I am a result of what I know

Looking back at the first few blog posts I wrote when undertaking this journey I see the writing of someone passionate about what they are doing and excited to explore their new ideas. Somewhere along the way they seemed to get a little lost, but I think they’ve come back.

Taking a step back now and looking at my creative work I am taken with how different it is from the initial idea I had. For a while I didn’t even have a concrete idea, I just liked hyperpop and thought that the genre had potential to be a creative and fun space as an artist. As I spent time digging into the genre I began to learn that hyperpop was more than a funny joke genre but that lots of the artists are making incredible music that has the capactity to make you laugh and cry and dance and scream all at once. At the core of this discovery for me was the work of 100 gecs, the first Hyperpop band that I really fell in love with and whose interviews confirmed for me that behind the chaotic, unnaturally paced and pitched, meme filled music was thought and intent and reason. (Mylrea, 2020 and Moen, 2020)

My initial idea for a creative work was to arrange a big collaborative work where I would have vocal samples from a few of my talented friends and cut them all together, all they had to go off of was the theme falling apart. I had done some reading into the affect theory and emotions in music, [Hear this and Know I am Sad and But HOW does it make you feel] and thought it would be interesting to attempt to stich together various peoples take on the same stimulus  in song form. However due to poor planning and a general lack of confidence in my abilities I found the task too large. Now I had lost my driving concept I was left with an empty Ableton Session and many self-doubts. I took a step back at that time and focused on other creative outlets. I had to let my own disapoinment settle for a while. When returning to work (the second time), I felt inspired – not with a particularly strong idea but with the desire to just make something. Something I could be proud of and something that represented me. That became my new focus. I am reminded of the notion from Will Gompertz’s “Think Like An Artist” that is, “Artists don’t Fail.” What is meant by that is that failure indicates more than a mistake or error, something that can be learned from. Failure is not achieving, in this case making a song, and not learning from it. (2016) The chapter goes on to talk about art as an iterative process, one where we learn from the things we do that we don’t release and the times that we miss the mark. While these sentiments weren’t in my head in the period after my initial attempt at making a track, in fact I think if someone had said them to me then I would have been annoyed more than comforted, in retrospect I find that the words do ring true. There was a part of me that had to make things in this way again, I just needed some time.

I think the most interesting thing for me at this point in the project is thinking about what comes next. I now have one original hyperpop song, with another (808s and Breakdowns) partially completed and have made some new discoveries about myself as an artist. From a career/release schedule perspective I think it will be good to have a few songs ready to go when I begin launching songs. I think that ‘overdue conversation’ is a track that shows who found_sound.mp3 is as an artist, it is chaotic but familiar, dark but hopeful, the break down section at the end is really intense but the drum pattern in the prechorus is super fun and groovy. It is a song of duality and I feel like a person caught in a lot of duality sometimes so in that sense it is an accurate representation of the real me. What’s more interesting to me is the realisation that I have made that perhaps my thinking needs to be readjusted as far as who I am thinking about when I write the songs. Since I started the project, I have considered the genre as two things, hyper – that is all the fun parts of songs turned up to eleven, and pop or popular music which I wrote a whole blog about [Verse 1: Talkin’ ‘bout... Pop Music!] but was still only thinking of as Storey’s first definition, something that is well favoured or well-liked by many people. (2014) While it is true that hyperpop as a genre is growing in popularity amongst mainstream listeners it is still far from the norm and so much of the hyperpop that I have fallen in love with is the more bizzare, experimental stuff that pushes the idea of what a pop song can be at 150bpm over a house drum break. I myself pointed out that the ‘pop’ in hyperpop is more accurately represented in the hegemonic, post-modern view of the culture where everything and nothing is art and we work within the system while resisting or critiquing it to make pop culture. (Salviejo, 2021) With this in mind, I think a large part of the reason I was feeling frozen in the face of creating was I listened to a lot of excellent music and felt pressure as the new hyperpop fanatic and academic researcher to be able to execute a masterpiece immediately. The subtle change in thinking shifts my focus on putting together a song I think could get on to playlists or go viral or be impressive when I post on Instagram but rather focus on making things that I like, and think are good, while still executing at the highest level possible, taking the pressure of to be perfect and allowing myself to experiment and have fun and explore.

The making of this project was one of the hardest creative challenges I have gone through, exacerbated by it being a particularly hard time for me personally. I honestly didn’t know if I would be able to get something I was happy with done in the time frame of the task. However, here on the other side of it I am feeling positive about my practice and once again excited to learn, make and have fun.

References

Gompertz, W. (2016). Think like an artist : And lead a more creative, productive life. ProQuest Ebook Central

Moen, M. (2020, June 24). Skrillex Interviews 100 gecs About the Future of Music. Paper. https://www.papermag.com/100-gecs-skrillex-pride-2646244919.html?rebelltitem=140#rebelltitem140

Mylrea, H. (2020, July 10). 100 Gecs: “People think we’ve staked our entire career on the fact that we can be ironic”. NME. https://www.nme.com/en_au/features/music-interviews/100-gecs-interview-1000-gecs-and-the-tree-of-clues-charli-xcx-pc-music-minecraft-2706029

Salviejo, T. (2021). Verse 1: Talkin’ ‘bout… Pop Music! Theories on Theory. https://theoriesontheory.tumblr.com/post/654941031258783744/verse-1-talkin-bout-pop-music

When I got home, the morning I decided to start my project, after going and getting my morning coffee I found that I had turned some internal dialogue into the intro of a song. The lines “where have you been? You’ve been lost inside you head” sung by my computer/the creative parts of myself to me seemed like an interesting place to start a song. I quickly recorded a voice memo. 

found_sound.mp3

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overdue conversation - voice memo

Even on that memo I sensed that this track was going to be a lot of different things because even in the two sections I had vaguely worked out in my head, the feeling was very different. The ever-changing feeling of this song has become what makes it stand out as unique to me when I look at what I have made so far. The reason it moves from section to section, constantly introducing new musical ideas rather than establishing one that we keep coming back to is this song was composed as it took shape.

What I mean is I made one of the synths in the intro using the mac start up noise (a little nod to the idea that my muse from within my computer is talking to me) and added a second subtle synth part and recorded scratch vocal for that part there. Then I laid down the 808 layer and some basic drums for the first section and recorded that section. And so, I progressed through the entire song. This meant that I was writing melodies and lyrics based on what I felt in the moment of creating the track. Initially I thought the song was going to take a more negative slant, the initial working title being ‘l0ser’ but the remember line turned it for me. I have been doing a lot of introspection recently and trying to document the things I think while I am at various points of mental health. This helps me put my thoughts into perspective and offers insights into triggers and, when used in moderation can be a place to draw ideas for lyrics from. When the line “remember, remember what you said when you were all alone” while it came from somewhere in my brain took me to nights where I felt like the world was falling down but I got back up. I got up because I have gotten up before and I have made promises to myself to keep getting up. The vocal performance on the bridge was completely improvised in a scratch take and the version that I use on the track was the second one I performed, it came from inside of me and that kind of reflected the point that I have landed on with this track.

For such a long time I have felt frozen by the pressure I put on myself to make things that blow people away. Ironically, I was taking what drew me to hyperpop initially, the raw, emotional, hyper nature of it and I was trying to make it fit in what I thought a perfect hyperpop song could be, and that wasn’t a fun way to make stuff. Eventually, through reflection, making stuff and just committing to what I wanted to achieve which was no longer a perfect song but being happy as a creator and artist with what I have made. I am reminded by some funny but poignant comments made by 100 gecs in an interview with pitchfork. Dyllan Brady said that his barometer for if a song was good was, he framed it in the context of his friend coming up to him and showing him the track. (2020) Most stuff, if you said your friend made it you would think was great and encourage their career. That is the new energy I am trying to manifest for my critique of my own work. The tempo change is a primary example of this kind of thinking. Tempo changes in my head are often corny and there are rules (in western music theory tradition) as to how you do them. Even in contemporary music there are rules about changing the tempos of songs in clubs for transitions. I wrote off drastic and sudden tempo changes as poor writing and bad technique. But as I was working on this song, I realised that the two sections I had in my head didn’t fit together if I tried to have them be at all the same speed, so I decided to have a set tempo for the intro and outro and bump up the tempo for the body of the piece. Once I had all the parts together, I went through a process of simplifying some parts, reducing them to what it needs to be added to the song. I have been trying to do this kind of minimalization in parts of songs because I tend to try and be impressive and show how much music I can do, which in some cases is the perfect thing to do but you shouldn’t have all parts of your song doing it at the same time. My initial kick and 808 pattern were quite busy and produced an off kilter, swinging style rhythm that was interesting to listen to, but in the context of this track I didn’t need a rhythm section that was super interesting and academically put together, I needed drums that were big and loud and fun and bass to go alongside.

Once all the parts were simplified to what they needed to be, I started to mix and process all of the signals. This is often where I find my experience block come in. While I have been working in the software for 10 years, only the past 5 have been focused years and even then, only in the past 2 have I begun to experiment with anything beyond recording acoustic music. I have been trying to listen to other songs in the genre to go to as reference tracks, for example I really like the way aldn treats their vocals. [a particular favourite of mine are the two different vocal treatments in: what was the last thing you said]. And the big, distorted section at the end of underscores spoiled little brat acted as a big inspiration for the breakdown section at the end of my track. Using these reference points, I took what I understand about audio editing (which to be fair is a solid amount and I try and learn more every time I do it) and tried to make the sounds I had “fit”. The most important part for me was not necessarily that the track sounded exactly like another song but more that all the parts of the song fit sonically together and, to draw from Dyllan, if my friend came up to me and said that they did this would I think it was sick and encourage them to do more? It was at this point I had two primary problems that took me some time and multiple attempts to figure out. The first was the vocal mix. Like I have mentioned before, auto-tune is not the magic bullet that a lot of critics seem to paint it as, I view it as another instrument that I have had to learn how to play, and the way I play it is through a combination of my voice and my computer. One thing I really like about vocals in hyperpop tunes is that they are very clean. They are obviously manipulated and modulated in various ways, but they are always clean, and clear. I struggled to get this sound until I was watching a video from Red Bull Music Lab where producer Kenny Beats and T-Pain make a song together - Kenny Beats and T-Pain Cook Up an Instant R&B Classic | Red Bull Remix Lab

It’s a video I have watched before but it’s funny and fun and inspiring to see two great artists work together and I just happened to notice that in the effects chain for T-Pain’s vocals, before anything else there was a gate, set very low with a low return. I saw it and instantly understood why it was there, the job of the auto-tune the way I use it is it essentially processes the entire voice, synthesising what was once an analogue recording. However, without the gate, not only was it having that effect on the lyrics being sung but also on the various ambient noise picked up from recording in my bedroom. This along with some creative EQ work and compression got the vocals to a place I was finally happy with.

