Well, I need to write my essay. FUCK. I can't believe I haven't started yet and it's due tomorrow hahahahahaahhahahahahahaha *crazy laughter
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I'll admit that parts of it ARE lame...I was just trying to come up with something!amme5832November 14 2005, 20:31:25 UTC
Music: A Way of Togetherness or Loneliness?
With the new technological advancements of the twentieth century, including radio, microphones, recording devices, and more, there has been a large effect on the music industry. Music became something to market to the masses, not just to the elite. In fact, during the late 1910s, records were selling more than sheet music, according to Jonny’s lecture on October 17, 2005. This is, in effect, both because of changes in communication, as well as culture. Communication allows for people to connect with each other, as well as for the transmission of ideas and information, through sounds and language, words and behaviour. Music is largely a product of communication. It is through communicating (sounds, rhythms, expressions, language, body language) that a message is expressed and translated by other individuals. In order to be interpreted, music needs to be communicated with other people.
Culture is also affected by music; the 1920s are defined as “the Roaring Twenties” - in relation to the music and culture of America at that time. Culture, according to John Fiske, in his article “Commodities and Culture”, “is a living, active process: it can be developed only from within, it cannot be imposed … a homogenous, externally produced culture cannot be sold ready-made to the masses” (Fiske 1989: 23). Within his article, “Towards an Aesthetic of Popular Music”, Simon Frith takes a similar approach to popular culture, explaining that media uses culture as “the creation rather than the expression of the people” (Frith 1987: 135), though he goes on to acknowledge that popular culture also tends to be a social construct, influenced by communications technology (Frith 1987: 138). Theodor Adorno, in his essay “Popular Music”, takes a different stance to the effects of culture on people, and thus the effects of popular music on people. Adorno suggests that rather than helping society, the popular music, and thus, aspects of popular culture have a negative effect on the population as a whole, leading to problems within a society.
Individuals in today’s world have many media forms that affect their daily lives. The influence of the technology of communication happens to be quite large in the North American lifestyle. There are television news broadcasts, commercial advertisements, radio shows and advertisements, and numerous online gimmicks that tell people their wishes and desires, as well as societal expectations for behaviour: this shapes daily lives and how these lives are lived. These social constructs are also played out in the popular music that is heard. Early 1900s popular songs reflected lyrics about furniture, such as the song, “The Old Arm Chair”, with lyrics that express the emotional attachment of furniture for an individual, while other songs, such as “Barbara Allen” reflect the connection of love and dying for your love. According to Frith, popular music “works with particularly intense emotional experiences … [yet] these musical experiences always contain social meaning” (Frith 1987: 138-139). Listeners, though they can enjoy music, are not entirely free to create their own understandings out of songs, as all songs relate back to the societal norms and culture.
Re: I'll admit that parts of it ARE lame...I was just trying to come up with something!amme5832November 14 2005, 20:31:54 UTC
T.W. Adorno takes a stricter approach to the music industry, and the influence of it on society, in his essay “Popular Music”, suggesting that popular music had a negative effect on both society and individuals. Not only does Adorno view popular music as a “low” art form, he also claims it will separate the population, based on lyrics and the formation of songs (Adorno 1976: 27-31). According to him, the effect of popular music is akin to being asleep: “popular music is a training course in a passivity that will probably spread to his thought and social conduct” (Adorno 1976: 30). However, popular music does not necessarily have this effect at all. In fact, it can be said that popular songs were used during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement to influence the populace to make a stand and fight for their equal rights, just as songs like Aretha Franklin’s “RESPECT” helped to remind women that they deserve respect and aren’t “partial-people”. Songs can be used as a way to move people. In fact, Bob Marley’s reggae songs, also popular music, are entirely about social issues and taking a stance for what one believes in; songs can be created as a form of activism and protest. Looking at the song “Get up, Stand Up”, this form of protest is seen through lyrics such as “we gonna stand up for our rights. Come on, get up, stand up; stand up for your rights. (Come on our brothers.) Get up, stand up; don’t give up the fight”. Bob Marley is openly taking a stance with his music, and asking his listeners to do the same. He is clearly not asking them to listen to him passively, taking no personal attempts to alter society in any form or manner.
