January 22nd, 2008
Stephan R. Lewis is a professional photographer. He accepted to share his knowledge with us, with this exclusive article.
The value of photographic prints
I have been in the photo industry trenches for a long time and have watched many things come and go in popularity.
When I say ‘trenches’ I mean not the glamour part of the industry that you see everyday on magazine covers, beautiful and famous people, but rather the nuts and bolts of mass producing press release photos of tired employees, photographs of products for advertising for small business, other time sensitive materials with a short shelf life, created for immediate usage with no value once the deadline has come and gone.
My actual primary concern at the beginning of my career was printing archival black and white photographs for exhibition and professional use, art prints designed to last 100+ years, so the disposable and transient nature of consumer photography amazed me.
Which brings me to the popularity of one-hour photo finishing of snapshots that existed until recently. Everything from birthday parties and Christmases, the latest vacation snaps and spontaneous party photos to out of focus and overexposed close-ups of newborn babies, dog noses and amateur porn.
Everyone seemed to be shooting like crazy and getting prints that ended up in a box or still in the envelope, if they (the prints) were lucky they were put in a photo album or even framed on the wall- or maybe just stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet.
110, 126 and 35mm cameras made it easy and affordable to make photos, fun, quick and relatively cheap. Then came APS, the last gasp of film as a consumer product, and now we have the most insidious of all- the camera built into your cell phone and all types of image capturing devices. These devices are so great because once you have bought one your ongoing expenses theoretically are nothing- but computer time!
A big part of my photo lab duties has always been restoring old photographs. Photographs from 1890, torn and or folded images from the 1950s, photographs that had Dad cut out in the 60s after a bad divorce and the kids want him reinserted in the 90s! I have worked on wallet sized prints that had in fact been in a wallet for 20 years until someone realized it was the ONLY print of that person and now they needed an 8×10 for the wall, for the memorial service… the oldest photograph I ever worked on was from 1849. Plenty of those images I have worked so hard to restore and make like new had started out as ‘happy snaps’ and ended up being the only or last or best photograph of someone beloved and, sadly, now departed.
Why? People forget - photographs are priceless, one-of-a kind records of a specific moment in time, a moment that will never occur again, a method of capturing and preserving memory that mankind has only had for about 160 years.
As small children we go through the family photo albums, laughing at the way people used to dress, marveling at how much someone looks like great-grandpa, examining vintage cars and houses, looking at things and people that no longer exist. History.
Now we have digital photography, images that might never leave the memory card, maybe get stashed in a folder on the desktop, turned into a slide show that can only be seen on that specific computer, at best uploaded to share with friends and family online. Where will these images be in 20 years?
Is the current advent of technology creating an attitude towards photography that is undermining its inherent value as a historical record, thoughtlessly making it too disposable and transient to be appreciated and preserved?
I photograph lots of special events, large groups, and school kids and sales of prints from these sessions are down markedly. After spending 30 minutes setting up a group shot and capturing it with my high-end digital camera, with the intent of selling true photographic prints designed to last 50 or more years, a Mom or kid next to me will hold up their camera phone and grab a shot and figure: “Got it!” and good enough. As a result, they don’t buy a thing.
Then they get home and maybe look at their quickie capture, email it to grandma and forget about it. Ultimately it may be saved under an incomprehensible filename or not at all, put on a hard drive that will inevitably crash, or uploaded to a website that ceases to exist in three years, or even worse- forgotten about altogether!
Let me tell you people- that camera phone image, that image on your computer screen is not a memory preserved for all time! As long as it is not PRINTED, a physical hard copy that can be whipped out years and years later, it only exists for the moment.
Do yourself a favor. Print that photograph and put it in a photo album so your kids, your grandkids, maybe even their children can see what you looked like on your myspace or Yahoo profile in 2008!
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January 19th, 2008
This article is written by web designer Josh Gutteridge who runs Skyte Media. Skyte Media is based in the Midlands (England) and is a professional web design company that specialises in web design and development. Josh would like to receive comments about this article on his blog. But of course you can comment it also here, on ManuelMarino.com!
How Has the Internet Affected the Music Industry?
Music has always been something that has inspired mankind. Sir Thomas Beecham once said ‘a musicologist is a man who can read music but can’t hear it’. The pure beauty of music is that we can all listen to the same notes played by many different instruments, yet make our own individual conclusions with regards to what the music means to us; and nobody can argue.
It is not in the nature of this post to go in depth on musical history. Nonetheless, music has developed rapidly through the ages with the vinyl when it was first really used in 1948 by Columbia Records. Since then the music industry has seen the use of the Audio-Cassette and Compact Disc (CD).
Consequently, since the internet became more widely available it has made music more easily accessed by such means as Online Music Stores. There are thousands of these stores online including three of the most famous: iTunes, Napster and Rhapsody (US only). Let’s focus in on iTunes; an offshoot of the famous/infamous Apple Company (delete as applicable).
I refer to iTunes as the ‘pied piper of the 21st century’ lulling people into easily downloading content with minimal hassle. iTunes is a free piece of software developed by the Apple company at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. This allows you to download digital music, music videos, television shows, iPod games, audio books, various pod casts and in the USA feature length films, and ringtones. Downloaded content can then be used to create your own play lists and personalised albums to burn to CD. It can also be transferred onto various different types of iPod including the new iPhone making music more accessible and easy to get hold of.
