Blog #8

OK, so I still hold to my first argument of I wish there where more artists who created new and artistic form of musical creation. I agree that being able to "bootleg" is taking away from the necessity of a composer to posses any form of artistic value. You don't even need to know the difference between musical scales or the certain notes or style of music being used. All you need to know is how to use a computer and how to pick out sounds that will somewhat mix together. Sad that the artistic side of music composition is fading away. Here is an example of a talentless person creating music by mixing together different sounds, none of which are their own personal creations.

Maybe I just have no respect for Kanye but its sad that he is capitalizing of the musical genius of a great musician (Ray Charles).

One thing I will say I like about the new age of creating new music from old music is the increased amount of accessibility and the decreased amount of earnings made by DJs which is causing the musicians to make profit by putting on shows. For example a very popular DJ named Pretty Lights makes all of his music available for free on his website which proves he is not making any money off of his musical creations in the form of selling singles or even albums. He makes his money purely through putting on shows and the amount of tickets he sells. I love this movement back to concentrating more on live concerts than creating single tracks to be distributed. Anybody with a computer can remix and mash together songs however it takes at least a little talent to create new music and to freestyle on stage in front of thousands of people.

Here is an example of Pretty Lights playing live at Rothbury 2009 (one of the biggest music festivals there is) in which he freestyles from his original song to create a good live performance. Notice his music is nothing but samples and clips of music.

Blog #7

I believe copyright today isn't necessarily outdated, it just needs to be clarified somewhat. I do not disprove of people creating mashup's, sound collages, and remixes. I do however believe that permission to use the sound clips should be attained from the artist. Yes, using different existing sound samples to create a new sound clip can be considered a form of artistic creation but it is a compilation of other peoples art and ideas and requires permission from that person to build upon their original work. An example of a remix/mashup is this song by Cypress Hill.

This song uses the music from a song entitled "Cisco Kid" by the band War. The rappers simply remix the instrumental version of the original song while rapping their own lyrics over the remixed music. I believe this is a form of artistic creation because the rappers are using their own lyrics. While they are rapping over another groups musical creation they had to acquire permission from the original creators to use the music. This is a good example of old music being used in new music. I personally believe is an overly common theme in todays music. I would guess that less than half of all new music created today is purely a "new" creation. Most songs contain at least a small clip of somebody else's music. Some music like "The Gray Album" is created purely by using samples of other peoples music. I do not mind musicians creating new music using old music but I wish remixing and mashing songs together was not such a prevalent theme in todays new music. I wish there where more artists today who could create new and innovative forms of music by not using other peoples creations.

Podcasting

After reading these two articles concerning "podcasts" i was surprised at the depth podcasting has expanded. I previously thought podcasts where mostly recorded radio shows which you could save and listen to at any point. I had no idea that you could download virtual tours of museums and zoo's as well as download lessons on how to speak another language. I have never created a podcast, however I have listened to a few and as I said before they seemed to be recorded radio shows and had no educatonal or virtual aspects to them. I would rather not listen to radio talk shows or educational material for that matter while I could be listening to my own selection of music, however I do see the benefits students as well as teachers can reap from podcasting. The article mentions an Austrailian proffesor who, instead of confiscating ipods, chose to incorporate history lessons in the form of podcasts so students could listen to lessons instead of music. I'm not quite sure of the effectiviness of this technique which could backfire easly and give students a way to listen to more music in class but the teacher is being innovative in trying to adapt to the new technologies which now rule our world. I could see the benefit of incorporating podcasts in Fort Lewis by maybe making proffesors lectures available for listening if a student misses the lecture or if they just want to review the lesson. I could see the relationship between podcasting and radio shows because that is the only type of podcast I have experienced however educational or virtual tour podcasts would probably have a different tone than the radio podcasts with maybe more informational content than musical.