"Punk Rock Calvinists Who Hate the Modern Worship
Movement": Ritual, Power, and
White Masculinity in Mars Hill Church's Worship Music
Showing posts with label hip hop and musicology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hip hop and musicology. Show all posts
Saturday, January 16, 2021
in light of Haynes' dissertation on Mars Hill musical culture, there's a book called Holy Hip Hop in the City of Angels that caught my eye
Saturday, September 26, 2020
Adam Neely and Ethan Hein discuss the absence of rappers covering rappers--a sideways thought on Robert Gjerdingen's excavation of Neapolitan partimento as a tradition in which kids jammed on existing bass lines as part of learning to master the craft of music
First, Ethan Hein has a post and video discussion about rap covers and how, although there are covers of rap songs rappers do not cover each other's work and how there is a norm against "biting" other rappers.
http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2020/adam-neely-video-on-rap-covers/#more-21425
For me one of the most memorable "Major Interpretation" covers of this century was Johnny Cash covering Trent Reznor's "Hurt". At the risk of a digression, the line between major and minor interpretation can depend a lot on reception history. Stripping down a song in terms of instrumentation is one of the patterns that shows up, such as Cash covering Reznor but his example is just of many potential case studies. Anyone remember the cover of "Mad World" by Tears for Fears at the end of Donnie Darko? I suspect that the difference between "major" and "minor" may depend on popular music being what Theodore Gracyk described as "ontologically thick", which is to say that this timbre created by playing this guitar through that amp with these settings through these pick-ups is important. I haven't played the Telecaster in a while but I know the Tele and a Gibson hollow-body have VERY different sounds and you'll want one sound for one kind of song and the other sound for another. But I've digressed pretty early into this post ... .
This is fascinating to hear about because there have been anti-rap polemics that have argued that sampling shows a lack of musical creativity (this was my stance twenty-five years ago when I was a teenager and first heard rap). I have, over the course of twenty years, come to a point where hip hop isn't exactly my favorite style of music but, you will note, I have referred to it as music, which it is. As Leonard Meyer used to put it, a democracy doesn't mean everyone will like the same thing but it means that everyone can and should be prefer to like the music that they like.
Monday, June 15, 2020
Ethan Hein discusses "Fugue as sample flip"--explanations of sampling techniques remind me that "looping" might fit Schenkerian "knupftechnik", and other ways in which the compositional techniques across hip hop and fugal writing may potentially overlap, with a pitch for the idea that a fugal language can be built from Stevie Wonder songs
http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2020/fugue-as-sample-flip/
...
In the video that Deb links to, DJ Dahi says that three are three main techniques you can use to flip a sample: looping it, chopping it, and reversing it.
- Looping is the simplest of the three techniques, but its musical significance is deeper than you might think. In his must-read book Making Beats, Joe Schloss points out that looping a sample juxtaposes the sampled material with itself by connecting the end of a phrase with its beginning. In so doing, “looping automatically recasts any musical material it touches, insofar as the end of a phrase is repeatedly juxtaposed with its beginning in a way that was not intended by the original musician. After only a few repetitions, this juxtaposition… begins to take on an air of inevitability. It begins to gather a compositional weight that far exceeds its original significance” (p. 137). Looping can take an idea that was meant to be linear and turn it into something circular, and that act can have political valence.
- Chopping means splitting a sample into segments (e.g. individual drum hits or notes) and then recombining the segments out of order, and/or removing some of them. Audio Two’s “Top Billin'” beat is a chop of the “Impeach the President” drums. Pete Rock created the beat in “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)” by chopping the drum intro to James Brown’s “Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud).”
- Reversing is the least common technique of the three, but when it appears, it’s conspicuous. The best example I can think of is the chorus to “Work It” by Missy Elliott. She follows the line “Put my thang down, flip it and reverse it” with that same line backwards, repeated twice.
...
Now what's intriguing about this is that coming at things from the perspective of being a classical guitarist who studied what could be called Eurological compositional techniques each of these techniques arguably has correspondences with gestural transformation in what's colloquially known as classical music.
