Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Configurable Music: The Next Step?
Here's an anecdote about myself that I hope will shed some light on my views on configurable music and culture as a whole: I am an oboist. As a musician who plays an instrument that is hundreds of years old I am fortunate enough to bave access to a large catalogue of diverse music to play, a catalogue including music from the Baroque era. Taking place during the 17th century it is safe to say that now Baroque performance is one in which musicians must interpret what they assume the composer wanted. Key to Baroque performance is the insertion of ornamentation in which a musician essentially ad-libs the written music (yes it's like R&B with white-powdered wigs). Ornamentation however at least to me is similar to configurable culture because it in a way allows musicians (even oboists) to remix the piece. In a lesson when my teacher said ornament this way and I ornament in a different way, we are each offering up our own interpretation of what the piece is. Here's an extreme exampel. Arcangelo Corelli composed a concerto for the oboe that is now printed as the Corelli-Barbirolli Concerto, John Barbirolli was a conductor and composer who rearaanged the piece (mostly by placing specific ornaments) for wife, an oboist. Is this is not cofigurable culture? Maybe Barbirolli didn't use a computer to do it but even to sit at a piano and take Corelli's original themes and crafts is to me a form of remix. Remix is not an antagonistic art-form and it is not something that is "unartistic". As several remix artists point out in Aram's dissertation, popular culture as a whole took a long time become something people could respect or appreciate. Take the film for example. That medium took a while to become recognized as a form of art and it also took a long time to become organized and regulated. Perhaps this is the missing piece to the puzzle? Remix culture needs to regulated. Culture used to be held as something for the elite and pop culture destroyed that ideology providing culture to the masses. Remix culture stands to say that culture exists outside of institution (or at least certain remix artists espouse that idea)- perhaps this artform is ushering a major development in the way we understand the word culture? I don't think it should be stifled and ironically though I say remix culture is about taking culture out of instiutionalization I still think it should be institutionalized to assist with it becoming legitamized in mainstream society. Imagine a remix board that kept files of all remixes, what was sampled- perhaps this organization is a government one that acts as an advocate for configurable artists helping them obtain samples in a speedy manner, and perhaps paying for licensing fees with a government budget. What I've just suggested might sound ludicrous but hey the government has spent money on far more foolish things in the past. To reiterate my point, more and more people are obtaining culture from places like Youtube- places that are practically shrines to configurable culture. These artform can't be buried away anymore, regardless of legal action or no legal action.
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