Adorno continues with his argument that popular music is bad for society with his belief that popular hits “not only appeal to a ‘lonely crowd’ of the atomized; they reckon with the immature, with those who cannot express their emotions and experience, who either never had the power of expression or were crippled by cultural taboos” (Adorno 1976: 26-27). Though Adorno believes the effect of popular music will inevitably “deceive us and keep us apart,” to use Roger Waters’ words, this is not entirely true. While popular music may in fact lead to some lonely individuals sitting in their bedrooms, crying while listening to a song, this cannot be used to represent all individuals. Adorno states that popular music will “either channel emotions - thus recognizing them - or vicariously fulfill the longing for emotions” (Adorno 1976: 27). This can explain the appeal of songs, but it does not necessitate all listeners as being lonely or immature and unable to express themselves because music is doing the work for them.
While the lonely individual may put on a song by an artist such as Coldplay, or Our Lady Peace to wallow in unhappiness, or use music to stay to themselves, music does not have to separate people; it can bring people closer to together. Frith acknowledges this, explaining “we are drawn, haphazardly, into effective and emotional alliances with the performers and with the performers’ other fans” (Frith 1987: 139). By experiencing music in a social setting, it allows for an awareness of other people, tying people together through a shared enjoyment for the sounds. Take, for example, the idea of a concert: this is a shared experience by people, where everyone is able to interact, regardless of social differences such as class, race, age or gender, since everyone is at the concert for the same reason. Who one is beside is less of a concern; what matters is having a good time and enjoying the music.
Re: I'll admit that parts of it ARE lame...I was just trying to come up with something!amme5832November 14 2005, 20:32:06 UTC
It is through music that social differences can be crossed, and people can unite. Within the earlier history of twentieth century music making in America there is a point where segregation boundaries are crossed, and white and African American artists would integrate bands and sing together. Though the consumers may not have realized this, music was still uniting singers and providing some of the first examples of integration in the United States.
Music is also a highly depended on aspects of both culture and popular culture. People need music in order to help determine their identity - songs give people the option of creating a self-definition through the music they listen to (Frith 1987: 140). In fact, music, like culture, shapes the way people interact with one another, since both effect the individual and music itself affects culture and subculture, like the subculture of a hip-hop lifestyle incorporated into music and life, emerging “as a ‘response’ to a subordinate social position” (Negus 1996: 15). According to Fiske, popular culture takes commodities, with individuals attempting to make things new, which correlates to individuals shaping their world by culture and commodities into something new that works on the level of a subculture. This brings the ‘society’ of people within the subculture closer together in order to share the popular culture artifacts. An example of this can be found in the Cajun and Zydeco music in Louisiana. Instruments can be “made new” through a simple act of taking an ordinary object and turning it into an instrument. To give a new layer of sound to Zydeco music, a rub board was added to the repertoire, with a coin being tapped on it to create a new sound. As Fiske puts it, “the weak are creative, nimble, and flexible … the weak make use of their own ‘spaces’” (Fiske 1989: 32). Though there may be a lack of money to allow musicians to play instruments, with a bit of creativity, they add something new to their music to incorporate what they can afford to use.
Adorno’s view of music pushing people apart, and isolating individuals, making them passive observers is a valid consideration, though not well supported by other influences on music. There is no one specific way to create popular music as it has become an externalization of the internal self, communicated to the audience of listeners, through the advancements in technology. In contemporary society, music can unite people, even through the simple act of sharing a song over MSN with a friend who requests new music - this creates a dialogue between individuals and encourages interaction and sharing, rather than separating and isolating individuals.
Works Cited Adorno, Theodor. 1976. “Popular Music.” Introduction to the Sociology of Music. Trans. E.B. Ashton. New York: Continuum Fiske, John. 1989. “Commodities and Culture.” Understanding Popular Culture. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Frith, Simon. 1987. “Towards an Aesthetic of Popular Music.” Music and Society: The Politics of Composition, Performance and Reception. New York: Cambridge University Press. Negus, Keith. 1996. Popular Music in Theory. Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press.
Re: I'll admit that parts of it ARE lame...I was just trying to come up with something!amme5832November 14 2005, 21:05:09 UTC
... oh. sorry :(
which side are you arguing for? I can maybe give some pointers - I found info validating both points. To be honest, I rewrote mine 5 times [though the entire thing I wrote only once. I just needed a ton of "starter" attempts. I felt like I was pulling things out of my ass, to be honest. I threw in some info from outside of the course, since it said to have ideas from the articles and references to tutorial discussions --> I sort of pretended that me and myself became a tutorial since I drew on elements that definitely weren't talked about in class [like the Marley stuff].