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Ben Shapiro's declaration that rap isn't music has inspired two different sorts of responses, belated thoughts on the reactions of Dave Molk and Ethan Hein
There have been a couple of ways that musicologists have reacted to Ben Shapiro's stunt claim that rap isn't really music. There's more than two ways but two kinds of responses have stuck with me in the last few months. The first was written by Dave Molk at NewMusicBox.
https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/teaching-inequality-consequences-of-traditional-music-theory-pedagogy/
During a recent episode of The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special, Shapiro invoked the authority of his “music theorist” father who went to “music school,” in order to dispel, in seemingly objective, fact-based fashion, the idea that rap is music. Shapiro’s criteria for what qualifies as music is absurd and his assertion that rap fails to meet this criteria is likewise absurd—but this is largely beside the point. The objective of these bad faith arguments isn’t necessarily to win or lose, but rather to perpetuate the notion that rap-as-music merits debate. Even entertaining the question undermines the legitimacy of rap by setting it apart from other musical styles about which we couldn’t imagine having such conversations.
We must reject Shapiro’s attempt to leverage the prestige of academia to do his dirty work for him. At the same time, we must consider the implications of his appeal to music theory. Shapiro wants us to focus on what music theory and music school suggest about rap-as-music—we should instead ask what his invocation of these institutions suggests about music theory pedagogy. Within these institutions, what do we learn about who and what is valued, and why?
Western art music is not a universal language. It does some things well, other things not as well, and many things not at all. And yet, although the majority of undergraduate students do not listen regularly to this style of music, the standard theory curriculum continues to privilege it at the expense of all other styles. Given this disconnect, how can we justify our near-exclusive reliance on traditional pedagogy, especially in situations where it isn’t necessary to do so? What biases do we create in our students when we declare Western art music to be mandatory knowledge for anyone pursuing formal studies in music? What biases does this reveal in us?
Let’s start with names.
Names create hierarchy. A course title like Music Theory 1: Diatonic Harmony explicitly designates harmony as the most important element of the course. Nor is this harmony in the general sense, but harmony specific to Western art music. There’s a real danger of elision, whether in perception or practice, so that music theory becomes just about harmony. Discussions of melody often come folded into larger discussions of harmony. The standard textbooks, despite grand gestures towards complete, everything-you-need-to-know musicianship, devote almost no attention to rhythm, beyond strict issues of notation. Other critically important musical elements, such as improvisation, timbre, and post-production, fail to make any meaningful appearance. This unwarranted prioritization of harmony as the essence, if not the totality, of the music theory core curriculum shapes the reality of what, within academia, is considered music, or at least music worth studying.
Western art music is not a universal language.
A myopic focus on Western art music severely distorts what music is and what music can be. The standard pedagogy relies on a value system whose metrics are based on subjective preferences but passed off as objective truths. Western art music is declared, without adequate justification, to be the necessary tool for understanding music at the most fundamental level. The construction of a musical hierarchy with Western art music at the top, until recently considered the only music that merited institutionalization, perpetuates the idea of worthy music and unworthy music.
These are decisions made by people, no matter how compellingly they’re framed as divine decrees or natural phenomena, no matter how long-standing their historical pedigree. Teaching Western art music without acknowledging issues of canon-formation, cultural colonization, exclusion, and erasure ensures that these problems will continue. We are not exempt from interrogating the standard theory pedagogy, nor are we absolved from blame when we choose not to. The emergence of new musical styles and new technologies of music production are inconsequential—Western art music continues to be prioritized at the expense of all other modes of music creation. We need to understand this unwarranted privileging within the context of white supremacy.
White supremacy is the systemic centering of whiteness. It builds on an incorrect assumption of white racial superiority and functions to uphold white privilege. Whiteness is defined as the standard against which and on whose terms all others are measured and invariably fall short. When white is designated as normal, those who are not white are forever deemed not normal, no matter how hard they work or what they accomplish. Restricting the definition of white supremacy to a collection of bigoted individuals overlooks the myriad ways that institutionalized power in this country, whether social, political, legal, economic, or cultural, reinforces the primacy of whiteness.
...