The second issue was the bass part. After working on my All Eyes on Me Cover for a morning I returned to ‘overdue conversations’ and found that the bass part was sticking out in an obnoxious way, downing out the mix and not feeling settled. I then spent a couple of hours trying different sounds, moving the octave of the part, changing the part, changing other parts. I worked for a few hours before I gave up, and then worked on it a bit, and then gave up, and then worked on it a bit, and then gave up. Even that night as I was eating dinner, I had 808 patterns in my head. The next morning, I loaded up the session and had a listen. Aside from re-recording the pattern in some of the sections to give what was already there some space and let most of the drive and momentum come from the kick pattern and some mix/processing adjustments, what I had wasn’t that bad at all. Reflecting on this, I think it was a combination of mental and physical (ear) fatigue, that day being full of making stuff and listening and trying things and having ideas, as well as instantly comparing what I had at that point to the finished cover that I had just posted to social media and was already getting some love for. After taking a night to sleep on my ideas and coming back with fresh ears the next day I realised that what I thought was going to have to be a full re-record of everything late in the game turned into some subtle tweaks.

So, with all of that said, here is a finalised version of ‘overdue conversations’ which is pretty much ready for commercial/official release but I want to have a few songs put together before I release anything on public channels.

found_sound.mp3

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'overdue conversations'

As I started work on ‘overdue conversations’ I felt another something kicking around in the back of my head. I had some chords and an 808-pattern figured and a general feel of ‘overdue conversations’ but couldn’t move much farther. I found myself singing the chorus from Bo Burnham’s ‘All Eyes on Me’ while I was trying to come up with ideas.

Bo Burnham’s 2021 special Inside was one of the best pieces of media I have consumed in the past year. I felt it was such a poignant and well-crafted statement that summarised Bo’s experience of lockdown, the isolation and mental health struggles of the time. It also delves into ideas of what does it mean to perform when the world around you is literally dying and the complexities of putting yourself in the spotlight when there are people whose voices should have been heard. While dealing with all of those complex issues the special also manages to be funny, smart and incredibly well put together musically. Though the intent may be different in that Bo was working toward a comedy special and I am working toward a hyperpop song, some of the methods are similar the function defines the form in that the function, telling a story and communicating what needs to be done is the driving factor.

When I get a song stuck in my head, I tend to attempt to cover it, there are usually things that I can steal from the song that I can use in my own work down the road, and I occasionally do covers gigs. However, when thinking about this song my tendency wasn’t to go to my acoustic guitar but to load up a piano patch in Ableton. Soon I started thinking about how found_sound.mp3 would do the song, thinking of it as a kind of warm up to making ‘overdue conversations’.

As I worked on the song, I found myself for the first time having to think about how to sing as found_sound.mp3. What I mean is, while I use pitch correction on the vocals, I am still required to at least get close to the note for it to correct. This meant I spent a lot of time singing into my auto-tune plug-in, experimenting what keys certain parts of my voice sounded best in. I am a firm believer in the artistry required to pull of auto-tune, both as a performer and a producer and for every case where it is used in a lazy fashion I can point to many where it is used in an artistic fashion.

Wanting this to be quick I also opted to use some loops to make up the rhythm section. In the past I have gone against this common practice in producing, believing that my tracks will stand out because I have programmed everything myself and while that is true, I still think that there is a way to be human in your putting together of loops and samples that still shows your humanity as an artist but that is a conversation for another day.

Once I had all the parts in place, I was doing my fine tuning and felt that the song lacked something, I wanted to express the same torn entertainer energy with some of my own chaotic spin and while what I had certainly added some chaos, I felt it wasn’t quite there. Eventually I figured out that if I increased the BPM by about 30 that the track went from a fun pop/electronic version of a cover to something that I felt had a uniqueness to it that showed my own personal approach.

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W̸̻̅̕h̷̰̬͊e̴̢̨̾͑͌̋ȓ̶͉͔e̶͇̒ ̶̖͓̻̳́̈́̀͘h̸͉̻̎á̴̞̓v̴̫̲̭̫̀͐̑̀e̶̹̜̜̺͘ ̷̩́̍ý̶̫͖͙̾͛ó̷̳͕̀̕ŭ̸̪̭̗̜̓̏ ̵͇͑̓͒̓ͅb̷̜̭̝͠e̶̢̦̤͑ę̴̠͓̞͑n̸͈͊͐́̉?̴̙̤̑̽̈́͌

̴̦͇͇̍́͜͠ Sorry I’ve Umm..

̷̰̼́Y̴̗̦̋͂̇ỏ̴̧͓̹͛̍u̴̹͉͊’̸̠̀v̸͎̜͌͗̈́e̴̛̦̯̓̓̎ ̵̧̺̜̓̾̅͘b̸̞̽ē̴̛͖̠̌e̴̡̛̖̳͕̓̿n̷͚̐ ̷̡̓͆͝l̷̝͐͠o̵̭̖̜͊͘š̴̖̣̘͒̕t̷͔͚̟͍̏͛̀͗ ̵̬͖̌̓̕ǐ̸̥̖͎͗ͅn̷̜̖͊̇͠͝s̶̳͊i̶̺̔̍d̴̛̺́̊ḝ̶̫̰̹̑ ̶̪̏̈́͘y̷̢̮̾̑̀o̶͉̩͐͑̄͝u̸̬̘̟͝r̴̢̧͉͈̿͆̀͘ ̶̳̗̭̋ͅh̷̞̱̦͑ḙ̵̈́̑a̸̻͂ḑ̶͓͑̊

̵̞͍̖͔̓́̀̓Yeah but..

̶̣̜͆͂̐̕D̸̞͓̥̏ͅį̶̢̦͓̋̏d̶̫́̓́͝ ̷̨͔͉͒̏ẏ̴̠̌o̶͙͊͐̈́͜͠u̴̻̣̞̒̑ ̴͙̿͌͌̚f̴̝̬̂́̊o̴͔̪͝r̴̲̥̙̆g̸̮̻͖̱̿̿͗è̴͕̟͋̌t̷̻̹̄̑̅ ̵̺̜̬́̽̐a̸͔̩͚̱͗̀͝b̶͉̚͘o̴̲͠u̷̯̿́̒t̴̪͝ͅ ̸̘̹͎̣̐̐m̸̻͇͋́e̴̛̱?̷̗̍

̵̧̦̦̈́̋̅́ No I,

̸̧̙͉͋̎ͅD̸͕̲̚ǐ̵͉ḑ̶̘̬̾̈́̌ ̸̫̙̪̈́ͅỷ̷̯͎͝o̴̻͚͂u̶̝̔̆̏͒ ̸͚́̂̍f̸̖̝͚̖̽́o̶̢̺̽̅͠r̷̹̞̰̓̇g̵̱͕̣̍ȇ̴͍͚͝t̶̩̟̜̄ ̶͕̮̐͋w̵͖̙͔͔̃̕h̵̼̫͔͔̊̃͠e̵͍͉̐̒n̸̜̪̍̽ ̸̜̻̒̉̿̚y̵͖̖͗̈́̕͝o̴̭̙͙̪͗́͠ǔ̶̘̔͘ ̸̡̝̫̗̈́̆͆s̶̝͈͆̎̒̉a̵̛̱͍̓͝i̸̮͓͛̀d̸̖̥̟̑…̴͕̬̮̃̍ ̸̯̞͌̊

The opening to the latest found_sound.mp3 track, a conversation I had to have with myself that was difficult, but that turned into the seed for the song that made me fall in love with producing again.

Let’s take a step back. It’s late June and I have just submitted my conceptual framework for the hyper-pop piece I was intending to make, both as the results of my research but also as a song I feel like I can put out. I started out with somewhat of a concrete idea, inspired by research done into much and emotion and affect theory I wanted to try and write a song that captures the feeling of falling apart. On top of that I thought a unique way to draw some attention to the song was to have a few of my talented singer friends send me a few lines of them singing given only the prompt “falling apart”. I probably made a mistake in that I was fairly lax on timeframes for getting the vocal parts, knowing lots of my friends were in lockdown and probably had other more important things to worry about. Initially I wanted to wait to get all the vocal samples before I started to make the track, to have an idea of the shape it would take but along side that I found that the instrumentals I was making were missing something.

There was a period when I started found_sound.mp3 that I was making a new track just about every other day. Remixes from recording stems from my friends, random soundbites from YouTube clips, breakbeats, I was spending time in Ableton (my DAW of choice) experimenting and learning and building my skillset.

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Eventually these turned from small minute long ideas into fully formed songs and I branched out, doing some covers/remixes using my own voice and even writing alternate verses for tracks.

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Alongside this I was doing all the research into hyperpop, listening to playlists religiously, watching YouTube clips and reading interviews it became my focus and I felt ready to take the next step and make something wholly original in the genre.

But I froze. No matter how I approached it, weather it was drums or a lead line or with a vocal sample. I couldn’t put anything together. I had already lost a couple of weeks waiting for the vocals to come in and now I was stressed about deadlines.

I didn’t open Ableton for about a week and a half.

Deciding the challenge of working with many different vocal parts was too steep for my first foray into the space I decided to ditch the idea and just make a song about how I was feeling at the time. The working title of that track was 808s and breakdowns (shout out Kanye) and it was lyrically one of the harshest things I have ever written about myself lyrically. Putting that song together mostly felt like muscle memory. I found some nice synth sounds, added 808s and drums and I had a groove going quickly. I was in a fairly negative headspace at the time and when it came to lyrics, I couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that I felt like a failure because I couldn’t execute on my initial idea. I eventually abandoned the song because it wasn’t doing my mental health any favours and I felt as if it sucked but honestly, I have since gone back and done some work and I think that it could be a good song with some more time. Here’s a demo:

found_sound.mp3

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808s And Breakdowns (DEMO)

On looking at my practice as it stands, I feel as if found_sound.mp3 at that moment was at a natural plateau point as far as my growth as a producer. Initially I was full of excitement and ideas, I wanted to impress my friends and I felt like I could learn how to do things quickly. I have been using Ableton for ten years at this point, I knew my general way around the software, but this was the first time I was investing time in experimentation and exploring. I found I could execute on my ideas with precision and make things I was proud of. However, as I learned more, researched the genre and listened more I began to academicize the whole process. I was focused on getting all my sounds perfect because I could hear the difference in quality between my work and the work I was aspiring toward.

  After I abandoned 808s and Heartbreaks, I didn’t do any found_sound.mp3 work for about a month, every time I looked at my set up, I felt defeated, I had no ideas, I think because I was scared that I would have delusions of grandeur, not be able to execute and be proven a failure again. I was going through a dark time mentally and ended up using a lot of that energy to put together a song as my other alter-ego Sal Viejo. The process and result can be found at

 “The Making of ‘Disney’s Hyperfantasia’ - Sal Viejo”

But I still had a deadline (albeit extended) to make and a song to produce.

I sat at my desk and decided the best thing to do was at least set up. I plugged in my MIDI controller and speakers, opened an Ableton Session.

ᗯ卄ᵉŘᵉ нⓐѶᵉ ʸ𝕠υ 𝓑ᵉᵉ𝔫? 

Set up, I decided to do my morning walk, get a coffee so I could come back ready to go.

ʸ𝕠υ’Ѷᵉ 𝓑ᵉᵉ𝔫 𝓛𝕠Ş丅 𝓲𝔫Ş𝓲Ｄᵉ ʸ𝕠υŘ нᵉⓐＤ.

As I was walking, I could feel some anxiety building up. It wasn’t a question of finishing a song. It was a question of being embarrassed with the result.

𝓓𝕠𝔫’丅 ᖴ𝕠ŘĞᵉ丅 ⓐ𝒷𝕠υ丅 𝕄ᵉ.