If you send it to me now, I can look over it for you, if you're interested. (PS: stop making bracelets!! You'll never finish it otherwise. That and consider not doing your essay on the computer in the first place; using pen and paper forces you to focus ;) That's how I did this one when I couldn't do it. I took the CK and my notebook, found an empty classroom and just did my work there. It worked out, so that's a bonus :)
ARRGG. I just noticed I misspelt a word. I used EFFECT when I wanted to use AFFECT. That bugs me. I'm entirely too critical maybe. Now I feel an urge to email our TA and find out about the grammar issue.
Re: I'll admit that parts of it ARE lame...I was just trying to come up with something!darkmadNovember 14 2005, 21:33:01 UTC
Nah I don't want to email my crappy essay to you heh
I'm arguing for segregation but I'm comparing and contrastng live performance vs. recorded music (as microcosms) throughout the entire essay with personal (physical, mental) and global (social, cultural) factors. It's all good except it doesn't draw on the ideas of the theorists that much. So tomorrow I'm gonna be adding random quotes and trying to make them fit. =S
I have 1,600 words and I have yet to write the conclusion. I was never worried about the length though lol I always exceed the limit cause I bullshit so much. And I'm gonna add quotes too so... guh. Maybe I'll even e-mail it to him. I feel like such a horrible student.
With the new technological advancements of the twentieth century, including radio, microphones, recording devices, and more, there has been a large effect on the music industry. Music became something to market to the masses, not just to the elite. In fact, during the late 1910s, records were selling more than sheet music, according to Jonny’s lecture on October 17, 2005. This is, in effect, both because of changes in communication, as well as culture. Communication allows for people to connect with each other, as well as for the transmission of ideas and information, through sounds and language, words and behaviour. Music is largely a product of communication. It is through communicating (sounds, rhythms, expressions, language, body language) that a message is expressed and translated by other individuals. In order to be interpreted, music needs to be communicated with other people.
Culture is also affected by music; the 1920s are defined as “the Roaring Twenties” - in relation to the music and culture of America at that time. Culture, according to John Fiske, in his article “Commodities and Culture”, “is a living, active process: it can be developed only from within, it cannot be imposed … a homogenous, externally produced culture cannot be sold ready-made to the masses” (Fiske 1989: 23). Within his article, “Towards an Aesthetic of Popular Music”, Simon Frith takes a similar approach to popular culture, explaining that media uses culture as “the creation rather than the expression of the people” (Frith 1987: 135), though he goes on to acknowledge that popular culture also tends to be a social construct, influenced by communications technology (Frith 1987: 138). Theodor Adorno, in his essay “Popular Music”, takes a different stance to the effects of culture on people, and thus the effects of popular music on people. Adorno suggests that rather than helping society, the popular music, and thus, aspects of popular culture have a negative effect on the population as a whole, leading to problems within a society.
Individuals in today’s world have many media forms that affect their daily lives. The influence of the technology of communication happens to be quite large in the North American lifestyle. There are television news broadcasts, commercial advertisements, radio shows and advertisements, and numerous online gimmicks that tell people their wishes and desires, as well as societal expectations for behaviour: this shapes daily lives and how these lives are lived. These social constructs are also played out in the popular music that is heard. Early 1900s popular songs reflected lyrics about furniture, such as the song, “The Old Arm Chair”, with lyrics that express the emotional attachment of furniture for an individual, while other songs, such as “Barbara Allen” reflect the connection of love and dying for your love. According to Frith, popular music “works with particularly intense emotional experiences … [yet] these musical experiences always contain social meaning” (Frith 1987: 138-139). Listeners, though they can enjoy music, are not entirely free to create their own understandings out of songs, as all songs relate back to the societal norms and culture.
Reply
Adorno continues with his argument that popular music is bad for society with his belief that popular hits “not only appeal to a ‘lonely crowd’ of the atomized; they reckon with the immature, with those who cannot express their emotions and experience, who either never had the power of expression or were crippled by cultural taboos” (Adorno 1976: 26-27). Though Adorno believes the effect of popular music will inevitably “deceive us and keep us apart,” to use Roger Waters’ words, this is not entirely true. While popular music may in fact lead to some lonely individuals sitting in their bedrooms, crying while listening to a song, this cannot be used to represent all individuals. Adorno states that popular music will “either channel emotions - thus recognizing them - or vicariously fulfill the longing for emotions” (Adorno 1976: 27). This can explain the appeal of songs, but it does not necessitate all listeners as being lonely or immature and unable to express themselves because music is doing the work for them.