How does this affect the ordinary person who enjoys listening to their preferred genre(s) of music?
In this case, music has never been so easily manipulated and accessible. We live in a convenience obsessed world with personalised portals such as Last FM where you can listen to any artist known to mankind, you can listen to personalised internet radio with Pandora and also listen to all the music and view the videos on YouTube. It doesn’t take much effort to rip music (ripping is the term for digital audio extraction). The cost of downloading an album from the net is generally cheaper than an album brought in the shops, after all, downloads should cost less as there are less overheads for the record label to pay for: CD sleeve, CD case, CD cost, copying equipment etc.
How does this affect the music industry?
Some artists find the concept of the internet hard to adapt to; however, as they are forced into the mould of technology modern artists tend to embrace the internet as a friend rather than a foe. They view it as a ‘creative and inspiration-enhancing workspace where they can communicate, collaborate, and promote their work’ - Mary Madden (Research Specialist) in her project ‘Artists, Musicians and the Internet’. Sites such as MySpace have helped Artists and Musicians address their target audience rousing more interest in their style of music.
But let’s face it; there will always be people that are looking to find a loophole. I’m talking about those who engage in illegal music downloading. Experts admit that illegal downloads will never be stopped. This messes up the system and makes it unfair for both the artist and the people who are paying for downloads. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has joined forces with the Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) to take legal action against internet file-sharers.
How will illegal downloader’s effect record labels? A record label makes, distributes and markets sound recordings; basically at the end of the day they’re out there to make money. The music industry produce mainly alums…how many albums have you brought just because you like one song? I have! We’re forced to buy albums to get the songs we love. As sales figures are falling record labels will be forced to look at the logic. Are people going to buy a whole album or just download one song? What effects do you think this will bring? Might we see a rise in the cost of internet downloads?
So in conclusion we have seen that the music industry has created stronger ties with new technology over the past decades and now can only go forward. We have seen that internet music downloads can be both an advantage and a disadvantage as we see the battle between the illegal downloader and the record companies continues. However, it is safe to conclude people – adapt or die!
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January 16th, 2008
Ziggy Olivier wrote this article. He met Dylan Thomas and spent some of his youth drinking whisky with him. He said me: “Everything you may have read about him was true.”
Reflections on some well loved Poets
Approaching my own demise, I was delighted this Christmas to receive from a teenage granddaughter a gift that I will cherish – Richard Burton’s famous reading of Under Milk Wood. More so that she should be aware of the poem and have a liking for it’s hypnotic, entrancing language.
Sensual, beautiful, musical prose with indelible images of people and their behaviour.
Here was rich irony - an ageing man once again enjoying a work in which inevitable death is one of the recurring themes!
I do not have the talent to fully describe my sense of well being as I sipped an ancient Macallan and revisited fond memories from my youth as I listened, with my granddaughter, to the cadence of those words describing our human condition.
Only those who have heard Dylan Thomas reading it himself have known better, for he had a wonderful, rich, appealing voice which enveloped you into his magical world.
‘It is night neddying among the snuggeries of babies.
Look. It is night, dumbly, royally winding through the Coronation cherry trees; going through the graveyard of Bethesda with winds gloved and folded, and dew doffed; tumbling by the Sailors Arms.
Time passes. Listen. Time passes.
Come closer now.
Only you can hear the houses sleeping in the streets in the slow deep salt and silent black, bandaged night.’
This reminded me of Eliot in the love song of J. Alfred Prufrock
‘The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.’
Eliot did remark, somewhere, words to the effect that young poets imitate and mature poets ‘borrow’ ? I can forgive Dylan for pinching an idea for his poetry transports us into a wonderful world of rich imagery.
In the after glow, once the reading had finished,the moment was almost spoilt when she asked if I could help her with an essay she had to write on the poem and I realised she would be researching reviews by critics who would destroy her blossoming love of such song language as they reduced it to comment such as Edith Sitwell writing of his ‘distorted syntax and religious symbolism.’
Critical essays too often review art entirely in terms of life reminding me of Eliot’s
“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”
Why must we bow to academic interpretations of our emotions?
Robert Frost commented that poetry is what gets lost in translation and Eliot firmly believed that poetry communicates before it is understood.
University almost destroyed my love of literature as we sweated over critical essays trying to explain some masterpiece or another.
Like Joyce, Thomas can be almost incomprehensible but any great writer uses language that is different to the way we speak and because of its intense imagery causes our emotions to provide us with a deeper view of life.
Dry intellect is no match for emotion in driving our soul for it is emotion that stirs us to action.
So I discussed with her ways and means for her to say what the poem meant to her. How she understood it was more important than some critic’s view, for I did not want to destroy that magic that had impacted deep into her young soul.
Ultimately, in a small fictional Welsh town called Llareggub, as the long night approaches, you realise that such critic’s voices do indeed mean ‘buggerall’.
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January 14th, 2008
Doug Stahnke is a sculptor. And this is a wonderful exclusive article he wrote for us.