It’s been so long since I have made anything as found_sound.mp3

How do you (or I) write a cathartic song? The more I look at this question the more it becomes increasingly simple and complicated in my mind. On one hand, I know how to do it. I’ve done it for three years as Sal Viejo, listened to cathartic music from other bands and watched performances that sent waves of catharsis through the room. You just do it. On the other hand, saying “you (or I) just do it” is an answer that is unsatisfying, and I know that there have been times where I have been unable to write a cathartic song where the advice “just do it” would have sent me into a rage. So, I decided to write a cathartic song, as I have done before but this time, using autoethnographic research methods, explore my process not only documenting what I was doing but reflecting on the parts of my real life that went into the song.

Catharsis as a feeling is difficult to define, especially from an academic perspective. An interesting note from some of my reading into music therapy is that the music we listen to shapes our lives and experience. (Barnes, 2013) Continuing from this idea, Barnes points out a case where a neuropsychologist was struggling down the side of a mountain with a broken leg and eleviated some of the mental strain and pain by focusing on a song. (ibid.) Looking specifically for references to catharsis I found an explanation of the phenomenon in a film text, “Catharsis is Aristotle’s term for the experience of audiences at the end of tragedy – overwhelming feelings of sorrow, pity, or some other strong emotions caused by the representation of tragic and piteous events… Aristotle and most of his commentators agree that catharsis, whatever it is, occurs to the beneficial effect of the audience.” (Plantinga, 2009) I feel that mainstream media has changed the meaning of the cathartic experience, in that rather than leaving stories on tragic endings, the trend is to send the crowd home happy. There has been a trend in media to end stories on more tragic notes recently, in my view closer to how things end in real life, Breaking Bad is a great recent example. Tying the two ideas together now, when looking for information on catharsis through music, there proved to be some gaps in the literature. There are discussions of how works have been performed in contexts that have made them cathartic, (Ansari, 2013) how communities use musicking to cope with their economic and social stresses (Stamatis, 2015) and even how music is being used in physiotherapy sessions, showing the role of psychology in pain treatment and management. (le Roux, 1998) My approach to this question hinges on creating a song that provides some level of catharsis, either for me or the listener. Despite my reading, coming to a clear and understood definition of catharsis seems difficult and thus, I think it makes sense to g to the original, Aristotelian definition as provided by Plantinga, overwhelming feelings at the end of a tragedy.

My understanding of autoethnography as a research method comes from some time considering it in the course of my honours and masters study up to this point. One of the core elements that draws me to it is my understanding that at the core of the research is the individual and their creative work (in the context of creative autoethnographic projects). Adams, Jones and Elis describe autoethnography as practice that; uses a researchers personal experience in describing and critiquing culture, acknowledges and values the reasearchers relationships, uses reflexivity – reflecting on the way the individual interacts with the world, shows “people in the process of figuring out what to do, how to live, and the meaning of their struggles”, balances emotional and intellectual work and strives to make the world better. (2014)

I was inspired to write in this way by David Carless whose paper Throughness was the first autoethnographic study of song writing that I came across. In reviewing the literature there were many papers focused on performance or composition of art music pieces but when looking for contemporary song writing used as autoethnography the field was sparse. In this paper Carless asks many of the same questions I face myself,

“How do we write songs as qualitative research? What kinds of processes matter when writing a song? What can we do to support and nurture these processes? What might we draw upon when writing songs about our own or another’s life? And how is it that culture, politics and personal biography can become so powerfully entwined in a song?” (2018)

In answering these questions Carless submits a series of Diary entries that they call a story that details the specific moments where the creation of the song was happening as well as their personal reflection on their own song writing process. In a similar way, I have been drawing from a journal I use specifically to write thoughts I have when I am in a negative mental headspace for lyrics and ideas and building songs up around them. Unlike Carless’ work, I will be covering not only the song writing process but also the process of cutting together a demo version of the song for release on Bandcamp. In putting together my story I will be including transcriptions of events based on my personal notes and my memory, images from my journal and other writing and personal reflections, some of which will touch on themes of self-harm, depression, and suicide. Please read in a safe mental place and look after yourself. If you need help, please seek it:

Lifeline: 13 11 14 Beyond Blue: 1300224636 Suicide Call Bank Service 1300659467 Process: In late July of 2021 I found myself experimenting with chords in open D after having uploaded a cover of Hot Mulligan’s I Fell in Love with Princess Peach. Open D feels like such a powerful tuning, so easy to get big brash sounds. I have been avoiding writing in alternate tunings because the idea of tuning on stage stresses me out, but I have a show coming up and want to play that Hot Mulligan cover to impress someone I think might be there so to justify the tuning I figured I would try and write another song using it.

I always have way more chords or instrumental parts for songs before I have lyrics. I find that I will often even have a vague melody line that I can hum or make random syllables around while I play the parts on my guitar. I have been trying to just say the first thing that comes to mind, trusting the part of my brain that knows what good lyrics sound like to figure something out under pressure, but I have found this process works best with some stimulation.

My mental health is something I have struggled with, largely in silence for my life, since probably my mid to late teens. I was on medication for a while, it didn’t go so well (see twelve) and since then have been trying to come to terms with my mental health through mindfulness, mediation, and introspection. PLEASE NOTE I AM NOT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL AND DO NOT ADVISE THIS. GO AND SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP BEFORE UNDERTAKING ANY CHANGES TO MEDICATION OR TREATMENT. One way I have done this is by having a specific journal to write in on nights where I feel I am having particularly negative thoughts, the idea being that when I have these thoughts, I find they tend to circulate inside my head and writing them down is a way that I can get them out of my head. Additionally, it allows me to go back and reflect on the patterns of thinking and try and figure out where they come from. On one night, I’m going to guess late June, early July based on my memory I was having negative thoughts that led me to write down this across two pages

Transcription: Im sick of all my friends being worried.

No matter how hard I try I can’t see what comes next Static the cards the stars everything Static

I wish I could still dream, maybe I could if there was a future to see

Why do I keep seeing myself in a carcrash?

When I drive around at night I think about driving into the side of the road. Not really thinking about it but it just happening. I feel Like I’ve done it. I feel like I am doing it. It’s beautiful, its silent. I am calm. No more thinking.

I DON’T WANT TO DIE YET (the word “breathe” is written five times through the lines underneath the statement)

One day at a time -Next Page- (a crude single line drawing of a sunset over an ocean above the margin)

I clearly need to go talk to someone

Most of the time i feel like I look normal –

Everyone is suffering, its easier to pretend Its harder to tell the people you love youreinpainbecausetheycant… (I can’t read what I wrote) Head feels like static

Trying to fill the noise Beniah knows too

Amy asked if I was doing ok I said yes I don’t think she believes me anymore I hate the Look in their Eyes when they See me Everyone knows youre sick Can’t have them know… (I can’t read what I wrote) I think Im doing ok now

I feel like I am good at adjusting to how I feel. Didn’t go for a drive

Remembering parts of this night I know that I didn’t write all of this at once. The first page was written largely at the same time, the second page in bursts, idea by idea, sometimes writing new ideas in and around older ones, writing more frantically. I feel like there are two stories being told here, on the first page, an internal negative feeling, I have never told anyone about the car thing until releasing this song. The second page, the negative feelings growing and being self-aware about wanting to appear ok around my friends and housemates and feeling that pressure.

So now I had a couple of pages of personal emotional outpourings, some chords that I like the sound of and a quest to make a song cathartic. More important to me than how cathartic the song is, as with all my song writing, is that it was honest so in sorting through my scribblings I wanted to put together an accurate representation of my mind at the time. I first jotted down what felt like the most unique imagery to me, the false memories of being in a car crash and coming to terms with that. I am not sure what it means, but it is scary at times. I thought that because it is such a unique experience that detailing might be an interesting part of the song and thus the pre-chorus and chorus were put together. I had the melody of the chorus on a voice memo on my phone when working on the guitar part and I remember thinking to myself, for such happy chords the melody was lending itself to something almost being howled out, it felt like a question almost. After I had written the pre-chorus and chorus the next thing that felt natural to do was to frame the response to that statement which is the second verse. Reflecting on the pages, a lot of my worries on the second page seemed focused on how my friends and the ones I care about perceive me. I think this is a common feeling for people who struggle with their mental health and something that I am less concerned with when I am not in a negative mental space. The lyricism in the second verse is intentionally a little frantic, I wanted it to mimic in a small way how my mind can jump from idea to idea. I always find opening songs difficult; I think it’s important as a songwriter to have an impactful first few lines, especially in a song that is being made with the intent of an emotional experience in listening to it. I decided to borrow the writing style from some of my favourite US mid-western emo bands who often frame difficult to swallow truths in upbeat melodic phrasing and whimsical turns of phrase. A quite extreme example can be heard on The Front Bottoms’ “Father” which opens with some quite graphic imagery and is about the lead singers strained and complex relationship with his father, but I have seen people cheer and sing and dance along when the song is played live. And so, I decided to be very honest about the background of the feelings, maintaining some semblance of the narrative that I am ok while showing really that I am not, heading into the pre-chorus. The bridge was the last section to come together, both musically and lyrically. The rest of the piece was pretty much put together and being fine polished as far as vocal phrase lengths and how I would play the guitar part. The lyrics for the bridge started as what could have been a verse, describing the images but I decided that the pre-chorus was a more functional way of doing that, introducing the idea in a semi-palatable way. I knew I would close the song with the bridge (potentially put a chorus at the end) and decided to add some weight to the end of the work, almost like a Shakespearian tragedy, everyone dies at the end. I don’t think I make it feel like there is death at the end of the piece but the way I stack the layers of the pre-chorus and bridge sections before cutting right at the end to the first line of the pre-chorus was designed to add to the emotional impact at the end. Initially the guitar part for the bridge was more complex, I wanted to try and show that I was a good guitar player and had been practicing. This led me to retuning the guitar to Open D to come up with a pretty and impressive riff. I had a few ideas but in the context of playing solo and recording a demo I want the core guitar part, the part I play, to be something that I can do while I sing and give an overall engaged performance, which I’m not quite good enough to do with impressive guitar bits yet.

Lyrics: I feel well adjusted, sometimes I feel fine, or I lie which I know I shouldn’t do to my friends But we all pretend, because it’s easier than admitting how scared we are Have I told you about the weird thing that happened the other night in my car?

I’ve been seeing pictures, almost like memories in my head Of me losing control, on the free way And it plays in slow motion And the strangest thing about it to me always is

I don’t scream I don’t scream

I know I worry you, I’m worried too don’t think I want to die yet Look at the sunset, take a deep breath, hold on for one more day I’m ok, that’s what I say but I don’t think you believe me Static on the TV, looks like my tea leaves, Don’t worry about me

I’ve been seeing pictures, almost like memories in my head Of me losing control, on the free way And it plays in slow motion But the strangest thing about it to me always is

I don’t scream I don’t scream I don’t scream I don’t scream

As I watch bumper meet divider, Sparks and metal fly up Into the night sky I wonder how it would feel I wonder how it feels to…

As I watch bumper meet divider, I’ve been seeing pictures, Sparks and metal fly up almost like memories in my head Into the night sky of me losing control I wonder how it would feel on the freeway I wonder how it feels to… And it plays in slow motion But the strangest thing about it to me always is

As I watch bumper meet divider, I don’t Scream Sparks and metal fly up Into the night sky I wonder how it would feel I don’t scream I wonder how it feels to…

I’ve been seeing pictures, almost like memories in my head

Once the song was structured, I began practicing it, getting ready to cut a demo to put out into the world. In practicing it, I found the song easier to engage with on some days rather than other. I make recordings of me playing new songs so I can remember how they go at later dates but also to watch back and think about melodic choices and I found on one particular day while I could technically perform the song ok, I know I had played it better in the past. I have this relationship with most of the Sal Viejo songs that are about hard things from my life. I can perform most of them at the drop of a hat, but I know the performance is better when I am in the right mental place. I find it is a fine balance between being where you were during those hard times, but still able to perform. I feel like ‘Sal Viejo’ almost acts like a mediator sometimes, an outside observer who can sing about these things because they didn’t live through them, they saw them happen.

