[LAU] OT: Pierrot Lunaire (was: Re: Exam Cheating investigation)

From: Marc Lavallée <marc@email-addr-hidden>
Date: Sun Jan 19 2014 - 19:17:57 EET

Sat, 18 Jan 2014 21:48:33 +0000,
Fons Adriaensen <fons@linuxaudio.org> a écrit :

> On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 01:24:22PM -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > I'm sorry if that reflects poorly on the composer of that
> > particular exam, but what you want, is not to test the memory of
> > the test taker, but to test their powers of deduction.
>
> Even so, students taking a course on the history of Western classical
> music should be able to identify Pierrot Lunaire without requiring
> internet resources. More so if during the course they had the
> opportunity to hear it.

Pierrot Lunaire is indeed easy to identify; it's the best known
historical example of Sprechgesang, and even as a little boy I knew that
about Schönberg, without formal training in music. I'm 50, so it was
much easier at the time to be exposed to contemporary music (even on my
side of the Atlantic), simply because it was playing on public radios
and televisions. Now that mass medias are complete vassals of the
so-called "pop culture", and that most other styles of music are being
"specialized" and channelled, very few "normal" people are exposed
to such "elitist" bits of knowledge. It's the consequence of the
"evolution" of electronic mass-medias, from generalist radios and
televisions to the Internet, where everything is "monetized" with an
"app". I wondered what McLuhan would have said...

Anyway, to summarize: rap is the new Sprechgesang, rythmic and
monotone. I don't know much about it, and I would fail miserably at any
exam.

Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf@alice-dsl.net> a écrit :

> No, you can't expect that the kids are aware of Pierrot Lunaire.
> C'mon it's freakish music and the lyrics are sad :p.

There's a whole lot of sad music that kids enjoy.

> FWIW I prefer some jazz interpretations of Schönberg, e.g. by the
> Vienna Art Orchestra and it's too funny, since I planned to do an old
> school like hip hop song using samples of the Vienna Art Orchestra.

Is hip hop already "old school"? The excellent Vienna Art Orchestra
must be old school too, since it was funded in 1977... I hope to see
them again (last time was more than 10 years ago).

> I was uncertain to do it, but now I'm less uncertain :), I at least
> likely will cover the Vienna Art Orchestra instead of using samples.

The sampling culture is dissolving general culture: I often ask people
to identify samples used in pop music; they usually can't, identifying
only the song using the sample, as music recognition services would
probably do (to be verified).

Culture, especially since the 90's, is an industrial activity based on
"artifical scarcity", and sampling is one of the method used to
monetize on the lack of general culture. That said, you can identify
samples years after hearing them for the first time.

--
Marc
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Received on Sun Jan 19 20:15:02 2014

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