• Home
  • Listen
    • List of Compositions >
      • Opera/Music Drama/Film >
        • 1619 Opera Cycle >
          • About 1619 Opera Cycle
          • So Far Behind Now Because of Then
          • Opera #2
        • Four Freedoms >
          • About Four Freedoms
        • The Grey Land >
          • About The Grey Land >
            • The Grey Land NOTES & INFO
            • The Grey Land WORDS
            • The Grey Land SESSION PHOTOS
            • The Grey Land PRESS_REVIEWS
        • The Loves of Pharaoh >
          • About The Loves of Pharaoh
      • Large Ensembles (18+) >
        • Changing Same
        • The Grey Land
        • The Loves of Pharaoh
        • Vipassana
      • Choir >
        • Everywhere in the World, prologue from Four Freedoms
        • Everywhere in the World, epilogue from Four Freedoms
        • The People Get Tired of Dying from The Grey Land
        • The Undisappeared
        • We Couldn't Wait Anymore from Four Freedoms
        • We Have it in Our Power from To Begin the World Over Again
      • Orchestra >
        • Pharaoh Scrolls
        • The Loves of Pharaoh
        • Vipassana
        • The Polar Express
      • Band >
        • Climb
        • The Gates of the Wonder-World Open
        • The Long Now
        • Quiet Earth
      • Solo & Chamber Music >
        • Bushwhack
        • Limn
        • Fire Quiet
        • Erelong
        • Lovivance
        • Never Has Been Yet
        • Shibboleths
        • Scission
        • Es Stehen Unbeweglich
        • Serendipity
        • The Red Book
        • Pharaoh Scrolls
        • To Begin The World Over Again
        • Unlimited
        • The Distance of the Moon
        • 110 Percent
        • Memory of Red Orange Laid Out in Still Waves
        • Liquid Timepieces
        • Beautiful Thing
        • Usher (Variations)
        • Kelip-Kelip
        • Rihla
        • Race
        • The Lady Who Sailed the Soul
        • Seeker
        • The Eloquent Light
        • Still Love Remains
        • The Spell of a Vanishing Loveliness
        • Tapestry
        • The Sun at Midnight
        • Passion of a Quiet Flower
        • Adrian
        • Sweetness
        • The Polar Express (Chamber)
        • Quantum Fluctuations
        • Keyser Söze
        • Penumbra
        • A Tear of the Clouds
        • Flying
        • Madame Press Never Had to Holler at Morty
        • To Kyoto
        • Lost in the Stars
        • rothko
        • The Smoke that Thunders
        • Urban Sketches
      • Music for Dance
      • Electronic Music >
        • The Bellagio Fountain Has Been Known To Make Me Cry
      • Miscellaneous >
        • To the Land Touching the Heavens
        • Seeker
        • Into all the Valleys Evening Journeys
    • Recordings
  • Feel
    • The Numinous Experience
    • Photos
    • Videos
  • Think
    • About Joe
    • About Numinous
  • Know
    • News
    • Press
    • The Numinosum Blog
  • Contact
  Numinous The Music of Joseph C. Phillips Jr.

The Numinosum Blog

Can the thick skinned beast survive uncut?

11/12/2009

0 Comments

 
Over at Greg Sandow's blog one of his reader's named Janis has a wonderfully intriguing idea inspired by the Star Wars Uncut website.

Here's the idea as Janis describes it:

Take a well-known shortish piece of music (not an obscure one, one that a lot of people know, like a nice standalone piece of Beethoven's 9th or the end of the William Tell overture), and break it up into bits, perhaps twelve measures apiece. 

Open them up to being "claimed" by people online, probably students. Each student claims a chunk of the music ... and interprets it however they want.  Some will play it straight on an oboe or violin.  Others may whistle it.  Others will use synths, others can hum it, still others can bang on kitchen pots.  They upload their "chunks."


Then ... stitch the pieces together and play it.


Some of my thoughts about the idea for classical music, are over in the comments at Greg's blog, but here's a point I said there and I'll repeat here:

SW [Star Wars] is quite iconic, even the causal moviegoer or non-sci-fi fan, knows SW. While the Beethoven and Rossini examples are quite known, I don't think they rise to the same level of coverage in the general public's consciousness as SW. And sure the people who are doing the SW send-ups are probably SW fanatics, but the people who view it are, my guess, more broad than that since the movie goes beyond sci-fi fans. I don't think you'd ever get the same broad cross-section of listeners with a classical music version.

As an idea for classical music fans, I think it is great and a very fun thing to try. Heck, I might even try my hand at one little chuck of Beethoven if the idea becomes reality. But part of the idea reminds me of various responses (rebukes?) of some of the ways artists today have to keep coming up with more and different 'pitches', just to be heard over the din of societal "overchoice". Really?!, how relevant can classical music (or jazz or any art, for that matter) be in today's world, if the only way to get the layperson to listen to or see your work is to create a Rossini mix contest or a YouTube Symphony? or put a shark in formaldehyde? (or, in a completely different vein, to hide your son in the attic in hopes of a reality show? or yell "You Lie!") Are these truly the ways to create a lasting connoisseur of one's work or position in today's world?

Artists, musicians, actors, writers and other creative types (not to mention politicians) always had to be imaginative barkers when marketing themselves and their image to the public. As Jacques Barzan wrote in The Use and Abuse of Art, "Historically, the artist has been a slave, an unregarded wage earner, a courtier, clown and sycophant, a domestic, finally an unknown citizen trying to arrest the attention of a huge anonymous mass public and compel it to learn his name." And I'm not knocking people for trying these different ways to be heard; it is actually fun to come up with meaningful and real avenues to connect listeners with one's artistic product. I'm just wondering why it seems so much harder these days? what has changed to make it so?

Anyway, check out The Star Wars Uncut site if you haven't, it is pretty fun seeing what people have done with their scene and it reminds me of some of the continued voyages of fans in the Star Trek universe. Not that I have seen those...really, I haven't...really...

POSTED BY NUMINOUS AT 10:10 PM
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    The Numinosum

    To all things that create a sense of wonder and beauty that inspires and enlightens.

    numinousmusic.com

    Archives

    December 2021
    October 2021
    October 2020
    May 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    May 2015
    August 2014
    December 2013
    September 2013
    May 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    September 2009
    August 2009
    July 2009
    June 2009
    May 2009
    April 2009

    Categories

    All
    Album Review
    Analysis
    BAM
    Book Review
    Changing Same
    Composer Salon
    Concert Announcement
    Concert Review
    Ecstatic Music Festival
    Film
    Inside Vipassana
    Interlake HS
    Mixed Music
    Music Announcement
    New Amsterdam Records
    Next Wave Festival
    Opinion
    Performance Review
    Press
    Program Notes
    PS 321
    Pulse
    Remembrances
    The Loves Of Pharaoh
    The Numinous
    To Begin The World Over Again (Thomas Paine Project)
    Truth
    Video
    Vipassana

    RSS Feed

Thanks and credit to all the original photos on this website to: David Andrako, Concrete Temple Theatre, Marcy Begian, Ed Lefkowicz, Donald Martinez, Kimberly McCollum, Geoff Ogle, Joseph C. Phillips Jr., Daniel Wolf-courtesy of Roulette, Andrew Robertson, Viscena Photography, Jennifer Wohrle, Carolyn Wolf, Mark Elzey, Numinosito. The Numinous Changing Same album design artwork by DM Stith. The Numinous The Grey Land album design and artwork by Brock Lefferts. Contact for photo credit and information on specific images.