Heading into the day of recording I was a little stressed. Not only was I recording something still pretty fresh with the intention of sharing it to the world, but I also had just moved, had just gotten out of quarantine due to a secondary covid contact, was working a new job and had lots of uni work to do. I started the day by going and getting a coffee, thinking about the song as I went on my morning walk. My thoughts were mostly about the melody, the chords, the rhythm but also, I was beginning to make some mental adjustments to get me to the place I felt like I needed to be. When I got home, I had the intention of going slowly, setting up at my own pace and warming up but I felt the compulsion to just get it done. I started with guitar tracking, taking a signal from a mic set up near the body of the guitar and a line from the guitar, through an acoustic reverb pedal. It was during the guitar tracking process that I realised I had to simplify the line in the bridge. To get the timing right, I was playing to a metronome and singing to myself to figure out where the chord hits were and realised that I couldn’t actually play the part and sing, making it useless for live shows. After I finished the guitar did a quick mix and took lunch. I decided that I would try some vocals, but I didn’t know how they would go. I started singing and quickly realised that the phrasing would prove difficult and so I would have to punch in some of the sections. I found this really challenging because a part of the emotional engagement with the song comes from singing whole phrases, not just particular lines. What I decided to do was do multiple, full length takes, each one hitting the entrance of a section and cut it together. This meant that I could stay in the right emotional place while performing for recording and worry about the engineering side later. I wanted the mix to be fairly transparent for the demo, wanting people to hear the emotion and the story without too much distraction. I cut the vocals together and did a mix that I felt like let the vocals pierce through enough while still feeling tied to the guitar. There is a charm in the small amounts of string buzz and mic popping in the demo for me, in the mixing process I tried to get rid of some of it but decided that macro level edits would take away some of the human delivery. One decision I did make at this point was editing the lryics. The original lyric in the bridge was, “I wonder how it would feel, I wonder how it feels to die” I thought that the impact of that phrase would be increased if that word was censored, as subtly as possible but in a way that leaves listeners hanging on what the end of the phrase is. There are clues in the rhyming structure and content around it and you can figure it out if you listen to it, also I don’t know that I necessarily want a song in the world where I am explicitly asking what death feels like, I don’t know that I am at that level of openness as a songwriter yet.

In the rush of creative energy, I also cut a DIY, proof of concept music video which I attached the master of the song to which can be watched and heard here.

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Reflections: Digging into my song writing process has proved an interesting and at times challenging experience. In many ways I think I was fortunate to already have the bones of the song together before I started approaching the writing and making of the song as research as I don’t know that I could have been as honest in my lyricism knowing that I might have to explain where it came from. One observation I made is, through digging through the emotional distress that lies at the heart of this song, I found myself having cathartic emotional responses, forcing myself to consider where my songs come from. Also, as I practiced I found that having the research idea and the goal of catharsis beneficial as I made performance choices. I am unsure whether or not I have definitively answered the question, ‘how does one write a cathartic song?’ But in conducting this autoethnographic study of my process of writing a song with catharsis in mind I think I have answered, here is one way that I can do it.

References:

Adams, T. E., Holman, J. S., & Ellis, C. (2014). Autoethnography. ProQuest Ebook Central

Ansari, E., A. (2013) “Vindication, cleansing, catharsis, hope”: interracial reconciliation and the dilemmas of multiculturalism in Kay and Dorr’s Jubilee (1976). American Music, 31 (4), https://go-gale-com.saeezproxy.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&hitCount=1&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=1&docId=GALE%7CA401094780&docType=Critical+essay&sort=RELEVANCE&contentSegment=ZEAI-MOD1&prodId=EAIM&pageNum=1&contentSet=GALE%7CA401094780&searchId=R1&userGroupName=saeinstitute&inPS=true

Barnes, H. (Ed.). (2013). Arts activism, education, and therapies : Transforming communities across africa. ProQuest Ebook Central

 Carless, D. (2018). “Throughness”: A Story About Songwriting as Auto/Ethnography. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(3), 227–232. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800417704465

le Roux, F. (1998). Music: A new intergrated model in physiotherapy. South African Journal of Physiotherapy, 54(2), 10-11. doi:https://doi.org/10.4102/sajp.v54i2.593

Have we built our own downfall?

I feel like more than ever technology is a key talking point in our society. We are often told that video games make children violent, social media is giving our teenagers self-esteem issues and the internet is full of people who just want to steal all you have and break your computer. While these statements may contain some truth, is it the technology that is truly to blame? Does Technological innovation improve or corrupt morality?

In approaching this question, I first looked at what ‘technology’ means. In their introductory video, Media Ecology; a Brief Overview Andrew Eusebio pools viewpoints from Ong, McLuhan and Postman when they draw a distinction between technology and the medium. (2014) Technology is a physical apparatus, and the medium is the use to which technology is put. In this way Postman asserts that technology is merely a machine, where a medium is a social creation. (1985, as cited in Eusebio, 2014) Looking at technology in this light makes the question of technology’s impact on morality almost seem unnecessary, no one asked if a hammer was moral. The question now refocuses, what is the hammer being used for?

8-Bit Philosophy offers a more nuanced perspective on what technology is in their video Is Technology Dangerous? (Star Wars + Heidegger) by introducing ideas from German philosopher Heidegger who claims to understand the value of technology we need to understand what it is. (2015) For Heidegger, technology is not a simple tool or physical object but rather a way of thinking and he didn’t like the driving thoughts behind technology in his time. Where the Greeks viewed technology as a way of revealing the world, finding the beautiful in the things around us and bringing them to light. In the modern era, Heidegger felt that all technology was focused on utility, manipulating its environment for the greatest potential output, where everything is only valued as a resource.

Many of the 20th century philosophers viewed the developing technology of their time as an ill to society. For Postman the idea was that as technology becomes a medium by given a place in social settings and attaches itself to economic and political contexts. (1985, as cited in Eusebio, 2014) McLuhan famously said that the medium is the message, suggesting that the actual content of media was no longer the focal point, that the way we consume media affects us so much that the things that deliver it to us must also be scrutinised and understood. (1964, as cited in Eusebio, 2014) Heidegger too, who viewed the shift in thinking behind the driving of technology to a more utilitarian view as dangerous. (8-Bit Philosophy, 2015)

While these writers’ apprehension toward technology was warranted and in lots of cases is still valid. Technology is used and developed with the focus of utility, especially utility within a capitalist society, our technology allows us to connect to other technology where we absorb adds we don’t think about, watch the world from inside our rooms and present fake versions of our self to the world to be viewed as better than everyone else. As technology becomes more readily available, it is my belief that the thinking that Heidegger was worried about, the strictly utilitarian, anti-aesthetic creed of technology, may still be present at a macro level, those manufacturing and marketing the tech still view it in this way. However, once it enters our homes I believe that individuals are capable of using technology in a way that is positive for society.

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This is a little track I put together recently highlighting that while many people only post wins on social media, constructing an image of themselves that they deem presentable to the world, there is a trend and move to being more open on social media, especially for content creators, encouraging the de-stigmatisation of mental-health issues and not being ok. While technology may have allowed for the construction of fake social media personae, I don’t think it is the technologies fault, I think that technology is used as a tool by corporations to influence users in their use of the technology and if users can separate it from that it can be used to bring us closer together.

References:

Eusibo, A. [Andrew Euisbo]. (2014 October 17).  Media Ecology: A Brief Overview  [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilHHAAcSJz4

8-bit Philosophy. (2015, May 31). Is Technology Dangerous? (Star Wars + Heidegger) – 8-bit Philosophy [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_JOM-sVbKI

Video:

Parent, where do meme’s come from?

It’s a question zoomer parents may have to address should the world survive long enough. It may even be a question parents are having to address today, Instagram stating in December of 2020 that one million users share memes on the app everyday. (Ahmed, 2020)

In thinking about the question of the origin of memes I found myself watching, Are Memes & Internet Culture Creating a Singularity? published by the PBS Idea Channel.

In the video the argument is made that meme’s are often shared with no expectation of compensation and no further context provided, removing them from the who, what and why of their creation resulting in them being made in a way that feels like automation. Meme’s just appear and are, made and presented by the machine that is the internet. The video places the thinking in context, introducing the idea of a technological singularity, technology making better versions of itself, with some level of artificial intelligence developing, and argues that internet culture looks very similar. (2012) A cultural event happens, (like this still of Gene Wilder playing the titular character from the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)

Blank ‘tell me again’ meme template 

and seemingly from nowhere, new culture is made, often by adding other elements of culture like this collection of memes which, while they may be making dumb points are all incorporating ideas and language from different cultural groups

Collection of ‘tell me again’ memes https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/519251032006541275/

While there is clearly a personal slant or input present in the creation of these types of memes there is also a sense of automation. The PBS Idea Channel Video points out that memes are being made by people acting like computers, following rules, and working within a format. (2012) I’m sure if the video was being made in the past 12 months there would have been an entire section dedicated to tik tok and the way that many popular stars get their start or base their whole presence on the app by participating in challenges set by others, doing dance trends choreographed by someone else or lip-syncs using sounds created by another user.

So are we at a point of cultural singularity? And what does that mean for us who not only absorb media but also create it. Are we doomed to slowly be removed from our work as our influence slowly becomes less and less apparent till all we produce are carbon copies of what has come before with some small trace amount of our personality? In reading about memes, I came across the chapter Replication, Parataxis, and Evolution: Meme Journeys through the movement of a Mozart Sonata (Jan, 2011). In this chapter the author explains that the word ‘meme’ was first used by Charles Darwin. Where genes are passing on genetic information memes pass on cultural information. Following this thinking Jan states that “musical memes exist as short patterns of pitches and/or rhythms or as brief harmonic progressions, each with sufficient perceptual-cognitive identity and closure to survive as discrete units of information over time.” (2011) Following this thinking we could call the |I |V |vi |IV | chord progression, the Kick, kick snare pattern from We will rock you and the break from The Honey Drippers’ ‘Impeach the President’ could all be considered memes. So, if memes have been around forever in music, why didn’t I hear the word until 2010? The Idea Chanel Points out that while culture has always built culture before, never has the internet been as prevalent in culture as it is now. (2012) The internet grants people access to so many ‘memes or elements that can be combined into memes that where someone would create a ‘meme’ and call it a song or a progression or a work of art, now they are considered cheap, low-brow entertainment. As a creative, working from this definition everything I have made could be considered a meme at a stretch (as a musician I work in the western 12 tone equal tempered system, the system under which most of the western music has been composed and a meme in itself) and so what does that mean for me as I think about releasing my artistic expression through my work.