The Elegance of the Art
Let me begin by first defining some terms as I apply them:
talent – I think there is a simple truth here. You were either born with it or you weren’t. But talent comes in many varieties and categories. Many people have talents they haven’t discovered; or they have discovered them but choose not to pursue them. I believe everybody has some sort of talent. It could be painting, drawing, or sculpting. It could be singing, playing musical instruments, or having a special sense of rhythm. It could be cooking, designing fashions or in architecture. It could be in writing, film making, dramatic acting, comedy or magic. It could be one’s business acumen in financial management, marketing, design engineering or in leading a workforce. It could be very clearly in your dreams. This list could go on ad nausea.
passion – The drive to start, pursue and complete your next creation. An Artist without passion is a hacker.
hacker – One who is experimenting or exploring in an attempt to discover and develop one’s talents. If one’s initial experiment is critiqued as having even a modicum of beauty by even one reviewer, passion may start to grow. The downside is hackers can be very critical of their own work, which can kill their passion. This, in turn, may cause the hacker to bury his talents. Some hackers may create a work and then trash it, showing it to no one.
beauty – Is in the eye of the beholder? Many creations, even though the Artist has completed his work, start out ugly. The work can be transformed into one of beauty when just one person openly opines and says, “Now isn’t that a work of beauty!” If those folks who sloughed it off overheard this comment, they will likely take a second look, another taste, or even ask to hear it again. Then, hopefully a second person will soon chime, “I like it!”, with others hearing the appreciative praise. Then three, four, and five, etc., will follow in the appreciative. A work of Art can be transformed from ugly to beautiful starting with one simple, favorable opinion.
ugly – The reciprocal or opposite of beauty. One unfavorable opinion, openly stated, can negatively influence the acceptance of one’s work in a larger group. This can happen and carry many other opinions down with it.
Artist – One who creates something, with at least a modicum of passion, and asks someone else, “Well, what do you think?”
critical acclaim – The one person who stated your work had beauty, influenced another to pay money for your creation, while you were still alive. How frequently can you repeat such action? I don’t ever recall meeting an Artist who wished to reach critical acclaim only after they were dead.
media – Whatever stuff the Artist decides to use to create his work.
The Elegance of My Art
I am basically a sculptor. The roots of my talent go back to my childhood. I always liked to make something or build something. If someone else made something, I liked to take it apart to see how he did it. My current work is to sculpt crafts and pieces of furniture; write about what I’ve sculpted, illustrate it, make it into a “Set of Plans”, then sell the Plans through my Website. I call them ePlanSets. I want to have many people, all over the world, build, or sculpt my projects for their own enjoyment, just like I do.
Do I have any passion? It’s either that, or I am just plain nuts. My media is Plastic Pipe and Plastic Pipe Fittings. You know like PVC or ABS Plastic. It’s actually quite an easy media with which to work… for instance it’s much easier than working with wood. All of my designs are totally elegant. You can clearly see the elegance in my Table CenterPiece, my Candle Holders, the furniture in my Master Bedroom Suite, as well as many others.
One of my favorite, critically acclaimed sculptors is Michelangelo. I know, he was also a painter, an engineer and an architect, too. He would often consider himself a hacker because he was so dissatisfied with his work. I remember hearing a Michelangelo quote about his Angel sculpture, “I could see the Angel in the stone. All I had to do was chip away what didn’t belong to her!” Of course, Michelangelo works have all reached quite an enviable level of critical acclaim… even before he died.
Following the magic of Michelangelo, I frequently go to the plastic pipe fittings section, of the plumbing department, in my favorite home improvement store. There, I hold up some fittings, starting with like maybe a toilet flange, and very quietly say to myself, “I can see a lamp!” Or maybe, “I can see a Candle Holder!”
I am still waiting for my own Critical Acclaim to grow. So, what do you think?
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January 11th, 2008
Ananda Sukarlan is an Indonesian composer and pianist living in Spain. This is an article he wrote for a magazine which has been published a few years ago in Spanish. We are very proud to have the original in English which has never been published anywhere, so this is an exclusive writing for ManuelMarino.com. Read his Blog and visit Jakarta New Year Concert page (he is the founder and director). Also, you can listen to some of his music compositions on YouTube.
The Emperor’s New Clothes
“It is not enough to deface the Mona Lisa because that does not kill the
Mona Lisa. All art of the past must be destroyed.” — (Pierre Boulez)
“I dare suggest that the composer would do himself and his music an immediate
and eventual service by total, resolute and voluntary withdrawal from this
public world to one of private performance and electronic media.“ – (Milton
Babbitt)
“What happened there is (…) the biggest artwork of all times. That spirits
achieve in a single act what we in music cannot dream of, that people rehearse
ten years long like mad, totally fanatical for a concert and then die.
This is the biggest artwork that exists at all in the whole universe…
I couldn’t match it.” (K. Stockhausen, on the 9/11 attack ) . — All quotes
are from The New York Times.
