David McSherry

Talking About Music Is Like Dancing About Architecture

John Shepherd’s chapter ‘Text’ in Key Terms In Popular Music And Culture had my brain swinging like a pendulum this week. One page would have me fascinated by the notion of music being thought of as a text; firstly as an element of culture, subject to the various forms of cultural theory (Barthes etc.), secondly as the literal, musical form itself, subject to sonic musical analysis in terms of pitch, dynamics, timbre etc. A turn of the page, however, sent the bullshit alarms ringing in my head. For example, Shepherd argues that analysis of the early rock ‘n’ roll favoured by the motorbike gangs of the 1950s could provide social meanings such as; “three chords, the tonic, the dominant and the subdominant, together with either three or four beats to a measure….could be viewed as a basic code for the hierarchical structure of industrial capitalism.” Quite.

The quote ‘talking about music is like dancing about architecture’ kept ringing around my head. Having said that, the morning’s discussion around musical syntax, the signifiers and ‘musical punctuation’ that help us to decode music and its meanings had me completely hooked and involved.

I like talking about music and engaging in debate. Musical discourse is, after all, what this course is about. I’m also pretty sure that I’ve cut a rug to some funky architecture in the distant past too.

When Kelly Met Karlheinz…

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Industry Studies – Discussion around the move into videogame territory by some record companies in an attempt to revive their industry through interactive new media formats. The Beatles: Rock Band was the focus.

Critical Evaluation – We looked at the narrative organisation and signifiers in the structure of music videos and how the musical form is visualised (synaesthesia). Music videos of the ‘pop’ variety really are not my thing, we watched (amongst others) a Kelly Clarkson video, believe it or not.

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Analysis – We looked at some amazing graphical scores from the library. Original issues from the 50s and 60s. Works by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Cornelius Cardew and John Cage. Some are beautiful graphic objects like Earle Brown’s Folio and Systems shown below. I want it on my wall.

Did you know that a piece of music can considered as a text? No, me neither. Like a book, article, magazine or newspaper, the term ‘text’ can be used in relation to music. This notion gives rise to terminology such as ‘intertextual’, ‘transtextual’, ‘metatextual’ and paratextual used by cultural theorists for textual analysis in music critisism. More on this next week.

I now have to start thinking about my first composition. It must be a cohesive, balanced and varied 20 minute piece. At the moment my imaginary mood board is saying beat-free, pulsing, harmonic, glitchy, textural….choir?! We’ll see. I’ll post work in progress here.

I really enjoyed today’s sessions.

PS. There’s a shadowy figure mentioned often in these sessions. His name is Theodor W. Adorno. I hope we’ll be dealing with him soon.