Americanism

Rose, Tricia wrote:

To the contrary, Snead claims that black cultures highlight the observance of repetition, perceiving it as circulation and equilibrium, rather than as a regulated force that facilitates the achievement of a final harmonic goal.
Drawing on examples in literature, religion, philosophy, and music, Snead elaborates on the uses and manifestations of repetition in black culture.
For our purposes, his analysis of the meaning of repetition in black music is most relevant, specifically his description of rhythmic repetition and its relationship to the ‘cut’:
‘In black culture, repetition means that the thing circulates, there in an equilibrium. . . . In European culture, repetition must be seen to be not just circulation and flow, but accumulation and growth. In black culture, the thing (the ritual, the dance, the beat) is there for you to pick up when you come back to get it.’
If there is a goal. . . it is always deferred; it continually ‘cuts’ back to the start, in the musical meaning of a ‘cut’ as an abrupt, seemingly unmotivated break (an accidental da capo) with a series already in progress and a willed return to a prior series. . . . Black culture, in the ‘cut,’ ‘builds’ accidents into its coverage, almost as if to control their unpredictability.
Deliberately ‘repetitive’ in force, black musics (especially those genres associated with dance) use the ‘cut’ to emphasize the repetitive nature of the music by ‘skipping back to another beginning which we have already heard,’ making room for accidents and ruptures inside the music itself. In this formulation, repetition and rupture work within and against each other, building multiple circular musical lines that are broken and then absorbed or managed in the reestablishment of rhythmic lines.
Grounding music as a cultural discourse dismantles the causal link between rap's sonic force and the technological means for its expression.
Rap producers' strategic use of electronic reproduction technology, particularly sampling equipment, affirms stylistic priorities in the organization and selection of sounds found in many black diasporic musical expressions. Although rap music is shaped by and articulated through advanced reproduction equipment, its stylistic priorities are not merely by-products of such equipment.
On the question of repetition as a cultural force, Attali and Snead part company. For Attali and other cultural theorists, repetition is primarily considered a manifestation of mass culture, a characteristic of culture in the age of reproduction. The advent of recording technology signaled the emergence of a society of mass production and repetition.
Repetition is, therefore, equated with industrial standardization and represents a move toward a single totalitarian code.
At the point of mass production and industrial standardization, Attali claims, music becomes an industry and ‘its consumption ceases to be collective.’ Similarly, Adorno describes the ‘break’ in pre-swing jazz as 'nothing other than a disguised cadence’ and explains that, ‘the cult of the machine which is represented by unabated jazz beats involves a self-renunciation that cannot but take root in the form of a fluctuating uneasiness somewhere, in the personality of the obedient’.
‘In mass culture’ Fredric Jameson claims, ‘repetition effectively volatizes the original object so that the student of mass culture has no primary object of study.’
[Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America]

Hawkes, David wrote:

After he has completed his pact with the devil, Leverkuhn invents a new technique of musical composition, which is based on Arnold Schoenberg’s ‘twelve-tone method.’ Mann’s choice of Schoenberg as his model was inspired by the theories of Theodor Adorno, and the extent of their collaboration, as described by Mann in The Story of a Novel, virtually earns Adorno the status of coauthor of Doctor Faustus. Mann was particularly impressed by Adorno’s awareness that the various ‘fields’ of human culture were in fact aspects within a larger process. In this Adorno has, according to Mann, captured the Zeitgeist:

Mann wrote:

All his life this man of remarkable intellect has refused to choose between the professions of philosophy and music. He felt that he was actually pursuing the same thing in both divergent realms. . . . The phenomenon is no longer unique nowadays and is doubtless connected with the whole complex of problems of our time.

In his Philosophy of Modern Music, parts of which Mann puts almost verbatim into the mouth of Satan, Adorno claims that Schoenberg’s twelve-tone system expresses the absolute dominance of economic exchange-value over use-value. Adorno describes his theoretical purpose in the famous essay on “The Fetish-character in Music”:

Adorno wrote:

. . . to point out the inner fluctuations suffered by musical phenomena through their integration into commercialized . . . production, and to illustrate, at the same time, how certain anthropological shiftings in standardized society extend deeply into the structure of musical hearing.

Let us recall here that exchange-value is an imposition of representation on reality. It takes humanly devised significances and grafts them onto the inherent use-values of natural objects. It imposes an artificial, quantitative equivalence on objects that are qualitatively, naturally, essentially, different. The rule of exchange-value is the death of essentialism and teleology: its triumph is the victory of signs over nature.
Music is an apt medium through which to explore such shifts in the status of representation, for it is a non-referential or autonomous form of expression. Musical notes do not point toward external referents, they contain all their meaning within themselves. Music therefore has a plausible claim to be the purest form of art, and it has historically been a theological discipline, since musical harmony was believed to reflect and express the divine harmony of the universe.
…Leverkuhn’s method is unable to avoid the recurring tritone— which, because it disrupts harmonic progression, was traditionally called the ‘devil’s interval’—and as a result his music is disturbing and unpleasant to listen to. Schoenberg himself referred to this process as ‘the emancipation of the dissonance,’ and called it a ‘method of composing with twelve tones which are related only one with another.’
Schoenberg’s music is internally non-referential: its individual tones do not relate to any one keynote. In his work, unlike in harmonic music, the tones are not significant essentially, or ‘in themselves’: their significance is relational—it emerges from their relation to the other tones of the sequence.