Those three composers are supposedly “great” composers of the 20th century. Their piano works (in fact, ALL their works) were written “for the future” in the 1950s and 60s, when they were (and still are) a tough nut to crack for both the pianist and the audience. Now, if they were indeed “great”, as Chopin or Bach undoubtedly were, why are their works still not in the repertory of most pianists or other instrumentalists ? And why don’t we members of humanity, no matter how “retarded” we are according to those “great” artists, respect them now as we respect Schumann or even their contemporaries such as Shostakovich or Stravinsky ? When is the “future” they were talking about ? Is 2007 not “future” enough for those works created half a century ago?
The answer is simple. Boulez, Babbitt and Stockhausen are (or were) “great”, because they rely on, and receive huge government subsidies and were leaders of a very small but controlling establishment consisting of academics, critics and art politicians. They are “great” according to their colleagues in this group, but not according to musicians and the public. In fact, their “avantgarde” music is mostly written against musicians and the public. It even goes so far as calling the 9/11 event “the greatest artwork” (see Stockhausen’s quote above) , not only creating a work against people, but even more, killing (how can one be more against people ?) them all, “artists” and audience.
In other words, they write music to gain, and only to gain, government subsidy. What Walt Whitman said, that “Para tener grandes poetas, es necesario además grandes audiencias” is not valid anymore for this kind of “art”. In principle, government subsidies are supposed to be given to marginal artistic activities, and the more “minority oriented” that art is, the more it deserves subsidy ; this subsidy has enabled those artists to stay in their ivory towers without making any contributions at all to the public. Which is alright if one doesn’t think of the amount of taxpayers’ money that is used to subsidize those “artistic” works.
Let’s take one example: the IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique Musique) who was built by Pierre Boulez in Paris. It was kitted out with equipment to Boulez’s own specification to compose music for the future. IRCAM also swallowed 80% of the national subsidy for contemporary music of France. It was built at a cost of 90 million francs and thereafter at a cost of 15 million a year to the French taxpayer for its concerts, staff and upkeep. It happened that in 1969 Boulez got Georges Pompidou to build for him a huge high tech underground bunker , beside the site of what was to become the Pompidou Centre. Now, in 2007, shall we look back and reflect on how many masterpieces have been created out of this building ? What I mean by masterpieces are works that the general public recognise as such, like Britten’s War Requiem, Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms or, coming from the other continent, Copland’s Third Symphony. I don’t have to answer this question.
When I was living in Holland in the 1990s I had several encounters with “ex”avant-garde turned real composers, such as Toru Takemitsu, John Adams or Louis Andriessen. And it was in Holland that I met for the first time my amazing Spanish composer friends Jesus Rueda or David del Puerto (both winners of Premio Nacional de Musica, in 2004 and 2005 respectively). At that time, they were in a “transitional” period after getting out from the heavy influence of their avantgarde teacher, Paco Guerrero. All of them realized then, that our older colleagues had achieved their goals to “impress” the public by presenting them with uncommunicative works, and certainly they have gained a lot by doing that, but that we the younger generations have to pay for it. There have been composers at every corner of the street ever since, given that avantgarde music was designed to give jobs to many who could not compose in the sense of writing “traditional” music. Good or bad quality is not the criteria anymore. But there are simply not enough subsidy for all of them , whose works sound more or less the same.
Fortunately we are in a state of transition to a more audience-friendly kind of music. The avantgardists had achieved in emptying the concert halls, and now we will have to work harder to gain them back and convince them that the word “contemporary” is not equal to “avantgarde” ; on the contrary, “avantgarde” was a thing very much in the past, and not con (”with”) temporary (our time) anymore.
This situation reminds me of Hans Christian Andersen’s story, about an Emperor who is very fond of clothes. One day came 2 tailors, saying that they can make very special clothes that only good people can see. Naturally the emperor cannot see those clothes, but afraid of being called a bad person, he praises the beauty of the clothes. And if the emperor can see it, everybody in the whole country should do as well. Until comes a very young kid, much too young to be called a bad person, during the festive celebration of those clothes , shouting innocently, “Look, the Emperor is naked!”
Posted in Arts, Culture, Music | No Comments »
January 11th, 2008
Heidi Yost wrote this exclusive article. Heidi (photo) is a talented actress. In this article, she explains Film Industry situation in the southeast, talks about her experience as artist and gives also important hints for the new actors.
Growing Independent Film Industry in the Southeast
When I returned home to Louisville, Kentucky from my three year-long stint in Los Angeles as a professional actress I expected more. I anticipated that my recent win as a Marilyn Monroe Look-Alike by Premiere Magazine and my appearances on Beverly Hills 90210 and Matlock would have every talent and casting agent in Louisville falling over themselves to represent and utilize my homegrown talents and experience. It didn’t happen. I felt like Yukon Cornelius after I swung my mining pick into the ground and brought it to my mouth to taste for traces of the delicious silver and gold acting opportunities at home and “Nuthin’. Hello, I won the Marilyn Monroe look-alike contest!
Fifteen years later, to my delight everything is coming up roses in the Southeast independent film industry. Is it because I am no longer a platinum blonde ingénue and now a sultry redhead? Is it due to widely available and affordable video and film equipment? Has the increase of Los Angeles film location shooting in Kentucky infused the film community here: ELIZABETHTOWN, SEABISCUIT, THE INSIDER, STRIPES, etc, etc? The 48 Hour Film Festival, among others may have tempted some independent film makers who otherwise would not have stepped behind a camera with simple, short formats and alluring prizes. How wonderful to have developed an extensive filmography in my own hometown due to the indy boom.
