This week we focused on music mapping. In particular, we focused on the prevalence of disco in low income urban areas as well as the origins of the genera. I feel that music mapping is a great way to cap off this course. We have spent the whole semester looking into they way that american music has been politicized in our society. Additionally, we have looked at the different racial makeups that specific music genera’s were born from, so being able to see a map of many of the musicians we learned about as well as the artists they coordinated with and the prevalence of those artists was very informative as well as entertaining. One thing that struck me as interesting was the shape of the web and more importantly the sheer number of collaboration’s between the artists.

In respect to the material covered during class, I was rather surprised with the origins of disco and also with the association of disco with “Gay” culture. I has always seen disco as a product of expanding music technology and strongly influenced by the use of drugs that was prolific during the 1970’S. Personally, I am somewhat a fan of disco music, and being able to take a more in-depth look at the founding beats was very informative.

All in all, I would like to say that this class has given me a new way to look at music. I’ve found myself calling out beats in pop songs, counting which beats have an emphasis placed on them, and more strongly considering the racial implications of the modern music scene with respect to their relationship with the minstrel show. Overall, i thoroughly enjoyed this class.

We focused this week primarily on the use of Digital Audio Software. Personally, I have never interacted in any way with DAW and thought that the programs used to create music where themselves very confusing, expensive, and required more processing power than was needed. What I feel surprised me the most was the ability to create songs from pre-recorded loops of music. I was under the impression that DAW was mostly fine-tuning instruments as well as creating more simple beats, with more complex, computer generated music (such as Techno) being produces by a combination of physical instruments and music making programs which were unique to the music industry. In all honesty I am blown away by both the ease in which the program can be used, as well as by the sheer number of instruments and sound tracks available for use.

However, one thing that instantly popped up in my mind was the usefulness of these pre-recorded tracks in popular music. While apple has given a license for artists to use these tracks, at what point does it become repetitive? Given that while there are many different tracks in Garageband, it is not inconceivable that more than one artist could use the same track to create a piece of music. And then, once each artist realizes that the others song is very similar due to the use of the same track, they end up in court. At what point do sampling laws apply, and who owns the royalty to that particular melody since the original melody was owned and then released by apple? I feel that as these programs become more popular, we will begin to see more legal battles on the subject.

One thing that particularly interested, or rather startled me this week, was the article on the obsolescence of passwords. Essentially, Honan details the various groups that are stealing our information, and the one that struck me as especially disturbing- teenagers. Honan says that a large number of the sophisticated hackers are teenagers who are doing it “for fun”. Which raises the question “why is it fun?” At what point is basically taking someones life and turning it upside down rewarding or entertaining in any shape or form?

When discussing these teenagers whom have hacked, Honan states that the majority of them began on the online gaming scene, where they began hacking to get better user names, content, etc. and from there they continue to grow. My question is what is the motive to continue? How does one make the leap from taking a user name to hacking a persons bank accounts? If i had to personally try and explain it, my guess would be that it may be the desire of teenagers to one-up each other, or to gain bragging rights. However, one may surmise that the desire of teenagers to hack comes from the teen-aged desire for a community. Hackers that work in groups (such as UGNazi), work together to hack into these massive databases, and share both the risk and the reward. Therefore, they may feel like they belong to this group and will take on bigger and bolder hacks to continue to grow both their relationship.

Nevertheless, despite their reasoning, the teen-aged hacker will always be a great threat to cyber security as once someone creates a system that they feel is useful, it is simply defeated by someone younger and more tech-savvy. If we want to truly eliminate teen-aged hackers, or at least decrease their numbers, maybe we should look at not only the topical reasons they hack (because its fun), but maybe examine some of the potential underlying reasons-such as a desire for a community- and work with these youth to address the issues that led them to take up hacking in the first place.

This week the class focused on copyright and copyright laws. There are a few points from theses lectures that I would particularity like to touch on and what their ramifications are for the music industry as a whole.