Lee, Julian wrote:

A Summary on the Black Influence On Rock
Blacks were an important influence in the initial development of rock' n roll, which later birthed rock. However, their contribution is of the nature of spices injected into an already elegant European musical substrate. Their importance in rock is overstated by tribal media.
The fact that rock is 95 percent made from the European musical lexicon, only containing a few particular features brought up by blacks, is steadily ignored by these tribal pundits to propound the notion that Whites simply take things from Blacks.
The highest values in rock remain melody and original chord structure. These are the same facets of music considered important in European music. Meanwhile, melody and original chord structure are not values of early black blues or rock 'n roll. In terms of song writing content and song structure there is no Black Beatles.
I will state here that rock music is White. A simple formula to understand this would be to say that Led Zeppelin epitomizes rock music; Led Zeppelin was four White men; there is no ‘Black Led Zeppelin.’ That is to say, no black group has ever created music like that created by Led Zeppelin.
A proof of this is that young White men love to listen to Led Zeppelin, but not to the simplistic, 3-chord repetitive primitivism of the black bluesmen who the tribe claims are the 'fathers' of Led Zeppelin.

Lee, Julian wrote:

“The interesting question to me is:
‘Why the attraction to that higher-pitched, somewhat feminine male voice both in Lennon’s context and now?’ What is the attraction to these other forms of voice? Especially the pathological and self-destructive ones? And why the progression to extremer and extremer forms of singing that are more destructive to the voice itself?
I can understand the emotional impact and theatrical value of a shredded voice, sounding like it’s coming from a desperate person, at the end of her rope, a woman tried beyond hope, etc. But what does it say about our culture now that we listen to singers whose sound has come from the destruction of their voices by overuse or unnaturalness?
The blame can’t be laid at the feet of Blacks. It is part of a condition that has beset Whites from many sources, and some of the sources are their own. Whites became the masters of heavy-metal screaming because they are the masters of technology and the intimates of the social damage it brings. White males are angry over father-abandonment, plus the social alienation that technological development fosters. This fascination for such extreme singing and sound tells me that young Whites have a lot to be angry about. And young men have little outlet now to express a warrior spirit and assert masculinity. They use metal music, including the screamer vocal style, to contact warrior spirit and manhood. That’s why they like hearing other men scream.
I believe that this form of singing, and ‘metal’ music in general, is a manifestation of: (1) White technological obsession, (2) White male anger based on father-estrangement and the displacement of the male role in society, and (3) the natural need of young White males to express warriorship and masculinity in an environment that offers few channels for it.

Well done [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] This is what Tucker should be saying!! Let's get Tucker there! [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

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Postman, Neil wrote:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books.
What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.
Orwell feared those who would deprive us information.
Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.
Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us.
Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.
Orwell feared we would become a captive culture.
Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumble-puppy.

Postman, Neil wrote:

America is, in fact, the leading case in point of what may be thought of as the third great crisis in western education.
The first occurred in the fifth century B.C. when Athens underwent a change from an oral culture to an alphabet-writing culture. To understand what this meant, we must read Plato.
The second occurred in the sixteenth century, when Europe underwent a radical transformation as a result of the printing press. To understand what this meant, we must read John Locke.
The third is happening now, in America, as a result of the electronic revolution, particularly the invention of television. To understand what this means, we must read Marshall McLuhan.

McLuhan, Marshall wrote:

Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn't know the first thing about either.

Satyr wrote:

Postman, Neil wrote:

America is, in fact, the leading case in point of what may be thought of as the third great crisis in western education.
The first occurred in the fifth century B.C. when Athens underwent a change from an oral culture to an alphabet-writing culture. To understand what this meant, we must read Plato.
The second occurred in the sixteenth century, when Europe underwent a radical transformation as a result of the printing press. To understand what this meant, we must read John Locke.
The third is happening now, in America, as a result of the electronic revolution, particularly the invention of television. To understand what this means, we must read Marshall McLuhan.

McLuhan, Marshall wrote:

Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn't know the first thing about either.

Who has controlled the entertainment industry and mass media in the U.S., since the end of the second war, and though this control has attempted to dominate the world?
Who, through this dominance of Hollywood and News has educated generations of western minds in alien ideals?

San Jose shooting suspect set 'device' to ignite fire at home to 'coincide' with workplace massacre: sheriff[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

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