Louisville has had a thriving arts community for the entirety of my life. The city has claimed a local ballet, orchestra and professional theater company: Actors Theater of Louisville (that had everyone I auditioned for in Los Angeles inquiring). The River City also boasts a cultural center, the Kentucky Center for the Arts that is used for a myriad of artistic and mind expanding events—from K.D. Lang concerts to poetry readings by Maya Angelou.
The semi-professional theaters in Louisville are also noteworthy and prolific. I cut my teeth at the KY Contemporary Theater before I got my B.A. and moved west. Pandora Productions produced a compelling version of SOUTHERN BAPTIST SISSIES. Since, then Susan Linville, Founder and actress at the Necessary Theater has offered amazing productions with compelling new scripts as does Looking for Lillith. The recent one-woman show WOMEN SPEAK IRAQ developed and performed by Shannon Woolsey was performed with such virtuosity and passion for the widest range of opinions and postures I could imagine.
My training, my stage and life experiences experience have given me the depth that I claim and utilize now as a film actress. Oftentimes, people will ask me which medium is my favorite. They both have their draws. In the live theater experience, the actress has the opportunity to get immediate feedback from the audience, has a substantial amount of time to build emotional crescendos and has the obligation and luxury to live in the moment and keep going whatever the immediate reality (not fun when scenery or a co-actor is falling on your head).
Film offers the luxury of another take, if the first one or fifteen takes aren’t the cat’s meow, you can do another. Film tends to pay better. (However, anyone who acts for the pay is a little misguided). You can capture the moment forever on film (This can be most upsetting for some who aren’t involved in savory productions). Most films have a larger audience than the theater does.
Advice for the film actress: study. If you wish to be an actress, learn from the best in your community who teach. Do not study under an opera diva and expect that you will be taught the subtleties of a fine camera performance. Do not study at modeling agencies who are primarily interested in increasing their bank accounts. Study under those who have the experience you are seeking. Universities are an excellent place to learn and perform as an actress.
If you are younger than college-age and wish to act, go see as many plays and films as you can. If you enjoy someone in a stage performance, find out his/her name and if you may have a few minutes of their time to see how they gained their polish. Community theater is a great place to start. Hopefully you will get a sane director and be able to squeeze into the cast despite the member of the board of director’s narcissistic casting. If you think that Hollywood is political—spend a summer in a community theater!
Surround yourself with positive people. If you consider someone incredibly talented as an actor or director, but he/she is constantly negative, overbearing or abusive—go elsewhere. Life is too short and no matter how badly you want to act—it’s not worth it.
The directors that have had the distinct pleasure of working with are great collaborators. Chris Courson from Lightspeed Productions first cast me as a lead in his film called EMMA’S CODE for Louisville’s 48 Hour Film Festival. Immediately after that in July 2007 he wrote the most amazing short called CIRCUS NUTS and cast me again as a lead. We were so pleased with the results we will be shooting a feature-length on this premise this summer.
Chase Dudley is a young director who was open to my suggestions when he needed other quality actors for the independent feature film LAST SEEN ALIVE (knowing people always helps good actors who are easy to work with get cast). Tracy Dudley his wife wrote an amazing screenplay with a strong female lead, Detective Malone. Tracy was very open to working together to make the script and character as believable and formidable as possible. The process and final product was such that we are planning on working together on a sequel in 2008. LAST SEEN ALIVE will be available at www.amazon.com in late January 2008.
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January 9th, 2008
“Perfessor” Bill Edwards wrote this exclusive writing about his passion, Ragtime! It’s a personal and entertaining article as well as enlightening.
Ragtime!
So Manuel finds me and he asks me to contribute something here in my field of expertise. “Write something about ragtime,” which is passion and profession. Really? Kewl. Although it’s a double-edged situation, since I’m trying to convey that passion and some history, the good part, in a few words to a rather wide audience, the tricky part.I have to start with what ragtime is and is not, and why it’s important. That will be today’s topic, and will hopefully lead to more.
What ragtime is NOT is hokey music played on out-of-tune pianos in smoky bars full of drunks singing off key. It is also not silent movie background music. Sure, it has been used in these contexts, but it is much different and much more. It is the beginning of popular music in the world as we know it today. Picture a musical funnel, if you will. On the upper end are Western classical music forms of the 18th and 19th centuries, including sonatas, gavottes, waltzes, even some symphony and opera. Coming from Eastern Europe you have marches and mazurkas. From Spain and South America come the Latin-tinged influences, many of which actually correspond directly to African rhythms, including the famous habañera. To spice things up throw in the Negro call and response spirituals of the American south, and the European-based folk songs of the Eastern US.
All of these forms mix into the mouth of this funnel to create a hybrid – the march form with the classical development and Afro/Latin-rhythms with folk melodies that are syncopated. That was the basic origin of ragtime in the 1890s. It was the first music truly indigenous to the United States. By 1905, at least in the US, almost all music written here had something to do with ragtime. Even the intermezzos and waltzes were syncopated to a degree.
