Jonathan KRAMER. postmodern muisc theory

Media Theorist Jonathan Kramer says "the idea that postmodernism is less a surface style or historical period than an attitude. Kramer goes on to say 16 "characteristics of postmodern music, by which I mean music that is understood in a postmodern manner, or that calls forth postmodern listening strategies, or that provides postmodern listening experiences, or that exhibits postmodern compositional practices."
According to Kramer (Kramer 2002, 16–17), postmodern music":

1. is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension
2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic
3. does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present
4. challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles
5. shows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity
6. questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values
7. avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold)
8. considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts
9. includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures
10. considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music
11. embraces contradictions
12. distrusts binary oppositions
13. includes fragmentations and discontinuities
14. encompasses pluralism and eclecticism
15. presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities
16. locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers

Jonathan Donald Kramer (December 7, 1942, Hartford, Connecticut – June 3, 2004, New York City), was a U.S. composer and music theorist.

Active as a music theorist, Kramer published primarily on theories of musical time and postmodernism. At the time of his death he had just completed a book on postmodern music and a cello composition for the American Holocaust Museum.

My Mixpod.

Task...
To created a tape/cd/playlist with matching artwork which best describes you.

Album name: The Construction.

Songs.

1 Lets dance to joy devision - The Wombats
2 Stepping stone - Duffy
3 This is an emergency - The pigeon detectives
4 Single ladies - Beyonce
5 Hardest of hearts - Florence and the machine
6 Be somebody - Kings of Leon

7 Without love - Hairspray cast
8 Cry - Rhianna
9 Mama - Spice girls
10 Mardy bum - Arctic monkeys

11 I just don't know what to do with myself - The white stripes

12 Take her back - The pigeon detectives

13 Take over the world - The Courteeners

14 I bet you look good on the dance floor - Arctic monkeys

15 Pass out - Tinie Tempah

16 Wont go quietly - Example

17 Best Friend - The drums

18 Purple rain - Prince

Why.

1. Have a Positive Attitude.

2. Don't let people walk all over you.

3. Always be a drama queen.

4. Single is fun.

5. Learn to love.

6. Never be nobody, always ...

7. The best musical.

8. Try not to cry. Its hard

9. My hero.

10. Don't listen to this song

11. Decisions in life are hard, take things as they come.

12. Give second chances.

13. Make a difference to the world.

14. DANCE DANCE DANCE.

15. Live for Life

16. Always be noticed

17. To be one to everyone, everyday.

18. The best song ever made.

ONE OF THE HARDEST THING I HAVE EVER DONE.

Postmodern music. Mr. Ford

TAKEN FROM FORDS BLOG.

Brian Eno — 25th November 2009

Musician, Artist, Producer, Theorist.

Has worked with (amongst others) – Roxy music, Talking Heads, Devo, Ultravox, Bryan Ferry, U2, Coldplay.

He ‘Invented’ ambient music which in turn let to chillout genre which in the last 18 months has linked into chill wave music (a mainly American endeavor)

"It’s odd to think back on the time—not so long ago—when there were distinct stylistic trends, such as “this season’s colour” or “abstract expressionism” or “psychedelic music.” It seems we don’t think like that any more. There are just too many styles around, and they keep mutating too fast to assume that kind of dominance.

As an example, go into a record shop and look at the dividers used to separate music into different categories. There used to be about a dozen: rock, jazz, ethnic, and so on. Now there are almost as many dividers as there are records, and they keep proliferating. The category I had a hand in starting—ambient music—has split into a host of subcategories called things like “black ambient,” “ambient dub,” “ambient industrial,” “organic ambient” and 20 others last time I looked. A similar bifurcation has been happening in every other living musical genre (except for “classical” which remains, so far, simply “classical”), and it’s going on in painting, sculpture, cinema and dance.

We’re living in a stylistic tropics. There’s a whole generation of people able to access almost anything from almost anywhere, and they don’t have the same localised stylistic sense that my generation grew up with. It’s all alive, all “now,” in an ever-expanding present, be it Hildegard of Bingen or a Bollywood soundtrack. The idea that something is uncool because it’s old or foreign has left the collective consciousness.