In a world where memes are created, shared and forgotten about so quickly, being a creator can be difficult. On one hand there is the temptation to make things that will get clicks because in the age of the internet, clicks equals success and sometimes money. On the other hand, there is a creative passion that can feel stifled by rules and trying to adhere to what other people are doing. This is a question I myself have struggled with as a musician and performer. Jan offers this, “memes are… selfish, in the sense that those memes which are the most striking and imitable are, self-evidently, those that tend to prosper in the meme-pool.” (2012) Yes, all music is based on something else, and no one is truly original, these are concepts that have been well talked about by musicologists and arts theorists en large for some time now. But, in the production of our work, our ‘memes’ if you will, as we incorporate the cultural elements, we hold dear, using our own creativity to shape them into new work, in the meme pool, in our culture, the things that prosper are still being striking and bold, being something others want to imitate.

References:

Ahmed, A. (2020 December 12). Instagram says that 1 million memes are shared on its social network daily. Digital Information World. https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2020/12/instagram-says-that-1-million-memes-are.html

Jan, S. (2011). Replication, Parataxis, and Evolution: Meme Journeys through the movement of a Mozart Sonata In Mirando, E. R. (Ed.) A-Life for Music: Music and Computer Models of Living Systems. (pp. 217-260). ProQuest Ebook Central

PBS Idea Channel. (2012, August 23). Are Memes & Internet Culture Creating a Singularity? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNBOkp346G8

Images: 

Blank ‘tell me again’ meme template  https://imgflip.com/memetemplate/81364788/Big-Willy-Wonka-Tell-Me-Again

The past few weeks I have been trying to come up with a question to address with some creative work as a part of my study. I have been thinking about my process and what I do and don’t know about it. Eventually the semi-meta, yet fairly obvious question came up, how do you write a cathartic song? I consider lots of my work to be cathartic but not all of it is, nor was all of it composed with the intention to be.  As I look at my practice and how catharsis fits in I have undertaken research, the trail of which is shown in this flow chart, starting in the general area of catharsis in music and looking at autoethnographic methods to establish a process to answer my question by writing a song. 

References/Reading

Adams, T. E., Ellis, C. & Jones, S. H. (2017.) Autoethnography, In, The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118901731.iecrm0011

Bartleet, B., & Ellis, C. (Eds.). (2009). Music autoethnographies : Making autoethnography sing/making music personal. ProQuest Ebook Central

Calitz, C. (2017). Healing liturgy: The role of music and singing. Verbum et Ecclesia, 38(1), 9 pages. doi:https://doi.org/10.4102/ve.v38i1.1628

Drewett, M. (2011). The Road From Crisis to Catharsis in the Songs of Roger Lucey. International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 42(2), 379-396. Retrieved August 16, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41337866

Ellis, Carolyn & Bochner, Arthur. (2005). Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity. Fieldwork. 241. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276935293_Autoethnography_personal_narrative_reflexivity

Ellis, C., Adams, T. E., & Bochner, A. P. (2010). Autoethnography: An Overview. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-12.1.1589

HARRISON, A. K. (2014). “What happens in the cabin …”: An arts-based autoethnography of underground hip hop song making. Journal of the Society for American Music, 8(1), 1-27. doi:http://dx.doi.org.saeezproxy.idm.oclc.org/10.1017/S1752196313000588

Hinkle-Turner, E. (1999). Coming “Full Circle”: Composing a Cathartic Experience with CD-ROM Technology. Leonardo, 32(1), 49-52. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576625

Knowles, J. .. G., & Cole, A. L. (Eds.). (2007). Handbook of the arts in qualitative research : Perspectives, methodologies, examples, and issues. ProQuest Ebook Central

Liamputtong, P., & Rumbold, J. (2008). Knowing differently : Arts-based and collaborative research methods. ProQuest Ebook Central

Markus, T. (1965). “Tiny Alice” and Tragic Catharsis. Educational Theatre Journal, 17(3), 225-233. doi:10.2307/3205162

Reed, R. (2007). “The restorative power of sound: a Case for Communal Catharsis in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 23(1). Retrieved from: https://go-gale-com.saeezproxy.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&hitCount=1&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=1&docId=GALE%7CA192900079&docType=Critical+essay&sort=RELEVANCE&contentSegment=ZEAI-MOD1&prodId=EAIM&pageNum=1&contentSet=GALE%7CA192900079&searchId=R1&userGroupName=saeinstitute&inPS=true

Richardson, C., & Skott-Myhre, H. A. (Eds.). (2012). Habitus of the hood. ProQuest

The past few weeks I have been trying to come up with a question to address with some creative work as a part of my study. I have been thinking about my process and what I do and don’t know about it. Eventually the semi-meta, yet fairly obvious question came up, how do you write a cathartic song? I consider lots of my work to be cathartic but not all of it is, nor was all of it composed with the intention to be.  As I look at my practice and how catharsis fits in I have undertaken research, the trail of which is shown in this flow chart, starting in the general area of catharsis in music and looking at autoethnographic methods to establish a process to answer my question by writing a song. 

References/Reading

Adams, T. E., Ellis, C. & Jones, S. H. (2017.) Autoethnography, In, The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118901731.iecrm0011

Bartleet, B., & Ellis, C. (Eds.). (2009). Music autoethnographies : Making autoethnography sing/making music personal. ProQuest Ebook Central

Calitz, C. (2017). Healing liturgy: The role of music and singing. Verbum et Ecclesia, 38(1), 9 pages. doi:https://doi.org/10.4102/ve.v38i1.1628

Drewett, M. (2011). The Road From Crisis to Catharsis in the Songs of Roger Lucey. International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 42(2), 379-396. Retrieved August 16, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41337866

Ellis, Carolyn & Bochner, Arthur. (2005). Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity. Fieldwork. 241. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276935293_Autoethnography_personal_narrative_reflexivity

Ellis, C., Adams, T. E., & Bochner, A. P. (2010). Autoethnography: An Overview. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-12.1.1589

HARRISON, A. K. (2014). "What happens in the cabin . . .": An arts-based autoethnography of underground hip hop song making. Journal of the Society for American Music, 8(1), 1-27. doi:http://dx.doi.org.saeezproxy.idm.oclc.org/10.1017/S1752196313000588

Hinkle-Turner, E. (1999). Coming "Full Circle": Composing a Cathartic Experience with CD-ROM Technology. Leonardo, 32(1), 49-52. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576625

Knowles, J. .. G., & Cole, A. L. (Eds.). (2007). Handbook of the arts in qualitative research : Perspectives, methodologies, examples, and issues. ProQuest Ebook Central

Liamputtong, P., & Rumbold, J. (2008). Knowing differently : Arts-based and collaborative research methods. ProQuest Ebook Central

Markus, T. (1965). "Tiny Alice" and Tragic Catharsis. Educational Theatre Journal, 17(3), 225-233. doi:10.2307/3205162

Reed, R. (2007). “The restorative power of sound: a Case for Communal Catharsis in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 23(1). Retrieved from: https://go-gale-com.saeezproxy.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&hitCount=1&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=1&docId=GALE%7CA192900079&docType=Critical+essay&sort=RELEVANCE&contentSegment=ZEAI-MOD1&prodId=EAIM&pageNum=1&contentSet=GALE%7CA192900079&searchId=R1&userGroupName=saeinstitute&inPS=true

Richardson, C., & Skott-Myhre, H. A. (Eds.). (2012). Habitus of the hood. ProQuest

Looking at methods of understanding conveying and experiencing emotions in music

Earlier this week I wrote a blog post looking specifically at sadness and how it is conveyed in music. Here this and know I am Sad I looked at Eric Clapton’s ‘Tears in Heaven’ looking at how Clapton builds an empathetic persona, himself in the case of the song after having lost his son in a tragic accident. My analysis was based on part of Allan Moore’s work in ‘Song Means’ (2012) and is just one example of how musicologists and musicians can analyse and study the emotional effect of music.

Leo Tolstoy once said that Music is the shorthand of emotion. While it is accepted that music has the power to have an emotional effect on listeners the exact why and how seems to be up for debate. I have looked at four examples of researchers and musicians explaining some element of emotion and music, each with a different stance on the reason listeners experience emotion when listening to music. Broadly the four identified categories are; feeling emotion from music is based on a social conditioning, there is a biological element to our emotional responses, there is a music theory reason for major sounding happy and minor sounding sad and our perspective of a separate historical and cultural music tradition. After unpacking their framework for understanding emotion in music I will offer my thoughts on their theories and discuss my understanding now I have done this research.

First, presenting the idea that emotional responses to music are based on our social understanding PBS Idea Channel. In Is Sad Music Actually Sad? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios the idea is presented that there is nothing inherently in the music theory of songs that makes something happy or sad. A major chord is no happier than a minor chord but rather we have been trained to understand it this way. They present the idea of imitation theory, that is music imitates the qualities of a feeling, wide intervals feel expansive but this idea is immediately challenged in the pointing out that the same can not be said of other media, going upwards is not always positive in a film scene. They then go on to suggest a biological explanation but then challenge this notion with music that is considered beautiful by some cultures and ugly by others, who is wrong there. The assertion is made that to be affected by music we as listeners have to have an assumption of a message to be shared and receptiveness to that message, this is something that we are culturally taught to do. However, this receptiveness is metered by our personal experience, our experience of a song in a social and cultural context. (PBS Idea Channel, 2013) This perspective on emotion in music is by far the most post-modern understanding of emotion in music in that the final answer to how is emotion expressed and felt in music? Is; everyones experience will be different and you will never truly be able to control it. As a creative I agree with this to some degree but do think there is room for other perspectives on the matter.

The second perspective is that there is a biological element to some sounds that trigger certain primal instincts in humans. Sideways takes a biological approach in their video How To Make Music Sound Scary which is framed as an instructional guide for composers. After a brief discussion of the cheapness of a jump scare and the finesse required to even do that well the discussion dives into cognitive dissonance and the “creepy baby music” effect where in horror films music that is supposed to be soothing and comforting are placed in a scary context creates a sense of unrest in a listener. From here they move away from film theory and into purely sound based fear, explaining that evolutionarily low sounds represent something bigger than you, therefore something that can eat you. Inversely high sounds represent something close but not dangerous. Usually the presence of high sounds is good, there is nothing close that anything else is scared of. By creating a piece that has a low, predator representing sound and a high, safe, non-lethal representing sound a composer will create cognitive dissonance, being confused by the two sounds together but also start filling the middle space triggering a panic response. (Sideways, 2016) I find this perspective on emotion in music interesting and would argue while it is the most tuned to being universally effective, it has the most limited scope as far as what you can do with it. There are so many primal urges that can be tapped into that would have auditory elements tied into them meaning the expression of emotion you would be limited to would be quite basic and primitive.