Now picture a string next to the funnel. That is a form that co-developed with ragtime and mixed in with it, yet remained on its own. The name of this form is the blues, a unique 12-bar development (sometimes 8 or 16) that permeated ragtime, and even the verses of many ragtime songs. Frankie and Johnnie, although it is ragtime, is also a blues number.
Spewing out of this funnel you have forms that comprise most popular music in the Western world today. Ragtime is the direct ancestor of … [deep breath]
Country music and bluegrass (ragtime guitar picking), jazz (improvised ragtime and blues), popular song (syncopated pieces that started in the early 1900s), swing (blues again), rock and roll (again blues with syncopation), and rap.
“RAP” you cry? Yes. A black colleague of mine has come to the same conclusion. Rap is an asymmetric form of lyrical poetry that is highly syncopated and urban. Many of the lyrics of the so-called “coon” songs of the ragtime era, as unfortunate as some of them are, can readily be recited as rap and pass in today’s pop world with little modification. Even lyrics written to Scott Joplin’s famous Maple Leaf Rag talk about razor blades and fights and attitude: “Oh go way man, I can hypnotize dis nation, I can shake de earth’s foundation wid de Maple Leaf Rag! Oh go ‘way man just hold you breath a minit, For there’s not a stunt thats in it wid de Maple Leaf Rag.” I also have a rap soundtrack I use for this song during school presentations, so it remains current and relevant.
What is ragtime? Any music that is syncopated over a steady beat. In the North America and most of Europe and Australia, that’s almost ANYTHING.
Being a historian is a bit like what the CSI people do. You have a result or a conclusion, but you want to find out how that result or conclusion was reached. Some people ask “where did I come from?” I do the same for music as an advocate. Before ragtime the pieces that were popular were mostly actually kind of tragic. Think of how many songs you can write about orphaned children, shamed women, sinking ships, death, despair, etc. Those were the big hits of the 1890s. The music was somewhat tepid too, with reiterations of waltzes, marches, galops, etc. that did not resonate with many in the public. Then ragtime appears, and it’s the original Rock and Roll. Really.
Let me prove this, and keep in mind trends in our lifetime, be they Stray Cats, Nirvana, The Who, Elvis or Chuck Berry:
It was largely a music developed in the black community.
Kids loved it and parents hated it – “Turn that damn piano down”
It was more urban and less genteel, causing people to move their bodies in shocking manners.
It was banned by the musician’s union in 1902, and vilified by religious establishments.
Not convinced? OK. Most music written to that time in the US could be played on piano, organ, guitar, etc., and was generic in performance. Ragtime was the first US-based music specifically composed for piano. A typical upright piano is around 350 pounds. Of that, perhaps 190 is the cast iron plate. Add in another 50 for metal strings, 10 for tuning pins, and 20 for assorted screws, connectors, weights, etc. and you have only 80 pounds of wood and over 270 of metal. Therefore, ragtime was America’s first Heavy Metal Music.
That’s fact, and you can’t have opinions about fact, right?
Posted in Arts, Music | 2 Comments »
January 8th, 2008
Artist Robert Tucker talks about himself and his artist experience in this exclusive article.
Inspired by nature
The glorious portal of a new year is again upon me. My mind has wondered since the start of 2008 as to which direction my creative self will take.
For me a torrent of feelings were released in 2007 through the making of art. Every human being is subjected to art from the moment of birth until death regardless if they want to or not, the mean-spirited and soulful alike.
Working in both two and three dimensional art since childhood has given me a wide vista to express myself.
2007 started with exhibiting sculpture in a two person show in southern California. New Zealand, Texas, Michigan, France and Massachusetts all housed my collages in one venue or another. The year ended creating very personal mosaics of marble, tile and broken antique cups, something I had never tried before.
A year has not gone by that I can remember that collage was not part of my creative being. I have no doubt that collage started shortly after paper was invented in China around 200 B.C.
If memory serves me well the first paper collage examples known are the work of twelfth-century Japanese calligraphers, who prepared surfaces by gluing bits of fabric and paper to create a unique background for brushstrokes.
In the seventies I did some bookbinding and papermaking in my studio. Collage was often used in the fifteenth and sixteenth century in bookbinding.
George Braque and Pablo Picasso utilized collage at the turn of the 20th century making it popular and understood by the masses. Thinking back at the history of collage I cannot help but think of my personal history of collage which started at early childhood. My father was in the paper business so rolls, reams and stacks of paper were always around me, fuel for the imagination.
The fact that collage is different from other art forms because it does not dictate a particular style is an excellent medium for both the beginner and the experienced artist.
The multiple layers collage can offer an artist gives countless realms and realities.
Realms have always played a big part in my life, in my art, in my mind and my soul that is why the realm of multi-player online games took me by storm seven years ago. It was yet another avenue to express myself. I became so enthralled with these worlds/realms I became a writer/reporter for one of the largest gaming site in the world, Stratics.com.
This realm or shard afforded me a creative outlet were I could me anonymous. I was afforded that same luxury, pleasure by writing under a pseudonym for the website.