I think this is good news. As people become increasingly comfortable with drawing their culture from a rich range of sources—cherry-picking whatever makes sense to them—it becomes more natural to do the same thing with their social, political and other cultural ideas. The sharing of art is a precursor to the sharing of other human experiences, for what is pleasurable in art becomes thinkable in life."

Death of Uncool. MrFord

Boulivard of broken dreams - Green day

She wolf - Shakira

Jumper- Third eye blind

Ego - Beyonce

Diva - Beyonce

Say it right- Bloc Party

Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off -Panic at the disco

Last time lover - Spice girls

I carn't control myself - The pigeon detectives

Don't ever think - The zutons

Postmodern music. THEXX

RE-MIXX.

X. Pull My Heart Away.

X.Closer.

X.You've Got The Love.

X.Hot Like Fire.

X.Rolling In The Deep.

X.Money Box.

X. New York Is Killing Me

Music Video's :

X.Basic Space.

X.Crystalised.

X.VCR.

X.Islands.

THEXX.

English.

Indie POP.

Formed 2005.

XX.Romy Madley Croft Oliver Sim Jamie Smith

Jamie smith..

Corroborated with Gil Scott-Heron original.

The XX also take popular music by big names such as Florence Welch and Adele.

If You look at Kraftwrek a German band you can see certain similarities to THEXX and their creation of music. You can hear that they have taken the abstract sounds and applied them to lyrics to create the XX sound. If you listen to the majority of THEXX remix's you can hear sounds layered over the top. Bellow is a clip of Kraftwrek showing how they create there music. This is similar to THEXX music video of crystalised.

XXInfluences.

What are your musical influences? We all have very different influences. Personally, I started listening to soul music, and then I got really into hip-hop, because of the samples, and the UK bass music that's coming out of London. Who are some of the UK bass artists you like? What are the other band members into? This one guy James Blake, who is really releasing some really good stuff this year, and last year. For Romy, she was, when we met, listening to a lot of rock music, like the Distillers and Queens of the Stone Age. And we now listen to each other's stuff as well. But we went through phases with disco and all of it. I think Oliver started out listening to R&B.

The Clothes.

Exam boards advise on how to answer question 1a.

Question 1a is always about how your skills developed. Here's how the chief examiner recommends you tackle the question.


This was requested from the e-community; there are other versions elsewhere, but this is probably the simplest!

paragraph 1 should be an introduction which explains which projects you did. It can be quite short.

paragraph 2 should pick up the skill area and perhaps suggest something about your starting point with it- what skills did you have already and how were these illustrated. use an example.

paragraph 3 should talk through your use of that skill in early projects and what you learned and developed through these. Again there should be examples to support all that you say.

paragraph 4 should go on to demonstrate how the skill developed in later projects, again backed by examples, and reflecting back on how this represents moves forward for you from your early position.

paragraph 5 short conclusion

Kick ass soundtrack- Postmodernism

The sound track.
1. "Stand Up" The Prodigy 5:08
2. "Kick Ass (Radio Edit)" Mika vs. RedOne 3:11
3. "Can't Go Back" Primal Scream 3:46
4. "There's a Pot a Brewin'" The Little Ones 3:13
5. "Omen" The Prodigy 3:54
6. "Make Me Wanna Die" The Pretty Reckless 3:55
7. "Banana Splits (Kick-Ass Film Version)" The Dickies 2:04
8. "Starry Eyed" Ellie Goulding 2:57
9. "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us" Sparks 3:03
10. "We're All In Love" The New York Dolls 4:50
11. "Bongo Song" Zongamin 5:00
12. "Per Qualche Dollaro in Più (For a Few Dollars More)" Ennio Morricone 2:53
13. "Bad Reputation" The Hit Girls 2:56
14. "An American Trilogy" Elvis Presley 4:31