Now on the one hand since my dad was Native American I think we can and should talk about the gruesome and brutal policies enacted by white supremacists in the history of the United States. At the same time, the idea of taking something Ben Shapiro said seriously enough to write thousands of words at NewMusicBox is simply not something I can endorse and I say that as a sort of moderately conservative type.
I trust that Jews and Christians will be familiar with Proverbs 26:4-5 which says:
Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you yourself will be just like him.
Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes.
The riddle of the proverb is in the wisdom it takes to assess when a fool should not be answered because answering the fool will make you like the fool, on the one hand, and on the other hand answering the fool according to his folly to keep him from thinking that he is actually wise. At the risk of just stating my thesis, the NewMusic Box essay demonstrates the warning of Proverbs 26:4 and I think Ethan Hein's rejoinder to Ben Shapiro there's a time and place to demonstrate how stupid an argument is by answering a fool according to his folly.
http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2019/remixing-ben-shapiro/#more-19281
...
https://soundcloud.com/ethanhein/ben-shapiro
That it's Ben Shapiro who has said rap isn't music is ... interesting because in the wake of the death of Sir Roger Scruton I want to make an ultra-long form case toggling back and forth between Theodor Adorno and Roger Scruton writing on music that the late conservative philosopher ended up staking out a position in which he said we should take popular song seriously, more seriously than Adorno did. That Scruton wasn't able to necessarily take rap and hip hop seriously is another topic for some other time. I'm transitioning from this post to the next post.
https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/teaching-inequality-consequences-of-traditional-music-theory-pedagogy/
During a recent episode of The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special, Shapiro invoked the authority of his “music theorist” father who went to “music school,” in order to dispel, in seemingly objective, fact-based fashion, the idea that rap is music. Shapiro’s criteria for what qualifies as music is absurd and his assertion that rap fails to meet this criteria is likewise absurd—but this is largely beside the point. The objective of these bad faith arguments isn’t necessarily to win or lose, but rather to perpetuate the notion that rap-as-music merits debate. Even entertaining the question undermines the legitimacy of rap by setting it apart from other musical styles about which we couldn’t imagine having such conversations.
We must reject Shapiro’s attempt to leverage the prestige of academia to do his dirty work for him. At the same time, we must consider the implications of his appeal to music theory. Shapiro wants us to focus on what music theory and music school suggest about rap-as-music—we should instead ask what his invocation of these institutions suggests about music theory pedagogy. Within these institutions, what do we learn about who and what is valued, and why?
Western art music is not a universal language. It does some things well, other things not as well, and many things not at all. And yet, although the majority of undergraduate students do not listen regularly to this style of music, the standard theory curriculum continues to privilege it at the expense of all other styles. Given this disconnect, how can we justify our near-exclusive reliance on traditional pedagogy, especially in situations where it isn’t necessary to do so? What biases do we create in our students when we declare Western art music to be mandatory knowledge for anyone pursuing formal studies in music? What biases does this reveal in us?
Let’s start with names.
Names create hierarchy. A course title like Music Theory 1: Diatonic Harmony explicitly designates harmony as the most important element of the course. Nor is this harmony in the general sense, but harmony specific to Western art music. There’s a real danger of elision, whether in perception or practice, so that music theory becomes just about harmony. Discussions of melody often come folded into larger discussions of harmony. The standard textbooks, despite grand gestures towards complete, everything-you-need-to-know musicianship, devote almost no attention to rhythm, beyond strict issues of notation. Other critically important musical elements, such as improvisation, timbre, and post-production, fail to make any meaningful appearance. This unwarranted prioritization of harmony as the essence, if not the totality, of the music theory core curriculum shapes the reality of what, within academia, is considered music, or at least music worth studying.
Western art music is not a universal language.
A myopic focus on Western art music severely distorts what music is and what music can be. The standard pedagogy relies on a value system whose metrics are based on subjective preferences but passed off as objective truths. Western art music is declared, without adequate justification, to be the necessary tool for understanding music at the most fundamental level. The construction of a musical hierarchy with Western art music at the top, until recently considered the only music that merited institutionalization, perpetuates the idea of worthy music and unworthy music.