Many years back I remember a lady came through my studio during a tour hosted by the Junior League of a major art museum making the claim, “To be a great artist you must travel and travel often”. I thought the comment absurd then and I do today. I traveled to Egypt this past year and experienced the Nile River from Cairo to Abu Simbel. The textures, smells and sounds left an impression that is for sure from this exotic place. I live in my own little world like so many artists and travel has never been needed to take a journey and the journey is the seed for me. I can germinate in my own backyard just fine.
What will grow this year I still ask myself.
Posted in Arts, People | 2 Comments »
January 4th, 2008
This is another article from author Robert Benson. He writes about rock/pop music, vinyl record collecting and operates http://www.collectingvinylrecords.com, where you can pick up a copy of his ebook called “The Fascinating Hobby of Vinyl Record Collecting.”
Stephen M.H. Braitman
Putting a value on your vinyl collection
The value of vinyl records is very subjective and certainly up for debate. There are many elements that go into ascertaining just how much a specific record or a whole collection may be worth. Do you use fair market value, replacement value or record price guide value? As I found out, it all depends on the circumstances, and the best way to achieve these objectives is to have your collection professionally appraised. I had the opportunity to speak with professional appraiser and music historian Stephen M. H. Braitman about the elements that go into putting a value on a record collection.But, first, let me introduce Stephen. He has been involved with records and music since the late 60’s, writing and editing several entertainment and music publications. He also has been a dealer, buying and selling records, posters and related memorabilia throughout the years. His widely acknowledged expertise in the marketplace for music and memorabilia makes his appraisal services very important for estate planning, charitable contributions, expert testimony and for insurance and coverage claims. His many credentials include: passing the American Society of Appraisers (ASA) Principles of Practice and Code of Ethics exam in 2004, completing courses on such subjects as the Uniform Standards for Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) Personal Property Valuation, Methodology-Research and Analysis as well as the legal and commercial environment of appraisal. He is also a music analyst with Gracenote, the digital music management company.
So what does all this mean? Stephen M.H. Braitman is a qualified, certified appraiser. Why is this unique service so important? As I discussed the details of his occupation with Mr. Braitman, let’s explore some of the details that go into a record collection appraisal and how a record collection should be appraised.
“This is a new service, a new genre so to speak,” he said. “The service is being offered for those people who may have large or small collections and have really no idea their worth. Unfortunately, there are no legal requirements to qualify as an appraiser except in the real estate market, but the IRS and the Appraisal Foundation have led the way with the adoption of nationally recognized standards that reputable appraisers in all fields use. The IRS, for example, uses the concept of fair market value, meaning the agreed-upon price paid by a willing, knowledgeable buyer to a willing, knowledgeable seller. One of the reasons I entered this profession is, not only because of my love for music and music memorabilia, but because I felt that the industry needs certified appraisers to provide critical assistance in defining the values of collections for insurance purposes, estate planning, tax donation claims, personal disputes and investments. Part of the job is also being called upon as an expert witness to attest and back up the values set upon a collection. That’s where I enter the picture.”
When asked what exactly goes into an appraisal, Stephen explained:
“There are many variables that have to be recognized when placing a value on a collection. It also depends on the purpose of the appraisal. For instance, the IRS uses fair market value in determining the value of donated material. But, replacement value in insurance cases different; it’s higher because you’ll be paying a higher cost to recover certain collectibles, let’s say, that may have been lost in a fire. So, the intent of the appraisal must be taken into consideration as well.”
“We research what are comparable items in the current marketplace. There are several aspects to research that include recent and relevant sales, trend analysis, professional consensus, retail stores, auction prices as well as record guide prices. The record price guides are a nice starting point, but they may not reflect true value because of the variables just mentioned.”
“Our first order of business in an appraisal is generally to examine the physical items, if possible, and note the condition, edition or other key points of recognition. Then we conduct extensive research to ascertain the current marketability of the items. Our service concludes with a certified document that details the estimated retail value and the current wholesale value, depending on the type of appraisal. We also include a statement of the overall quality level of the item or collection, including condition, pressing edition or the cultural or historical desirability. This document exceeds the appraisal requirements of the IRS and the insurance companies.”
We discussed one of the most confusing and subjective elements regarding vinyl records: grading the vinyl. I asked Stephen what method he uses.
“It is actually a combination of many methods, including the Goldmine Standards that have been set up in their many publications, the ‘Good Rockin’ Tonight’-formula, and my own formula. I like to take it a step further and use a 100-point scale, and deduct points for every flaw, not only on the record, but the picture sleeve (if it is a 45rpm), LP jacket and cover. I would like to see a uniform standard set up sometime in the near future, something that everybody in the industry could agree on,” said Stephen.
There are also a couple of ways to have your memorabilia or record collection documented and appraised, as Stephen details:
“We actually offer two distinct services, the professional appraisal and a quick evaluation of your memorabilia or record collection. This entails you sending us a list of your items from which we provide a detailed document with a range of market values based on comparables. You’ll be able to tell whether you have something worth $1.00, $10, $100, or more. This process is quicker and less expensive that the formal appraisal and is most useful in estimating what a sale to a dealer might bring,” explained Stephen.