The score.
1. "The Armenian Superhero" Henry Jackman, Marius De Vries 1:59
2. "Stand Up" The Prodigy 3:32
3. "Forcefield" Marius De Vries 1:05
4. "Watching" Henry Jackman 1:01
5. "Man in the Mirror" Henry Jackman 1:08
6. "A Punch in the Chest" Marius De Vries 0:45
7. "Roof Jump" Marius De Vries,Eshkeri 1:31
8. "Time to Engage" Henry Jackman 0:26
9. "Stabbing-Morphine" Marius De Vries, The Prodigy 1:56
10. "I'm Kick-Ass" Henry Jackman 1:16
11. "Famous"Jackman,Murphy, Marius De Vries, Ilan Eshkeri 2:22
12. "A Friend Like You" Marius De Vries 0:43
13. "Walk to Rasul's" Danny Elfman 0:58
14. "Trick or Treat?" Marius De Vries, Ilan Eshkeri 2:43
15. "Leaving Rasul's" John Murphy 1:18
16. "Hit-Girl & Big Daddy" John Murphy 2:39
17. "Damon & Marcus Comic Book" Henry Jackman, John Murphy 3:24
18. "I Miss You Both" John Murphy, Ilan Eshkeri 1:40
19. "Hunting Kick-Ass" Henry Jackman 1:04
20. "MistMobile" Henry Jackman 1:40
21. "Big Daddy Kills" John Murphy 2:50
22. "One Last Time" Marius De Vries 0:57
23. "Sleepover" Marius De Vries 1:57
24. "To Brooklyn Bridge" Marius De Vries 1:42
25. "Safehouse / Ambush" John Murphy 2:34
26. "Showtime Pt. 2 John Murphy 2:25
27. "Nightvision" John Murphy 1:57
28. "Strobe (Adagio in D Minor)" John Murphy 2:02
29. "Big Daddy Dies" Henry Jackman, John Murphy 1:33
30. "Hit-Girl Drives Home" John Murphy 1:42
31. "Marshmallows" John Murphy 1:12
32. "Choose Your Weapon" Ilan Eshkeri 1:26
33. "You Got Five Minutes" Marius De Vries 0:35
34. "No Power, No Responsibility" Henry Jackman 1:16
35. "The Corridor" John Murphy 1:16
36. "Kitchen Stand Off" John Murphy, Ilan Eshkeri 1:19
37. "The Fight" Jackman, Murphy, De Vries, Eshkeri 3:12
38. "Flying Home" Henry Jackman, John Murphy 1:49
39. "True Identity" Henry Jackman 1:39

Henry Jackman
"The Da Vinci Code"
"Pirates of the Caribbean"
"The Holiday"
"At World's End"
"The Simpsons Movie"
"Vantage Point"
"Kung Fu Panda"
"The Dark Knight"
"Hancock"
"Monsters vs. Aliens"
"Henri IV"
"Gulliver's Travels"
"X-Men: First Class"
"Winnie the Pooh"
"Kick-Ass"



This is from the scene where big daddy kills all of the 'baddies' in the wearhouse. This peice of music was also used in the film 28 days later.

Inglorious bastards. Postmodernism.

Story line.
In Nazi occupied France, young Jewish refugee Shosanna Dreyfus witnesses the slaughter of her family by Colonel Hans Landa. Narrowly escaping with her life, she plots her revenge several years later when German war hero Fredrick Zoller takes a rapid interest in her and arranges an illustrious movie premiere at the theater she now runs. With the promise of every major Nazi officer in attendance, the event catches the attention of the "Basterds", a group of Jewish-American guerilla soldiers led by the ruthless Lt. Aldo Raine. As the relentless executioners advance and the conspiring young girl's plans are set in motion, their paths will cross for a fateful evening that will shake the very annals of history.
Cast.
Brad Pitt ... Lt. Aldo Raine
Mélanie Laurent ... Shosanna Dreyfus
Christoph Waltz ... Col. Hans Landa
Eli Roth ... Sgt. Donny Donowitz
Michael Fassbender ... Lt. Archie Hicox
Diane Kruger ... Bridget von Hammersmark
Daniel Brühl ... Pvt. Fredrick Zoller



Director.
Quentin Tarantino.