First off, there are the copy right laws which essentially guarantee the rights to a piece for all of the creators life and then an additional 70 years. This law came into place after it was bumped up from 50 years and life, which was bumped up from life, and so on. These bumps, which were the product of Disney requesting extensions to preserve their vast amount of copyrighted material, have essentially created an infinite copyright. What is interesting about this is the true nature that that these laws really have. Copyright was originally created to protect inventors and keep them creative, however, since copyright laws now extend past the life of a creator, the real benefactor of such laws are corporate entities. While yes families of the creators do benefit, by and large, it is corporations that largely benefit, as essentially they will be able to profit off of copyright indefinitely.

Next, due to Bridgeport VS Dimension, In which Bridgeport music successfully sued Dimension for copyright infringement  it has been established that melodies can be copyrighted. With this in mind, I would like to propose a theory; That copyright law will eventually kill creativity. Logically, as we progress through time, more and more artists will begin to use similar cords, melodies, etc. (a current example of this trend are the many digital remixes of songs that have become immensely popular online). However, with the current copyright laws as well as their likely expansion in the near future, it is possible to think that due to the burden of royalties for simple melodies or cords, as well as the fear of a civil suit (be it frivolous or substantial) will discourage many artists from attempting to either create or share their music. Which presents a very dramatic and very possible irony that copyright laws will end up destroying the very thing they sought to protect- creativity.

I chose to research the phrase “Let’s Roll”.  I chose this phrase as it is the title of a Neil Young song which references the September 11th, 2001 attacks.

According to Wikipedia, the phrase gained widespread usage after its use by Tod Beamer, a passenger on United Airlines Flight 93, one of the aircraft hijacked during the September 11th attacks (Wikipedia). Beamer, who was one of the passengers on-board the aircraft who decided to revolt, made a phone call during his final moments. The last words that were heard from him were “Lets Roll”, which were in reference to the passengers attempt to regain control of the hijacked plane. The article then goes on to state that the phrase gained its current usage (to initiate something) through movies and TV shows such as Adam-12, Dragnet, and even Toy Story (Wikipedia).

A google Ngram search of “Let’s Roll” (both upper and lower case) shows the first usage of the phrase between 1860 and 1880. During this time period, the phrase was used primarily to describe the physical action of rolling, and not in its current context. Ngram shows that beginning around 1900 the phrase is used more, however, upon review of text exurbs, it appears to be used almost exclusively to refer to the physical action of rolling. The Ngram search peaks around the year 2000 where mentions of Tod Beamer’s use of the phrase become common. It is at this time that the phrase becomes politicized, being mentioned in many politically based words on terrorism, american patriotism, and national security.

Based off of this, the phrase “Lets Roll” can be summarized as beginning initially used simply to refer to the action of rolling, followed by the current usage to denote the beginning of some activity, and then gaining political and cultural significance after its usage by Tod Beamer.

(WORKS CITED)

“Lets roll”. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved November 1, 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/let%27s_roll

NGRAM Search:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=let%27s+roll%2C+Let%27s+Roll+&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Clet%20%27s%20roll%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CLet%20%27s%20Roll%3B%2Cc0#t1%3B%2Clet%20’s%20roll%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CLet%20’s%20Roll%3B%2Cc1

The concept of black confederates is one that I find quite interesting. While it is known that African American slaves were used by the Confederate army for labor and other non-combat roles, the use of slaves as combatants is one that I personally find rather bothersome. While there are two different opposing viewpoints to the civil war; the northern view of freeing the slaves and the southern view of states rights, the fact remains that the south did indeed have slaves. The idea that slaves would willingly fight for those that imprisoned them and forced them to work for their entire lives, in my opinion does not hold water. While there very well may have been a few cases in which freed African Americans fought for the south, or in which slaves fought in exchange for their freedom, the idea that there were a substantial number of southern slave-combatants to me is absurd. Personally, I would view it from the perspective that if I was to be oppressed for a system my entire life, I would have no incentive to support it, and if anything, rebel against it at the first chance I had.

