all surprised to find that the same parts of the brain used to relay emotion in music is the same as in acting. I feel all performing arts are very interrelated.
Two of the websites Professor Simon had us look at really struck me. The first was http://www.musicbizacademy.com/. A tenet of being information literate is the ability to evaluate sources. Looking at this website, I am skeptical of the information offered. First, though billing itself as an academy, it is neither a dot-org or dot-edu. It’s a dot-com. That tells me it is most likely a for profit organization. This does not discount it, of course, it just means that at least part of the motivation is to make a profit. I guess what makes me most skeptical is why would a student choose to go to a for-profit academic institution as opposed to a non-profit one? The only reason I would choose to go to a for-profit would be if the program was well respected and had better programs than the non-profits. The faculty appears to have very legitimate credentials. So, is my bias justified? I don’t know, to be honest. I guess I would need to take some of the classes and compare them to my other experiences to know.
I was struck by a section in The manual for performance library where Girsberger speaks about sign out sheets. He refers again to communicating with the conductor of the library. Girsberger refers to the communication between the conductor and librarian repeatedly. I think this is very important, and I’m glad that Girsberger emphasizes it. I think one of the most important responsibilities for a performance librarian is communicating with other orchestra personnel to accomplish a common goal.
I wish that Levitin had chosen slightly different wording on page 206. He says, “Some people have a biological predisposition toward particular instruments, or toward singing.” I understand what he means, but I think a more accurate statement would be to say that, “Certain biological predispositions may give people advantages with particular instruments, or toward singing.”
The discussion of emotion and performance was very interesting. I think this aspect of musicianship is very related to that of acting. I would not be at all surprised to find that the same parts of the brain used to relay emotion in music is the same as in acting. I feel all performing arts are very interrelated.
Two of the websites Professor Simon had us look at really struck me. The first was http://www.musicbizacademy.com/. A tenet of being information literate is the ability to evaluate sources. Looking at this website, I am skeptical of the information offered. First, though billing itself as an academy, it is neither a dot-org or dot-edu. It’s a dot-com. That tells me it is most likely a for profit organization. This does not discount it, of course, it just means that at least part of the motivation is to make a profit. I guess what makes me most skeptical is why would a student choose to go to a for-profit academic institution as opposed to a non-profit one? The only reason I would choose to go to a for-profit would be if the program was well respected and had better programs than the non-profits. The faculty appears to have very legitimate credentials. So, is my bias justified? I don’t know, to be honest. I guess I would need to take some of the classes and compare them to my other experiences to know.
I was struck by a section in The manual for performance library where Girsberger speaks about sign out sheets. He refers again to communicating with the conductor of the library. Girsberger refers to the communication between the conductor and librarian repeatedly. I think this is very important, and I’m glad that Girsberger emphasizes it. I think one of the most important responsibilities for a performance librarian is communicating with other orchestra personnel to accomplish a common goal.
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