Born:March 27, 1963.



Influences for IB...
The white hell of pitz palu (1929)



The inglorious bastards (1978)



True romance (1993)



Blaxploitation
Examples of this are...

Shaft (1971) directed by Gordan parks



Black dinamite (2009) Scott Sanders



Blaxploitation is a film genre that emerged in the United States circa 1971 when many exploitation films were made specifically for an audience of urban black people; the word itself is a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation," and was coined in the early 1970s. Blaxploitation films were the first to feature soundtracks of funk and soul music. These films starred primarily black actors. When set in the Northeast or West Coast of the U.S., Blaxploitation films tend to take place in the ghetto, dealing with hit men, drug dealers and pimps. The genre frequently takes place in an atmosphere of crime and drug-dealing. Ethnic slurs against whites,and negative white characters like corrupt cops, politicians, prostitutes and gullible gangsters were common. Blaxploitation films set in the South often take place on a plantation, dealing with slavery and miscegenation.

Spaghetti Western
Examples of this is ...
The good the bad and the ugly (1966)


For a few dollars more (1965)



Spaghetti Western, also known as Italo-western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western film that emerged in the mid-1960s, so named because most were produced and directed by Italians. The language in which the movies were originally released was Italian as well. Typical themes in spaghetti westerns include the Mexican Revolution, Mexican bandits, and the border region shared by Mexico and the United States.


Ennio Morricone

Is an Italian composer and conductor.
He is considered one of the most prolific and influential film composers of his era Morricone has composed and arranged scores for more than 500 film and TV productions. He is well-known for his long-term collaborations with international acclaimed directors such as Sergio Leone, Brian De Palma, Barry Levinson, and Giuseppe Tornatore.

Simple WW2 timeline...

Things needed to do for ford. Postmodernism

-Biography.
-Filmography.
-Reviews of Inglourious Basterds.
-Music used in the film. Include a list of songs with reference to their original source.
-Description of Blaxploitation. Include film clips and music as examples.
-Description of Spaghetti Western and Western. Include film clips and music as examples.
-Ennio Morricone.
-A simple timeline of World War II.
-After watching the film you need to think about the following:

-Other postmodern elements e.g.: the foot fetish, the 'reveal' of the set, intertextuality etc
-Postmodern theory. Try to apply them to the film.
-Write a couple of paragraphs about the postmodern aspects in the film, as you understand them. Your research should help with this.

Baudrillard - Hyperreality & simulacra and simulation

Hyperreality.
lets take the coke advert...

As you can see from this advert you get the impression that this bottle of 'ice-cold coke' has been especially made for the man who put the coin into the machine. But as we know there isnt a little fantacy world behind the coke machine that is what we are made to believe. As we know coke is made in a factory and it hasnt been made in the way is shown; infact its just carbonated water made to look like somthing its not. this advert is a hypereality of the bottle of coke.

Simulacra and simulation.

Fiske- Genre. Postmodernism.

Fiske said that we see and make sence of the world not through our own experiences but through how media portrays the world. This can be linked to kick-ass. We understand kick-ass as a film and why it works as a film is because the peopple who have watched it have hopefully watched other superhero/action films to help them understand it. For example at the begining you see this clip of a person jumping off the top of a bulding but because of the context of the film he doesnt fly he just falls to the ground and smacks into a car. This clip has been made funny because in 'Batman' and action/superhero film you hopefully have seen beforehand so you understannd that in a superhero film they jump of the top of buildings to show there power of flying.

Postmodernism.

Theoretical background to Postmodernism

List of things i need to do.

-Fiske
-derrida
-Bricolage
-simulacra and simulation
-baudrillard (hyperreality)
-pastiche (imitate nice) homage (nice) parody (not nice)
-Leotard (grand and samll narative)
-plurasism and relitivism.

Need to create a post on each of these to consolidate my learning.

Postmodernism, Derrida

"The centre is not the centre. The concept of a centred structure is...contradictorily coherent. And as always, coherence in contradiction expresses the force of desire" Derrida