The concept of boundary transgression as discussed in class today is one that I find particularly interesting. The idea that we have boundaries, constructed and instilled in us from an early age, is fascinating.  Furthermore, I support the idea that by transgressing those boundaries, we create something that can not be categorized, which in turn makes us uncomfortable. The idea that the minstrel show falls into this category of transgressing boundaries is an interesting one, however it has merit. As it is well known, the minstrel show relies on people “blacking up” in order to put on these outlandish acts. However, what I find particularly interesting is the fact that, if a white person or an African American blacked up, it was acceptable, however if an African American performed the show without makeup, the radiance would go into a state of anarchy. Therefore, I would say that the minstrel show was created as a way to tread close to the boundaries of post-civil war America but does not cross it. Since the main theme of the minstrel show is that people are “blacking up”, the audience knows that besides the act on stage, the performers were still white. Therefore, I feel the minstrel show was created as a way for performers to circumvent transgressing boundaries by applying a topical fix (the ability to “black up”) to a complex issue (the greater racism in society, and in particular the inability for African Americans to perform onstage)

Today In class, we discussed in depth the Minstrel Show and the effect it has had on american culture. What struck me as, almost Ironic about the minstrel show is that it became one of the most iconic and arguably the first form of purely american entertainment, while simultaneously highlighting the racial stereotypes and the overarching racism present in american society.  One point that I would like to concentrate on however is the argument that the minstrel show continues today in popular culture, through the concept of having to “black up” various artists performance to make them more appealing to a wide audience.

The idea was tossed around that some artists (the class example being 50 Cent who’s “Thug Picture” was compared to his “Regular Picture”) uses the concept of “Blacking Up” to be a popular entertainer. Personally, I disagree with this idea. While I do think that many artists try to sell a particular image of themselves, it is not unique to only pop culture or to African American culture. The idea of selling an image is as old as entertainment itself. Many music stars across a whole variety of genera sell a public image which is very different from their private one. However, I will cede that it is possible the minstrel show could at least have highlighted this concept of selling an image more then ever before due to the sheer nature of its performance, where unlike an artist trying to sell an image by dressing in a particular style of clothes, or using an accent, the actors themselves blacked their faces out and would commonly advertise using pictures of their white selves and their black characters. Therefore, I would say that the minstrel show simply highlighted the fact that it was selling an image by making the distinction that its actors were intentionally changing their appearance for the show specifically.

Today in class, we reviewed the development of the internet from ARPANET as well as many of the different protocols and processes, such as package switching, which when combined led to the creation of the modern internet as we know it. As well as many of the programs and revolutionary design changes, such as graphical user interface (GUI), Hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) developed at CERN, the  which had a substantial impact on the development of both modern computers and the internet.

On thing I found interesting in particular was the previous operation of computers through the method of punch cards and the sheer amount of material required to create individual lines of program. One fact that I also found perplexing was the creation of the GUI as an alternative to the Command style of user interface which requires users to put in single lines of code to achieve their goals. Essentially,  the takeaway from this class was that the combination of the GUI, the expansion of ARPANET across the US, and the creation of protocols such as HTTP, all lead to the creation of what we know today as the “Internet”

In class on the 14th, the discussion touched on many topics, but the one in particular I would like to expand on is the arguments of both Carr and Bush. Essentially, Carr says that as we continue to advance the methods which we present our information, our attention span will decrease. Bush says however, that as we advance the ways in which we present our information, the methods in which we store and retrieve information will reflect our  natural way of thinking.

Personally, I am inclined to agree with Bush. While Carr makes many good points, I feel his overall logic is flawed because it fails to take into account the impact of information delivery systems on our way of thinking. What Carr considers a generation with a lack of attention due to instantaneous computerized  information could simply be a more accurate representation of how human’s naturally think. Whereas the perceived superior attention of those who were raised using a book system, represent a learned system of “attention” that conforms to and is the result of the available technology.

The logic behind “declining attention span” is flawed.  The use of books in and of itself requires far more attention focused on the activity of finding and compiling the appropriate books to then further the research of the topics at hand. In the case of electronically accessible information, all of the information that a researcher uses is complied into a “Hypertext” which is focused specifically at the topic at hand and has links to related topics and information available (this method mirrors the way that people naturally think, which contrasts to the book method, where a researcher has to thumb through pages of potentially unrelated information to find what he or she is looking for). Therefore, I would personally argue that Carr’s assertion may be somewhat correct that we do in fact have a decreased attention span in terms or compiling research, but that it is no way negative thing, as the information systems we have now do not require the strenuous effort to compile research, but rather are more consistent with how humans naturally think.