“Our service includes, not only the appraisal of records and record collections, but posters, flyers, handbills, programs, CDs, promotional items, tour books and other music collectibles. (I don’t handle musical instruments, which is a very different kind of specialty). It is important to have your items or collections appraised to gauge the potential replacement value, assist in estate planning goals, tax elements and other factors. I have much more information on my Website, http://www.musicappraisals.com.”
As we wrapped up our interview, we talked about our love for not only music, but the historical audio format of, vinyl records. I asked Stephen about one of his most memorable record collection appraisals.
“I did an appraisal for a gentleman in Texas and he had a wonderful and superb record collection. But, when he put on an old 78rpm of Robert Johnson and played it on his professional sound equipment, and as the music filled the room, you could have swore that Mr. Robert Johnson himself was playing for you right then and there. It was a wonderful and enlightening experience, and one I will never forget,” recalled Stephen.
So, not only does Stephen M.H. Braitman offer valuable and unique record appraisal services, he also gets to archive, appraise and handle important parts of audio history, and gets to hear them as well. And that is a reward that you can not put a value on.
Stephen’s contact information:
Website: http://www.MusicAppraisals.com
Blog: http://www.NeedleScreech.com
Email: braitman@mindspring.com
Monthly Column: “The Picture Sleeve Archive” in Goldmine Magazine
Phone: 925-679-3044
Posted in Arts, Music, People | 2 Comments »
January 2nd, 2008
This is a nice article from Isaac Marion. Isaac has been running the online textual variety show, BurningBuilding.com, since 2003. He lives in Seattle, Washington, where he works various mundane jobs while trying to make his writing/music/art career take off.
Reading: it’s not for fun anymore
Recent studies have shown that across the board, in all mediums, Americans are reading for pleasure less than ever before. This isn’t just literature, novels, etc, this is all forms of the written word, including magazines, even the mighty Internet. Yes, that includes blogs. Less than one third of adults reported having read any literature in the past year not required for school or some other assignment.
Sounds shocking at first, but really, who didn’t see this coming?
In fact, those stats seem rather high to me. I think out of everyone I know, only 3 or 4 people would consider themselves regular readers. Sitting down with a book has become a quaint, old-fashioned novelty notion, almost an affectation, like smoking a pipe, collecting cigars, home brewing, bonsai trees, single malt scotch, and Civil War enthusiasm.
This is distressing to me, obviously, since 70%-80% of what I do with my life is based around writing, and therefore, by extension, reading. Am I training in an obsolete trade? Is my dream of becoming a successful writer kind of like my dream of becoming a successful blacksmith?
And, what exactly is causing this decline in literacy? The obvious answer is, not enough “Reading is FUN” posters in our libraries. How are people supposed to know, if they’re not told? I think if the statistics were examined you would find a very clear link between the decline of Elijah Wood “Reading is Hobbit-Forming!” posters and the decline of American reading. But although this is certainly a major contributing factor, there must be others, because I’ve viewed my fair share of pro-reading advertisements, and even I find myself reading far less than I used to. What is going on? Let’s take a look at a few of the elements of modern society that are edging out the written word…
Television
Low cost and ease of production for reality shows featuring attractive, vapid automatons in crude parodies of life situations allows for vast explosion in quantity of TV shows, with each channel boasting dozens of similar shows, each with its own spinoffs, knockoffs, and webisodes, until total psychological saturation is achieved. All available brain space is filled with the televised thoughts of attractive, vapid automatons.
Straight to Video Knockoff Films
Having already watched every other film in Blockbuster, people turn to low-budget, nearly-homemade films released to coincide with similarly named, similarly themed theatrical films, ie, Transformers / Transmorphers, Beowulf / Beowolf
Video Blogs (See Youtube)
Weary of ingesting the inane thoughts of strangers by reading them in written text form, Americans turn to video blogs, or “Vlogs”, where they can listen to the inane thoughts of strangers while watching their faces from an uncomfortably close camera angle, and randomly assigning them celebrity status by public whim.
Sports/Video Games
Competitive entertainments allow bored Americans to work their reflexes and mental dexterity without actually doing anything, feel part of something without actually being part of something. People flock to Sports/Video Games as an outlet for their personal energies and as a general mental anesthesia. Helps relieve pressure of disposable income and time.
Beowulf: the IMAX 3D Experience
CGI animated film hurls arrows, spears, axes, blood, guts, and naked Angelina Jolie directly at the viewers, completely blowing our minds and making us never want to read, write, talk, or walk around ever again.
Youtube
Endless supply of videos where lightsabers have been digitally placed in the hands of people or animals who were not previously holding lightsabers.
There seems to be a trend here. As part of the general movement away from difficulty and towards ease and instant gratification, humanity seems to be trying to avoid even the difficult senses. The popularity of video blogs shows that people would much rather have information poured into their brain through their ears than have to focus their eyes on letters and attempt to comprehend writing. Is the day too far off when even listening to information is considered too much effort? Too dull, too slow?
Probably just in time for the invention of direct-to-brain connections. Entertainment won’t require us to use our senses at all. It will just be dumped directly into our minds in a big, sticky, informationy gob. An entirely new form of blog will appear, not the web log, or the video log–the “brain log”, or….”blog”.
Hmm.
Brlog…?
Brailg…?
Hmm.
Posted in Arts, Culture | 6 Comments »