The third approach centres around an understanding of music theory to understand how to use “brightness” when composing or performing. Adam Neely in Why Major is “happy?” unpacks the concept of brightness, which is defined as the relative size of intervals in a scale in comparison to other scales. Major scales are brighter than minor chords, therefore more happy… However, an augmented scale would technically be brighter than a major chord and rather than sounding happier sounds dissonant and harsh. Adam suggests that there is a balance of brightness that can be used to express different emotions and goes into ranking the modes based around Dorian, declared ‘neutrally bright’ and assigning each other mode a value based on it’s brightness in relation to the brightness of Dorian. Adam also goes on to unpack that if you move upwards (in fifths) through the circle of fifths in context it sounds like you are getting brighter or more open. While this is a model that I have heard before and have actually used in my composition I think that there are a couple of shortcomings in it. First is the fact that all of this is framed on our 19th century Western European understanding of music and emotion as filters through which we hear intervals and chords. The second is I would argue that even a chord that is the same ‘brightness’ like an E5 played on a Grand piano across three octaves and played on a beaten up telecaster as a power chord will sound different and probably illicit a different emotional response.

The final broad perspective that I have found is that a listeners understanding of an ‘other’ piece of music will be framed by their own cultural understanding, which can result in a new understanding of the work. In looking at Why Miyazaki’s Films Sound Pretty Sideways discusses the work of Joe Hisaishi the composer for lots of the music used in Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli films. In trying to understand why the music was “pretty” it was compared to Debussy’s impressionist work with parallels drawn to the way that the conventional rules of resolution weren’t always followed, giving the pieces an etherial sense. But while there are many parallels to be drawn between Hisaishi’s work and Impressionist composers like Debussy, the line up isn’t perfect enough to be considered a perfect match. In listening to some of the scores there are even elements of modal jazz that can be heard in the music. Essentially, the history of Japan, the way music was taught and learned, the way scales and modes can be constructed and changed within a piece of music and the “standardisation” practices of composers and musicologists to make the theory look more like western theory creates compositions which for Japanese audiences would sound familiar and almost certainly hold emotional resonances western audiences don’t fully understand and is translated in the western brain to be ethereal and pretty because that’s what we associate with the closest reference points we have, Debussy and modal jazz. I think this theory is framed more on broader cultural influences rather than individual experiences, unlike the first point. I think it is hard to argue with this point, I often think the use of “middle eastern” or “Asian” music in films is interesting and almost always associated with something mystical or sinister, whereas in a different context those sounds are normal. This video was very helpful in breaking down the complex history of Japanese music theory and explained the scales system very well so I recommend going to watch the video if you are interested, but having a knowledge to this depth anytime you listen to a piece you don’t have the exact cultural understanding for sounds like an exhausting way to listen to music and I think that there is some argument to be made for some sort of universal feeling of certain musical phenomenon.

After reviewing these four approaches as exemplars for models of understanding music and emotion I feel like I know much more about the field yet am no closer to fully grasping the core concept. With each approach there were gaps, often gaps identified by the people making the videos. I also find it interesting that each video was focusing on a different genre of music and coming from it in a very different ways, as researchers, composers, performers, and listeners. I think the only conclusion I feel safe drawing here is that each of these approaches has their merits and depending on the situation as a researcher and musicologist I would feel confident in applying different methods at different times. However as a practitioner the question stands, how much of this, if any, is relevant to my compositional practice. Should I be thinking of references and sounds that a lot of people resonate with, should I be tapping into primal urges with my compositions, should all my happy songs move in fifths and all my sad ones move in fourths or should I use scales from other places to make my music mysterious? I think with understanding and research that all of those things could be achieved, I don’t know that I will be actively thinking about them for very long, or that I even realise that I have but in making music that elicits an emotional response in me, it would stand to reason that it might illicit an emotional response in someone else.

References:

Moore, A. F. (2012). Song means: Analysing and interpreting recorded popular song : analysing and interpreting recorded popular song. ProQuest Ebook Central

Neely, A. [Adam Neely]. (2016, May 31). Why is major “happy?” [Video} YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rEqrPwVITY

PBS Idea Channel. (2031, May 9). Is Sad Music Actually Sad? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWWYE4eLEfk

Sideways. (2016, August 27). How to Make Music Sound Scary [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-u9YDDrTFo

“D Minor, which I find is the saddest of keys… It makes people weep instantly” – Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap.

When thinking about emotion in music, it is my observation that there are two primary foundations that stick out as far as being fertile ground for song writing. Infatuation, see love songs, songs about being in a group and songs to bump and grind to. And sadness, see break up songs, songs about being alone and songs about being different. This observation is based primarily on my own listening habits which is very much framed around western popular music, even looking at my top songs on Spotify from this year all of them can fit into one of the categories laid out above.

In taking a closer look at aesthetics and affect in my practice, that is my practice as something that creates an emotional experience in an audience, (Taylor, 2021) I have chosen to look at sadness as the exemplar emotion, both because I listen to a lot of music that could be considered ‘sad’ as well as sadness being an emotion I draw on, particularly in my work as Sal Viejo.   Looking at the definition of sadness from the atlas of emotions (atlasofemotions, n.d.) Sadness is a response to loss, and feeling sad allows us to take a timeout and show others that we need support. In looking at the different types of sadness on the same chart the range of sadness is defined as going from disappointment to anguish. Often framed around loss or not having something or not having achieved something. The responses can range from feeling ashamed or withdrawing, mourning, protesting, ruminating, and seeking comfort. As a creative practitioner I have found myself in all those response states and found myself creating from that space. But knowing what sadness is and being able to express that in song form is a nuanced art. The quote from This Is Spinal Tap at the open of this post is there to be funny but also demonstrates a point, minor is considered a ‘sad’ tonality for music. In seeking to understand why I was presented with a litany of answers ranging from highly scientific explanations of the harmonic series and how a major third and sixth is more ‘natural’ and therefore happy than their minor counterparts, to observations of the way that musicians physically approach notes differently on instruments, suggesting that on most common western instruments moving to a minor interval is a softer motion, suggesting sadness. It is my belief that contemporary listeners associate minor tonalities with sadness, based on the establishment of ‘rules or common features of music that was presented as sad, going all the way back to Chopin’s Funeral March, pointed out in NME’s blog “The Science of Music – Why Do Songs in a Minor Key Sound Sad?” that goes through a lot of the historical use of minor tonalities, also showing where they have been used in happy songs and is a great read if you are looking for more. (2013) So, if just being in a minor isn’t all there is to creating a heartbreaking number one, what else is there? According to a reader poll in Rolling Stone, Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven is the saddest song of all time (2013). 

Listening to the song and finding some scores I can tell that the song is in F# minor but it is more than the chords that makes this song so heartbreaking. Listening to the lyrical content and knowing the story behind the song, I recognise this as an emotion heavy song, sung by a man whose child died in a tragic accident, an accident he feels responsible for, is coming to terms with and has to live with every day. So, the question stands, not knowing that, if the melody was played by a piano or some other melodic instrument would the song have the same impact? Going back to a musical analysis, we can also see that the song is recorded and performed at around 80bpm, it features acoustic instruments, the voice is sung in a natural sounding almost spoken register, the instrumentation and arrangement is sparse, focusing on the vocal. Moore describes all these traits as working toward the ‘persona’ in a song. (2012) The Persona is defined as how we interact with the song, how it makes itself known to us and how the singer presents themselves directly to us. Using Moore’s model here we see that all of the musical choices Clapton made in the composition of Tears in Heaven lead to the construction of a persona that is considered genuine and makes listeners feel sympathetic, we hear the story not only in the lyrics but in the music and we understand. Again, the question is raised, would this be a universal experience? I don’t think so but for western audiences and readers of Rolling Stone, it worked.

Looking now at my own practice, it has always been important to me that my persona was not only perceived as genuine, but that it was genuine, especially in my work as Sal Viejo. When I started Sal Viejo, it was very much with the desire to tell my stories and share my experiences, the good the bad and the ugly. I was inspired to do this by other musicians that I was seeing at shows and making friends within Wollongong and Sydney, often at very informal shows in someone’s living room or a public park. I was drawn to these spaces and these performers because they all felt so real and genuine, and I resonated with the stories they were telling. However, now that I understand some theory behind aesthetics and emotion in composition, does my expression become less genuine if I compose with these features in mind? I think this question is an important one to consider, and one I think about when I do my work. The way I have always composed and produced as Sal Viejo has just been starting with me, my guitar, and my sad stories, from there I only add something if I feel like expresses the story in the way I’m trying to tell it. In doing this, I am using my formal music training, my academic research knowledge, including my understanding of Moore and aesthetics, but this is always tempered by what I hear, my instinct and reaction and me making decisions based on what I think the song needs.

References:

atlasofemotions. (n.d.) Sadness http://atlasofemotions.org/#states/sadness

Moore, A. F. (2012). Song means : Analysing and interpreting recorded popular song : analysing and interpreting recorded popular song. ProQuest Ebook Central

NME Blogs. (2013. Febuary 14). The Science of Music – Why Do Dongs In A Minor Key Sound Sad? NME. https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/the-science-of-music-why-do-songs-in-a-minor-key-sound-sad-760215

Rolling Stone. (2013. October 2). Reader’s Poll: The 10 Saddest Songs of All Time. Rolling Stone https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/readers-poll-the-10-saddest-songs-of-all-time-10875/

This week as a part of trying to reflect on my practice and who I am as a creative I was set to task to create a self-portrait. I was given no limits as far as media, method and message which left me with a seemingly endless pool of options. My initial reaction was to create a playlist, what better way to describe myself than with the medium I love. However, as I started putting it together, I found that while I can fill a playlist with songs from my childhood, what I was influenced by and what I am trying to emulate, it felt like there were gaps in the story.

I decided to put together a collage of images both gathered from the internet as well as some from my social media, with the idea that not only is it a collection of images that sums up who I am but also works to tell a chronological level. On the bottom level are the things that shaped me as a young person, before I ever had formal music training. I was raised in a very musical family, the three artists across the bottom, Prince, Kenny Rodgers, and Meatloaf represent listening to albums and songs in cars on the way to and from school with my family and watching Purple Rain when I was younger, seeing Prince and wanting nothing more than to be him. The fourth image is from Christmas 2014 and represents a common occurrence when I was younger that is at family events all my uncles would bring guitars and sing Latin American songs out of time and out of key. Looking at these formative images I am struck with two things that felt missing in a playlist and that is the experience of living through experiencing this media. I was drawn to songs that told a story like The Gambler by Kenny Rodgers or the Bat out of Hell Album by Meatloaf, the life of The Kid in Purple Rain and the family tradition of singing together.

Moving up we enter my high school years, which was when music shifted from something I liked to something I was obsessed with. I have included mostly photos from live shows as this was the period where I was going to as many shows as I could afford and trying to sneak into the ones I couldn’t. I was a typical teenager in that I was drawn to “angsty” music but was already developing a passion for Australian music, loving bands like Tonight Alive and Vices. The mecca of live music for me at this time was a venue in Wollongong called RAD Bar. It was a tiny venue with average sound on a good night, but it was a safe haven for the music community for many years and was where I made many friends that turned into industry contacts and where I would play some of my first ever shows. The non-Australian bands included here are Modern Baseball and Being as An Ocean. Different bands when considering sound but I was drawn to them for the same reason, the same reason I was drawn to the music I liked when I was younger, there were stories there, stories I related to. On the right side, lower portion you might notice the cover of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and be somewhat confused. When I started playing bass I ended up getting lessons at the local conservatorium through high school. I was already in love with music at this point and was super eager to start playing. Initially, I thought the jazz stuff was cool, appreciated why I should learn the theory but wanted to play in the pop-punk band me and my friends had formed. It wasn’t until I was introduced to modal Jazz, through Kind of Blue that I fell in love with the genre. Why? I heard stories, through Miles’s trumpet playing and the harmony I felt emotion and communication, just as much as I did when listening to a song with lyrics. While it is a seemingly tangential story I view my experience of learning Jazz theory and coming to understand harmony and how that can play into composition on an emotional level as core to some of the work I’m doing now.

