In case you missed it! A compilation of all the episodes available so far of the ongoing series by the plunderphonic musician and historian Jon Leidecker for Ràdio Web MACBA.
*VARIATIONS, by Jon Leidecker* <http://rwm.macba.cat/en/variations_tag> The idea of a completely original piece of music is fairly recent. Music was passed on through sound, through generations, even for centuries after the invention of written music. Only in the 14th century did it become standard practice for a composer to sign his name to a piece of music and claim it entirely as his own, giving rise to the cult of the individual composer. But as recording supplanted sheet music in the 20th century, the presence of communal influence became unavoidably obvious once again as composers began to use recordings to make new recordings. We can now hear the presence of more than one voice. And there is a reason why people don't say they listen to a record – they say that they play a record. From the beginning, recordings have been instruments. *VARIATIONS #1. Transition* *As recording supplanted sheet music in the 20th century, the presence of communal influence became unavoidably obvious once again as composers began to use recordings to make new recordings. From the beginning, recordings have been instruments.* Podcast: http://bit.ly/KV8gXc <http://bit.ly/KV8gXc%20> Transcript: http://bit.ly/ggLzop <http://bit.ly/KV8gXc%20> *VARIATIONS #2. The Globe* The second episode of this series presents an overview of the sixties, starting with the world music collages of Richard Maxfield, Teiji Ito and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and following through to the impact of John Cage and Marshall McLuhan on the Beatles. Podcast: http://bit.ly/IIa07h <http://bit.ly/IIa07h> Transcript: http://bit.ly/eca9yd <http://bit.ly/eca9yd%20> *VARIATIONS #3. The Approach* In the seventies the avant-garde finally crosses the line into wholesale plundering of commercial pop music, and the pop disciplines of disco and dub become increasingly comfortable with manipulating released music into new forms, narrowing the divide between art and pop practices. Podcast: http://bit.ly/IY5C7G Transcript: http://bit.ly/INIiEF *VARIATIONS #4. The Explosion* An overview as the art music tradition of collage music is joined by the popular culture tradition of hip-hop, which would establish many of the same aesthetics and practices solidly in the mainstream. Podcast: http://bit.ly/J2S7F0 <http://bit.ly/J2S7F0> Transcript: http://bit.ly/KM3Zvm *VARIATIONS #5. The Discipline* As art and industrial practitioners formally map out the discipline, hip-hop's discovery of digital sampling technology in the mid-80's provided a reintroduction to its original roots in block party DJ collage. Podcast: http://bit.ly/JiPAX8 Transcript: http://bit.ly/J50Q30 *VARIATIONS #6. The Library* Sound libraries are collections of sounds explicitly designed or collected for further use, presented as unfinished ingredients. Sounds increasingly detach from their sources and are used by new authors less as references than as simple objects. Podcast: http://bit.ly/JlxK1Q Transcript: http://bit.ly/J50WHM *VARIATIONS #7. The Composer* If sampling had seemed an inherently revolutionary practice in the eighties that called into question the definition and the authority of the composer, the proliferation of artists in the decade that followed reasserted that authority. Mainstream audiences finally recognized appropriation as a legitimate form of creativity once artists became comfortable practicing it as a form of self-expression. Podcast: http://bit.ly/LAWPst Transcript: http://bit.ly/MW97ei Follow us at http://twitter.com/Radio_Web_MACBA
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