These are decisions made by people, no matter how compellingly they’re framed as divine decrees or natural phenomena, no matter how long-standing their historical pedigree. Teaching Western art music without acknowledging issues of canon-formation, cultural colonization, exclusion, and erasure ensures that these problems will continue. We are not exempt from interrogating the standard theory pedagogy, nor are we absolved from blame when we choose not to. The emergence of new musical styles and new technologies of music production are inconsequential—Western art music continues to be prioritized at the expense of all other modes of music creation. We need to understand this unwarranted privileging within the context of white supremacy.
White supremacy is the systemic centering of whiteness. It builds on an incorrect assumption of white racial superiority and functions to uphold white privilege. Whiteness is defined as the standard against which and on whose terms all others are measured and invariably fall short. When white is designated as normal, those who are not white are forever deemed not normal, no matter how hard they work or what they accomplish. Restricting the definition of white supremacy to a collection of bigoted individuals overlooks the myriad ways that institutionalized power in this country, whether social, political, legal, economic, or cultural, reinforces the primacy of whiteness.
...
Now on the one hand since my dad was Native American I think we can and should talk about the gruesome and brutal policies enacted by white supremacists in the history of the United States. At the same time, the idea of taking something Ben Shapiro said seriously enough to write thousands of words at NewMusicBox is simply not something I can endorse and I say that as a sort of moderately conservative type.
I trust that Jews and Christians will be familiar with Proverbs 26:4-5 which says:
Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you yourself will be just like him.
Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes.
The riddle of the proverb is in the wisdom it takes to assess when a fool should not be answered because answering the fool will make you like the fool, on the one hand, and on the other hand answering the fool according to his folly to keep him from thinking that he is actually wise. At the risk of just stating my thesis, the NewMusic Box essay demonstrates the warning of Proverbs 26:4 and I think Ethan Hein's rejoinder to Ben Shapiro there's a time and place to demonstrate how stupid an argument is by answering a fool according to his folly.
http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2019/remixing-ben-shapiro/#more-19281
...
I’m grateful to Ben Shapiro for his willingness to say the quiet part loud, giving voice to culturally reactionary opinions in print and on video that others tiptoe around or voice more euphemistically. The belief that rap isn’t music, or isn’t “real” music, or isn’t substantive enough to merit thoughtful attention, is a depressingly widely held one. In my teenage years, I succumbed to peer pressure from my fellow white rockists and became convinced of it myself. Which was ridiculous, because I loved rap as a kid in NYC, and that love persisted straight through the years when I tried to convince myself that it didn’t exist. Anyway, while rockists, jazz snobs and classical folks are united in a belief that rap is musically deficient, it’s less common to find someone in this day and age who will go ahead and say it isn’t music at all.
Naturally, Shapiro’s opinion calls for a rebuttal. He even invites us to give one, concluding his speech with one of his catchphrases, “Tell me why I’m wrong.” But there’s no point in going online and arguing with him or telling him off, because he and his fans are probably hoping for a dead-end online shouting match. Instead, I thought it would be a better idea to turn Shapiro’s speech about how rap isn’t music into a piece of rap music. It wasn’t difficult! Just about anyone’s speech sounds good over the right breakbeat. I chose “It’s A New Day” by Skull Snaps. I used iZotope Nectar for an Auto-Tune effect on Shapiro, along with some tasteful tempo-synced delay. I didn’t quantize the speech rhythmically, but I did duplicate key phrases, both for musical effect and as a kind of audio highlighter. For example, I repeated the phrase about how Ben’s dad is a music theorist who went to music school, music school, music school. ...
If you want to hear the musical rejoinder head over here.https://soundcloud.com/ethanhein/ben-shapiro
That it's Ben Shapiro who has said rap isn't music is ... interesting because in the wake of the death of Sir Roger Scruton I want to make an ultra-long form case toggling back and forth between Theodor Adorno and Roger Scruton writing on music that the late conservative philosopher ended up staking out a position in which he said we should take popular song seriously, more seriously than Adorno did. That Scruton wasn't able to necessarily take rap and hip hop seriously is another topic for some other time. I'm transitioning from this post to the next post.
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