Moving up into my uni, through to now life I found I was looking for less photos of other people and looking for experiences I had. My time at uni was when I started playing in bands more regularly, went on tour, was involved with recording, all of which I have continued as I have been able to this day. I have included photos of the two bands I played in primarily, Jack R. Reilly from Sydney and Indie Kid Callum from Wollongong, both projects were built on groups of friends wanting to create together as opposed to getting the best players in town together. I have also included two photos of me doing the solo work that takes up most of my current creative time. Even though Sal Viejo and found_sound.mp3 are solo projects, in that I am the only one with their name to the whole of the projects, I am still influenced by my community, I write songs about my life, experiences, friends and our stories. I remix work from other artists. I listen to and love my friends work; we share mixes and ideas with each other. The final image is the logo for the website/booking agency that I started with my best friend in 2020. We are dedicated to listening to, writing about, and promoting local music and have been working on shows and write ups for artists from Canberra and beyond. This part of my practice in my mind is informed and built on all the things that have come before. The way I play is influenced by the songs I grew up listening to, my performance is based on shows that I saw and was a part of, the way I enjoy collaborating can be traced back to my experiences with my family. At the centre is a photo I took today (on day of writing) in a mirror just outside of my room. Looking at the image, I find it interesting the little stories and memories that some of the images conjure. Alongside each of these is a song or performance or idea for a song or performance waiting to happen. I feel like I am the most creative when I am at the centre of all these things. Sometimes I find that I ignore some of the experiences I have, deeming jazz theory as inappropriate for an emo song or thinking that a standard four chord progression is too simple. But just looking at the breadth of my taste and experience, you’d think I know that it’s not always what you do it is often tied up with how you do it.

This exercise has proved a valuable tool for reflecting on who I am as a creative. I have concluded that as an individual I am drawn to art that has a story and is a part of community. So, it seems only fitting that in my journey as a creative practitioner when I work I am influenced by all of the things I have absorbed and had experiences with. I mix them all together and try to make something that tells a story and has a place in my community.

Image Descriptions and References (Starting Top Left)

1: Photo from Show with Jack R Reilly Band. (2019). Taken from Personal Facebook Page

2:HomeGrown Sounds Logo, designed by Beniah Coulburn. Taken from Personal Facebook Page

3: Sign from Rad Bar in Wollongong. (2018). Taken from Personal Facebook Page

4: Photo of me working as found_sound.mp3. (2021). Unpublished.

5: Photo of me performing at The Front as Sal Viejo. (2019). Taken from personal Facebook page.

6: Photo of recording set up for gang vocals for Canberra Band Plastic Plants. (2020). Taken from Personal Facebook Page

7: Photo of Tonight Alive Performing Live on the ‘The Other Side’ tour (2018). https://wallpapersafari.com/w/nvfjuN

8: Photo from the last ever Vices show at Rad Bar (2018). https://robfrench.com.au/2018/04/23/vices-last-ever-show/

9: Photo of me taken this morning (29/07/21). Unpublished

10:Photo taken at a band practice for Indie Kid Callum. (2017). Taken from Personal Facebook Page

11: Photo of Modern Baseball Playing live in Glasgow. (2014). https://louderthanwar.com/modern-baseball-audio-glasgow-24092014-live-review/

12: Photo of me playing bass at an Indie Kid Callum Show. (2017). Taken from Personal Facebook Page

13: Cover of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. (n.d.) https://www.vinyldestination.com.au/miles-davis-kind-of-blue-mono-limited

14: Promotional Image of Prince for Purple Rain. (2019). https://ultimateprince.com/purple-rain-moments/

15: Album Cover of Kenny Rodgers’ The Gambler. (n.d.) https://genius.com/Kenny-rogers-the-gambler-lyrics

16: Photo of family Christmas eve gathering. (2014) Taken from Personal Facebook Page

An exercise in curiosity

In thinking about curiosity and how I as a creative am curious, I have come to understand myself as curious within some bounds. That is, I think that a lot of my curiosity and exploration roots itself in something I already have some understanding of. Looking at my practice, even in the areas where I am experimenting or researching, I always have a jumping off point or a genesis of an idea.

Door activity: - Select a door (masked link to a website) - Explore where it takes you for 10 mins - Focus on an area more specifically for 10 mins - Reflect on your choices for 10 mins I chose the police box door. Through the door I found the ‘wellcome collection’ website, “A free museum and library exploring health and human experience.” (wellcome collection, n.d.)

First 10 mins on the site: Initially I was a little disappointed with my choice, I love the idea of the gallery but didn’t think I would find much aside from artist statements and photos. I found some interesting works and the curation of the gallery was interesting and exciting to see. I like the structure of exhibitions structured as questions. Many of the works seem focused on mixed media or experiential art. I also found the section of the site where articles were published. I was pleasantly surprised that this was not just writing about the art and artists on display but took concepts from exhibitions and explored them. Part of me wonders if a space like this could create a never-ending cycle where writing is inspired by art which inspires art and so on. I think I do that in my practice. I learn about something, I make a thing with what I’ve learned, I write or think about that thing, I change the thing I made or make a new thing. Or conversely, I make something, research the field and then apply that research to my making.

10 min deep dive: Series of articles called “The Happiness Quest” by Wilkinson. Happiness is such a broad topic and can mean so many things for so many different people. Looking at the titles of the articles (at time of writing only the first three are published) it seems that Wilkinson is taking a very contemporary look at the topic. The first article, ‘Happiness in time’ goes into how defining happiness is hard, often something we are striving for or remembering, framed on personal experience and marketing research. (Wilkinson, 2021) The second article, ‘Happy endings’ is a look at happy endings in quest fiction, about how it is written to perpetuate the ‘live your dream’ narrative popularised in children’s media. (Wilkinson, 2021) The article goes on to explain the issues with this idea, again framing it in personal experience. The third article, ‘This is a MOOD’ is a piece on the perceptions of teenagers, interviewing teens on topics like stereotypes, puberty experiences and emotions. (Wilkinson, 2021) This was a really refreshing look at the adolescent experience, so often written by people with little to no frame of reference of the real and current teenaged experience. I thoroughly enjoyed the writing style and content of all these articles, I felt that the writer had a really unique perspective on the subject matter but made the content engaging and relevant as well as accessible.

10 min reflection: In working through the door activity and retroactively looking at my decisions, I can see my tendency to go with the familiar. I chose the police box door, or as I immediately saw it the TARDIS from Doctor Who, a show that was very important for me in my teenage years and a character/object from the show that I have art from about a meter away from where I was when I was working through the exercise. Once I got to the site my initial reaction was disappointment, I like visiting a gallery and learning about visual art, but I find that I get more from the works being there in person. While the exhibitions looked very interesting, and the descriptions made me want to visit I found the most engaging part of the site was the articles. In looking through the articles the first one that caught my attention was the Wilkinson article on the perception of teenagers. I have been thinking about my teen years and was interested in what the writer had to say on the topic. I found not having any direction or idea of where I would end up intimidating initially but once I found something that I felt I could engage with in a satisfying way (articles) on topics that I was interested in (happiness/teen experience) then I was able to invest in the exercise.

A Curiosity plan: In my experience I haven’t really tracked my curiosity. I come up with new ideas and I experiment, so I suppose by nature I am curious. The Harvard business review curiosity profile labelled me as an unconventional thinker and intellectually hungry, (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2015) so that would indicate I have curious tendencies. However, by the same test, while I adapt to new situations, it was my lowest scoring result. This indicates to me that while my brain is willing and able to be curious and explore ideas, it can’t handle too many new things at once. Even in the door exercise I went with an option I was familiar with and focused on something I found it easier to engage with. In looking at various articles on how to be curious and habits of curious people, I have found that much of the language seems to be in the present or progressive tense, that is, at all points of a project there are questions being asked, actions being put into place to expand ideas. (Vozza, 2015, Kim, 2017) I find in my own practice that I often start with a question or an area to explore but once the idea starts to take shape, I finish based on the rails I have given myself, I plan a destination point and I get there as efficiently as possible. This probably comes from my desire to have my music be commercially and socially successful as well as being the easiest route, but I admit that I am losing the opportunity to try new things with the work I am doing. Much of the writing in the space supports this, Kim starts their curiosity process with removing what gets in the way of curiosity, including choosing to do new things over certainty and fear of the unknown. (2014)

I think that for a long time I have overlooked my curiosity and thirst for knowledge in the making stage of my creative process. Too often I default to the familiar, the ‘way it should be done’ or what I know. I collect a lot of information but find that the things I know only inform the general shaping of a work rather than being a constant force throughout. Looking at my practice moving forward, I see that being curious, while it may not always lead to gold, will lead to something new and in the pursuit of making new things, it should be something that I work with more, moving away from fear of what others think and toward a personalised practice.

References: Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2015, December 3). Assessment: What’s Your Curiosity Profile?. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2015/12/assessment-whats-your-curiosity-profile

Kim, K., H. (2017, 1 June). Curiosity: The Key to Creativity and Innovation. idea to value. https://www.ideatovalue.com/crea/khkim/2017/06/curiosity-key-creativity-innovation/

Vozza, S. (2015, 21 April). 8 Habits of Curious People. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/3045148/8-habits-of-curious-people

wellcome collection, (n.d.). A free museum and library exploring health and human experience, https://wellcomecollection.org/

Intertextuality and the perceptions of aura and authenticity in film reboots and musical covers

In their video essay Intertextuality: Holywood’s New Currency Nerdwriter1 offers a harsh and pointed criticism at the mainstream movie industry for relying on what they call ‘weaponised intertextuality’. (2016) By which they mean, using cultural touchstones and references to illicit a response in viewers rather than write a compelling plot with engaging characters. (ibid.) The essay referenced several movies including the Beauty and the Beast live action remake, the new StarWars trilogy, the Hobbit, Star Trek, the list goes on and looking at the list of films and series mentioned, I must agree. Lots of these films seem to rely on viewers liking the IP already and once you have paid to consume the media they don’t really care if there’s a story there.

After watching the essay, I was left wondering, where do we see intertextuality in music and music production? The answer seems obvious, remixes and/or covers would be the most direct parallel with a reboot, with the practice of ‘biting’ or ‘sampling’ being a more subtle reference made.

In their video essay How Coltrane Broke “My Favourite Things” (feat. Adam Neely) Polyphonic praises John Coltrane’s 1961 modal jazz cover of the musical song “My Favourite things” calling him a genius more than once in the video. (2020) They explain the way the structure of the original song lent itself to experimentation, the compositional thinking, fractal theory, all of the innovations that Coltrane made on this recording. But at its fundamental level, it’s a reboot.

