Week 11 - Forum

Construction and destruction in music;That was the topic of this week’s forum; however, many other (and in few cases non-relevant) issues popped up and were discussed in the session.
Simon Whitelock (the dude that accused me of not having any understanding of mainstream western music) was the first to present his ideas. He –as a DJ- has enough experience –and therefore qualifications- to comment on other’s “cover” works and the way they manipulate songs initially composed, arranged and performed by someone else.
He said that in many cases, the result is good but the way they –again- manipulate others’ tunes is not particularly justified (or as he addressed it, it’s just “Jacking” stuff!). I can agree with him on the point that many musicians gain their reputation and success “because” of something that they haven’t really been involved in. In other words, many icons (for example Crazy Frog) owe all their success to another person; they just have been wise enough to use the best thing and give the best shot in the right time and right place, but..
I also do believe that the intelligence needed for such an act could be appreciated; at least I appreciate it. In the session, I took the example of an anonymous musician who just becomes popular because some famous person takes his or her song and introduces it to public. (What Madonna did with Mirwais) and I think both parties are happy and the issue is a “win-win” game. However, due to freedom of speech and all these stuff everyone can have his/her own opinion; especially in a highly subjective issue of music.
Nathan Shea went second and expressed his opinions on a “death-metal” composer who was strongly spending effort NOT to come up with something mainstream, pop-sounding and commercial. In his viewpoint, numerous works of musicians working in fields of death-metal, black-metal and other “prefix”-metal genres were examples of deconstructing rules and mainstream portrait. I almost completely agree with him but I think there are few other examples which could be added to this; Many of musicians who basically “started” a new genre or/and eventually became icons of that particular genre (Jimi Hendrix, Curt Cobain, Ozzy, etc..) were breaking rules and ordinary settings of popular music in the first place, anyway. I think the values and benefits of “deconstructing what is supposed to be the rule” is not exclusive to black or death metal.
John Delany went third and talked about the fact of deconstruction (or might be construction!) of music in order to produce ambient (or particularly in the case of the music he played “scary”) themes for movies. He introduced and talked about the use of non-ordinary sounds in the context of a sound theme. In my opinion he was focusing on the impact of the whole idea of construction and deconstruction in music and its result which not just necessarily is bad, but also is listenable and enjoyable in many particular cases.
Although I am a big fan of ambient music, I don’t think I am qualified enough to comment on this idea that much. I do agree with John that making music while deconstruction rules, or sounds could possibly result in a valuable and creative (and also good-sounding) tune but I can also think of many cases in which the experiments of destruction, mainly in ambient music have resulted in tunes which don’t really sound good to me!

References:
Whitelock, S. "Forum week 11", at University of Adelaide, 24/05/2007
Shea, N."Forum week 11", at University of Adelaide, 24/05/2007
Delaney, J. "Forum week 11", at University of Adelaide, 24/05/2007