Article Review

I am going to comment on the article "The untold stories of so-called world music" by Nick Storring in the spring 2008 issue of Musicworks.

The biggest thing that I took away from this article was that in general the western worlds idea of world music is clouded due to a number of reasons. One reason is because over here in the western world when we want to go buy a world music cd from Ghana or Thailand (for example) the record store generally just carries compilation cds. Storring says that because of compilation cds the listener spends more time listening to ethnicity and cultural differences when really the listener should spend more time listening to the aesthetic content. I partially agree with this comment but I also disagree with this comment. I am interested in world music and have spent a small amount of time listening to music from different cultures. For me and my ears right now I think it makes more sense to listen to a compilation cd. When first listening to music from different cultures I think it is important to grasp the structural characteristics and foundations of that style of music. When first listening to music from Zimbabwe I want to introduce myself to it, I don't think it would be fair to me or the music to try to concentrate on the beautiful, complex patterns of the mbira, I need to absorb everything and then eventually wrap my brain around the complex stuff.
I do agree with Storring on one level though, once a person has become familiar with the music of there choice there really isn't many solo records to buy, most of them are compilations. Hearing the compilations are great but it is also important to hear a solo cd to hear one artist and there arrangement of their cultural style.
If I could suggest one thing for record stores (and their world music sections) it would be to carry more solo records but also have the option of buying compilations records, for those of us who are still new at listening to world music.

Review of Article

I want to comment on the article written by Julian Cowley about Philp Jeck in the Musicworks magazine, the summer 2009 issue.
I have never really taken any time to introduce myself, listen or learn about being a DJ and what it takes to work with turntables and vinyls. I thought that this article may just be able to introduce me into that genre of music, and it did. Even though I may not have been up to the level as some others readers reading this article I feel as though I have learnt a lot from the read. I always thought DJs were used for backing up rappers and hip hop groups but after reading the article, there is much more to it then just "scratching". I find the abilities he has working with turntables and sound manipulation is phenomenal because he has so much at his fingertips, so many options, so many different ways to manipulate and splice together music. I also find very interesting that Jeck can switch up records when and how he wants. It makes me realize that what he is doing something very creative and fresh because it never has to be the same thing every show. He says when he is feeling stuck using the same records he will take out a record that he has never heard and use it in a show to try something new; to get "unstuck". I think what he does in something special and unique and one thing that I found extremely cool was that because he has so many records he can play folk records from the country he is playing in. In the article Julian gives that example that one night he will play a show in Istanbul and will improvise using Turkish records and then the next night he will be in Athens and he will be improvising on Greek records. It definitely takes a lot of training and a lot of experimenting to do this. There has to be so much to know about sound manipulation and just overall it seems that you need to have a huge library of music. Another thing that I enjoyed about this article was that I was able to see the musicianship of Jeck. He is quoted in the article for saying "It's in the listening where the music is made". It agree with this quote because it seems as if listening to his music listening could come up with all sorts of emotions, images and ideas; it is through these things that make the sound special for the listener and therefore I think thats what makes it music.

I have never really thought about composing for or even adding in turntables in a classical sense. In the past few months I have heard of chamber compositions that involve a live DJ, unfortunately I have never had the inspiration to look any of them up. After reading this article I do feel inspired, it is definitely something that I will look into with more detail and maybe one day it may end up in some of my own work.

Last post

In conclusion to the course I just want to comment on how much I have learnt in the past few months. The cool thing about this course was that I learnt from work shopping my ideas; trying things out for my class mates to see what they thought, to hear there criticisms. My technique as a new composer has started to grow, knowing how to think like a composer, learning how to accurately put down my ideas. I have not just learnt how to develop ideas and know when not to play with ideas but I have also learnt how to write for other people. Up until now whenever I wrote something it was always for me, so I automatically understood what I had down. However when you get people to play for you, you start to see what makes sense to you, doesn't always cut it for everybody else. This course has opened up my eyes to all aspects of composing: compositional techniques, developing and playing with ideas, writing things that make sense for other players and preparation of my score.

I am looking forward to taking the advanced composition course next term, I get to keep working on ideas while learning to become a good composer.

Good copy of score

I have been very surprised this semester over the amount of work it takes to make a good final copy of a score. It seems like every time I look over my score, no matter how many times I do, I will always find something that I want to fix. More so for my second score I find myself becoming very picky about positioning and how things are positioned. I do believe in first impressions and if a score looks appealing and professional then more people will spend time with the score. Even though all of the nit picky things are hard to get through it seems in the end it is worth it.
Even though my last score probably was not presented the best way I remember getting it back from Staples and thinking that it looked really professional... laser paper makes things look great.

I also find program notes hard to write. I tend to wonder if I should leave certain information out so the player can discover it on there own or if I should enlighten them so that they know exactly what I had in mind. I also have trouble in terms of, should this go under program notes or should I make a performance instructions section.

All in all I have concluded that the more detail you add the better.