While the lonely individual may put on a song by an artist such as Coldplay, or Our Lady Peace to wallow in unhappiness, or use music to stay to themselves, music does not have to separate people; it can bring people closer to together. Frith acknowledges this, explaining “we are drawn, haphazardly, into effective and emotional alliances with the performers and with the performers’ other fans” (Frith 1987: 139). By experiencing music in a social setting, it allows for an awareness of other people, tying people together through a shared enjoyment for the sounds. Take, for example, the idea of a concert: this is a shared experience by people, where everyone is able to interact, regardless of social differences such as class, race, age or gender, since everyone is at the concert for the same reason. Who one is beside is less of a concern; what matters is having a good time and enjoying the music.
Reply
Music is also a highly depended on aspects of both culture and popular culture. People need music in order to help determine their identity - songs give people the option of creating a self-definition through the music they listen to (Frith 1987: 140). In fact, music, like culture, shapes the way people interact with one another, since both effect the individual and music itself affects culture and subculture, like the subculture of a hip-hop lifestyle incorporated into music and life, emerging “as a ‘response’ to a subordinate social position” (Negus 1996: 15). According to Fiske, popular culture takes commodities, with individuals attempting to make things new, which correlates to individuals shaping their world by culture and commodities into something new that works on the level of a subculture. This brings the ‘society’ of people within the subculture closer together in order to share the popular culture artifacts. An example of this can be found in the Cajun and Zydeco music in Louisiana. Instruments can be “made new” through a simple act of taking an ordinary object and turning it into an instrument. To give a new layer of sound to Zydeco music, a rub board was added to the repertoire, with a coin being tapped on it to create a new sound. As Fiske puts it, “the weak are creative, nimble, and flexible … the weak make use of their own ‘spaces’” (Fiske 1989: 32). Though there may be a lack of money to allow musicians to play instruments, with a bit of creativity, they add something new to their music to incorporate what they can afford to use.
Adorno’s view of music pushing people apart, and isolating individuals, making them passive observers is a valid consideration, though not well supported by other influences on music. There is no one specific way to create popular music as it has become an externalization of the internal self, communicated to the audience of listeners, through the advancements in technology. In contemporary society, music can unite people, even through the simple act of sharing a song over MSN with a friend who requests new music - this creates a dialogue between individuals and encourages interaction and sharing, rather than separating and isolating individuals.
Works Cited
Adorno, Theodor. 1976. “Popular Music.” Introduction to the Sociology of Music.
Trans. E.B. Ashton. New York: Continuum
Fiske, John. 1989. “Commodities and Culture.” Understanding Popular Culture.
Boston: Unwin Hyman.
Frith, Simon. 1987. “Towards an Aesthetic of Popular Music.” Music and Society: The
Politics of Composition, Performance and Reception. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Negus, Keith. 1996. Popular Music in Theory. Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press.
Reply
Reply
which side are you arguing for? I can maybe give some pointers - I found info validating both points. To be honest, I rewrote mine 5 times [though the entire thing I wrote only once. I just needed a ton of "starter" attempts. I felt like I was pulling things out of my ass, to be honest. I threw in some info from outside of the course, since it said to have ideas from the articles and references to tutorial discussions --> I sort of pretended that me and myself became a tutorial since I drew on elements that definitely weren't talked about in class [like the Marley stuff].
If you send it to me now, I can look over it for you, if you're interested. (PS: stop making bracelets!! You'll never finish it otherwise. That and consider not doing your essay on the computer in the first place; using pen and paper forces you to focus ;) That's how I did this one when I couldn't do it. I took the CK and my notebook, found an empty classroom and just did my work there. It worked out, so that's a bonus :)
ARRGG. I just noticed I misspelt a word. I used EFFECT when I wanted to use AFFECT. That bugs me. I'm entirely too critical maybe. Now I feel an urge to email our TA and find out about the grammar issue.
Reply
I'm arguing for segregation but I'm comparing and contrastng live performance vs. recorded music (as microcosms) throughout the entire essay with personal (physical, mental) and global (social, cultural) factors. It's all good except it doesn't draw on the ideas of the theorists that much. So tomorrow I'm gonna be adding random quotes and trying to make them fit. =S
I have 1,600 words and I have yet to write the conclusion. I was never worried about the length though lol I always exceed the limit cause I bullshit so much. And I'm gonna add quotes too so... guh. Maybe I'll even e-mail it to him. I feel like such a horrible student.
Reply
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