But then the question stands for me, in discussions on film theory this is seen as the fall of modern cinema, yet a great remix or cover is celebrated in the music industry. Why is intertextuality weaponised in Hollywood but utilised in the studio?

The primary difference to me as a creator (primarily of music) but also as someone who loves to absorb media is that in the music world, covers or remixes that achieve success on a mainstream level are usually some form of new expression on some sort of fundamental creative, human level, whereas lots of film or television remakes seem to lack some sort of heart or ‘aura’ to use the term in the way Benjamin would. (1935 as cited in Taylor, 2021)  

While many reboots of film franchises are recognised as cash grabs, because more often than not they are, there is seemingly little money to be made as a great covers musician, that trend left in the late sixties and early seventies with the rise of the original composer. Covers generally feel like a new expression of a similar idea whereas cinematic remakes feel like there is very little thought put into it.

I thought an interesting experiment to do would be to breakdown what I consider a great cover and look for the intertextual references and understand how they are used differently from the way they are used in film. The Cover I will look at is the Alex Lahey ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’ by My Chemical Romance cover done for Like a version.

The cover is a spectacular example of a cover in my opinion, earning itself a spot in the hottest 100 of 2019 as well as a shout out from My Chem on the internet. Doing a purely audio and music theory analysis of the two songs there are very few differences, the timbres, melodies, instrumentation and structures are all similar enough that one song is unquestionably a version of the other, a well-made version but a version none the less. The primary technical differences were the use of orchestral percussion and four guitar players. I think the primary difference between this cover and the way movies are remade is the cover is perceived to have more authenticity than the Hollywood remakes. The authenticity is recognisable in some way, Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance praising the feeling of the song even though he was in the U.S., saying that it gave him chills. (Langford, 2019) If the source material, being the lyrics and chords and structures are all the same, one must conclude that it is the method by which these things are put together that give it the aura or authenticity. I feel like in watching the cover and seeing how the musicians were performing and expressing, it all felt very real. All the additional parts were not only there for their compositional appeal, but the band was made up of a group of young Australian musicians from other bands who all grew up listening to My Chemical Romance and now get to play it on national radio Additionally there is knowing the cultural touchstone that My Chemical Romance and particularly that song has to so many emos of a certain age demographic that the song hit’s all the right notes for so many people as it is. I think that the sense of authenticity also comes from the frequency with which covers come out from musicians. A performer might have one cover that has any kind of impact in their entire song book for their entire career, whereas it feels as if studios like Disney are almost made to churn out reboots now. If Alex Lahey decided to become a My Chemical Romance Tribute act permanently (after some initial interest) fans would start wanting the old Alex back, we know how Gerard Way looks at the world, we want to know how Alex does it now.

In looking at the ways that film reboots are different from music covers, I have found that one of the key foundational differences is the feeling of authenticity as perceived by the audience. In film the social knowledge that remakes are primarily made to make money has made the concept of intertextuality a weapon and a fighting point. Contrastedly , in music due to the authenticity often felt in the performance and recognised in the context of the rest of the musician’s career intertextual references are often a time for celebration.

References:

Langford, J. (2019 September 24). Gerard Way Praises Alex Lahey For Her My Chemical Romance Like a Version. Musicfeeds. https://musicfeeds.com.au/news/gerard-way-praises-alex-lahey-for-her-my-chemical-romance-like-a-version/ Nerdwriter1. (2016 May 16). Intertextuality: Hollywood’s New Currency [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeAKX_0wZWY

Polyphonic. (2020 December 4). How Coletrane Broke “My Favourite Things” (feat. Adam Neely) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg1RGmyl-_A

Taylor, J. (2021). Art Pop and The Culture Industry [Google Slides] SAE Campus online https://campusonline.gscm.sae.edu/mod/page/view.php?id=108482

Embeded video:

I was asked to do a presentation on my creativity and creative practice based on some of the things I’ve been learning in my course. I decided to record a short podcast that not only introduces a bit of who I am as an artist and as a person. 

I take a look at my practice in the context of Ken Robinson’s Creative Process as described in “Out Of our Minds: The Power of Being Creative.

Tee-Soul

·

Reflecting on my practice using Robinson's Creative Process

*Edit 09/07/2021 as referenced, here is my blog on intertextuality and music https://theoriesontheory.tumblr.com/post/656219456906870784/say-it-again-but-make-sure-it-has-feeling

References

Gompertz, W. (2016). Think like an artist : And lead a more creative, productive life. ProQuest Ebook Central

Leski, K., & Antonelli, J. (2015). The storm of creativity. ProQuest Ebook Central 

Robinson, K. (2017). Out of our minds : The power of being creative. ProQuest Ebook Central

Songs played: 

Salviejo, T. (2020) Amabilia Ossium [Song]. on The More Things Change The More I stay the Samehttps://salviejo.bandcamp.com/track/amabilia-ossium

Irony, Sincerity and the Internet

In their video essay “David Foster Wallace – The Problem with Irony” Schoder breaks down David Foster Wallace’s views on the downfall of entertainment, namely tv due to a saturation of irony. (2016) After introducing the problem of an overly ironic, snake devouring itself, media landscape, the solution seems to be proposed, a tonal shift towards sincerity. (ibid) Shows like The Office and Community and Parks and Recreation in some cases maintain post-modern traits in order to subvert them but more and more, mainstream media is focusing less on the deconstruction of the meta narrative and more focused on the micro-relationships. (ibid.)

In August of 2017 Kirin J. Callinan uploaded the music video for his latest single “Big Enough” featuring Alex Cameron, Molly Lewis and Jimmy Barnes. In September of 2017 a tumblr page posted a clip from the video, which was later uploaded to youtube and went viral as “Screaming Cowboy” (knowyourmeme, 2018)

The remixes and overdubs spread like wildfire and to this day, through apps like tik tok and Instagram the song and meme is heard around the world by listeners who potentially could never have heard anything else the artists have done or anything beyond the 43 second clip. In interviews on the piece featured artist Alex Cameron explains that the piece came out of the idea that people would constantly compare himself and Callinan in the relatively small Sydney Pop scene and thinking about how the world is so often divided. They wanted to remind people that everything wasn’t all about conflict but there can be unity. (Fluffy, 2018) Callinan himself describes the song as “sincere.” (Gaca, 2017) Beyond being a song about unity, represented by the two artists coming together but it also represents a deconstruction of genre boundaries for the artist. When first experimenting with making EDM, a genre he did not care for Callinan describes making something “aesthetically displeasing and pretty unexciting as an idea,” with “a euphoria that’s just infectious.” (ibid.) He continues, detailing how after hearing Sweedish House Mafia’s ‘Don’t You Worry Child’ that he was able to get past his own preconceived and taught notions of genre and boundaries between high and low art and understand that the heart of the work was important. (ibid.) This is immediately shown in this piece, bringing together the unique blend of two underground pop artists from Sydney, a world famous whistler and an Australian Rock icon. This song is the perfect representation of the idea of synthesis, it feels like a creative artist having fun while telling a sincere and genuine story about unity, not only in the lyrics but in the production of the song and the incorporation of a diverse range of cultural touchstones, the work is an intellectual masterpiece!

… But it’s still a meme and I didn’t actually listen to the whole song until around two years after it came out when I finally heard it through a bad Bluetooth speaker in a backyard somewhere. The question then stands, does the fact that something is a meme make it any less valuable as art? Looking back at the Schoder video, the first wave thinking of post modern media, the thinking that spawned shows like Seinfeld and Always Sunny, (2016) would say that this song was brilliant and funny. It’s a deconstruction of the notions of pop and using all kinds of semiotic messages that are understood by the knowledgeable and reference soaked internet generation, it did exactly what it was meant to do clearly, it’s making fun of the entertainment industry. And while it is all of those things I don’t think that is all the song is. I think this song is an example of an Office type TV show as described by Schoder. (2016) this song and the video does all of those things but still feels very human and genuine. It doesn’t stop at the deconstruction but also works on focusing to the right thing, connection and community.

Despite this wholesome message at the song’s core, some argue that the last refrain takes the song into parody

Image: Screenshot of Lyrics to ‘Big Enough’ from Genius.com

But if you think about songs that have called for peace and unity before,

Image: Screenshot of Lyrics to ‘Imagine’ from Genius.com

 I think that ‘gen z’ who was raised in cynicism would see both sentiments as equally as realistic. Meaning the only differences between the two songs are the choice of instrumentation and who’s singing it. Toward the end of the Gaca interview Callinan says, “I’d like to write more songs that are emotional and real and not full of so much fucking bullshit. But at the same time, it’s the bullshit that makes it fun. No one’s interested in listening to an acoustic singer-songwriter.” And I think that this song is a move in that direction for him.

To insert some of my own romantic thinking, in a way the fact that this song is being shared to so many different people in so many different contexts as humour, shows that the message of unity is being spread through comedy.

While the internet took this song and video and gave them a life of their own, at their core still stands an artist with a message. While a majority of people might know the song as humour, Callinan was able to achieve his artistic goal and make a song that he enjoys, as well as collaborating with a friend in Alex Cameron, an interesting and unique person in Molly Lewis and a childhood hero in Jimmy Barnes. It was funny, it was serious, it was entertaining, it is art.  

References:

Gaca, A. (2017, November 8). What Exactly Is Going On With Kirin J. Callinan? Spin. https://www.spin.com/featured/kirin-j-callinan-bravado-interview/

Fluffy. (2018, January 18). Interview: Alex Cameron Talks Style and Substance. Under the Radar. https://www.undertheradar.co.nz/news/13758/Interview-Alex-Cameron-Talks-Style-And-Substance.utr

Knowyourmeme, (2018). Big Enough. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/big-enough

Schoder, W. [Will Schoder]. (2016 October 7). David Foster Wallace – The Problem With Irony [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2doZROwdte4

Other media in order:

Kirin J Callinan. (2017 August 17). Kirin J Callinan - Big Enough (Official Video) ft. Alex Cameron, Molly Lewis, Jimmy Barnes [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvrZJ5C_Nwg

CarrierBK (2017 September 9) AHHHHH [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBLdQ1a4-JI

Image: Screenshot of Lyrics to ‘Big Enough’ from Genius.com Captured 07/07/2021 https://genius.com/Kirin-j-callinan-big-enough-lyrics

Image: Screenshot of Lyrics to ‘Imagine’ from Genius.com Captured 07/07/21 https://genius.com/John-lennon-imagine-lyrics

So here I am, full of information on hyperpop, Basquiat, pop culture and a thousand other little things and I am left with the question, what will you make? I think the decision to make a hyperpop song seems clear. I have been making remixes on my ‘music I make on my computer’ Instagram account and one of the more recent ones at time of writing was a hyperpop remix of a Citizen song.

found_sound.mp3 remix: The Night I drove Alone - Citizen

I feel there is so much that I understand yet have no idea how execute in the genre, both from a technical and writing level. I have started trying to find producers talk about the production of the tracks and trying to break down songs with my own close listening. It’s also really hard to write catchy, short, hooky lyrics. I think a lot of my struggle is the ‘smart musician’ in my brain who cringes at short simple, easy phrases which I will have to try and combat as I write. I have some general themes that I would like to explore that I feel like would be appropriate for the genre; the way my life feels like it’s constantly falling apart, the way I learned love from books, tv and songs in my teenaged years or myself doubt.