A Change In Music
Introduction – My definition of remix has definitely changed since taking this class. When I used to hear the word remix, I would think of a song or movie, but after learning about how “Everything is a Remix” and how many ideas stem off of other ideas, my definition changed. I tried to imitate the video remix that I did last semester by including video clips as well as interviews and I even began and ended with the same interview so that my final project would come full circle. For my draft, I wasn’t sure where my project was headed and I was going to try and do music as a whole is changing from instruments to electronic sounds but instead did about how the lyrics are changing and how the producers today are looking to make money and not necessarily putting out something that they believe in or is really good.
Rhetorical Choices – Starting with the introduction of my video, I tried to show an interview with someone who could compare how music used to be made with how it’s made now and I think that interview does a good job of explaining it. In addition I split it up into two parts, at the beginning and at the end, so that it kind of comes full circle and he finishes with his final words. The two different versions of the song “Get Low” by Lil John and the East Side Boys serve the purpose of showing how pointless and vulgar lyrics can be nowadays with music. Also I think it shows how even though the lyrics don’t mean anything, or have little meaning, the song became popular. I think the two different versions, both very opposite from each other, help show how you can remix a song and while it may sound really good, the acoustic guitar with the lyrics of “Get Low” sounds very absurd and even funny because of the reactions of people in the crowd. In addition to the acoustic version I put up text to really get the audience thinking about what does it really mean, and do you think people actually speak in such a vulgar and meaningless way in real life. After the song I added another interview with an artist from Public Enemy. In this interview he explains how nowadays, producers don’t care about the creativity of the song or the music, they care about making money and to do that it’s not about the lyrics or the music, it’s about a catchy tune or the hype of an artist. Followed by that are three different memes that show popular songs today compared with popular songs back in the day, and this really shows how meaningful the lyrics that are being played on the radio are. I really think the final meme is the most effective because it shows how many different producers and writers come together and try to make a song as “perfect” as they can but when compared to only one writer and one producer, they fail to come up with the creativity and meaning to a song. During these memes, I found it really important to play the artist from the past to help drive my point home. In the final part of the first interview I had, Frank Zappa explains about how we were better off with the producers in the past because in this new era the producers and the “young hip new guys” are ruining the art form.
Rhetorical Velocity and Kairotic Moment – I think that now would be a good moment to release my remix but I feel that it would have been a better time if it was after another popular song with not much meaning or lyrics came out, such as a Justin Bieber single. I would use most of the mainstream channels such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to try to get my remix out there and I would also tell all my friends through word of mouth and try to get it out that way too. If my remix was to be redistributed or even remixed again I think that you can do a good argument against what I am trying to say and show songs of this decade that are very metaphorical and have many deeper meanings too them. I think that you can also include all of the protest music that has happened throughout history and show how music has rallied people together and we don’t have many artists like there was back in the day.
Unique Challenges – My initial plan was to use more different types of music and show how it has a certain impact on a person such as rap music and violence, and how genres such as electronic music don’t really have many lyrics and are more for the beat and catchy tune. I didn’t do this because I found these interviews of how the music industry is changing and all it really cares about is money and thought that it would be a great argument to grow on and expand. I used wevideo so I found it really slow when I was working in the dorms, but it would be a lot better when I had better wifi. However, when I was using wevideo to publish my final product, it cut off some of the ends of the video clips for some reason and because of that the transitions aren’t as smooth as I normally planned. In addition the transition from the original “Get Low” song followed by the acoustic version didn’t really sync up like I thought it would.
Rhetorical Choices – Starting with the introduction of my video, I tried to show an interview with someone who could compare how music used to be made with how it’s made now and I think that interview does a good job of explaining it. In addition I split it up into two parts, at the beginning and at the end, so that it kind of comes full circle and he finishes with his final words. The two different versions of the song “Get Low” by Lil John and the East Side Boys serve the purpose of showing how pointless and vulgar lyrics can be nowadays with music. Also I think it shows how even though the lyrics don’t mean anything, or have little meaning, the song became popular. I think the two different versions, both very opposite from each other, help show how you can remix a song and while it may sound really good, the acoustic guitar with the lyrics of “Get Low” sounds very absurd and even funny because of the reactions of people in the crowd. In addition to the acoustic version I put up text to really get the audience thinking about what does it really mean, and do you think people actually speak in such a vulgar and meaningless way in real life. After the song I added another interview with an artist from Public Enemy. In this interview he explains how nowadays, producers don’t care about the creativity of the song or the music, they care about making money and to do that it’s not about the lyrics or the music, it’s about a catchy tune or the hype of an artist. Followed by that are three different memes that show popular songs today compared with popular songs back in the day, and this really shows how meaningful the lyrics that are being played on the radio are. I really think the final meme is the most effective because it shows how many different producers and writers come together and try to make a song as “perfect” as they can but when compared to only one writer and one producer, they fail to come up with the creativity and meaning to a song. During these memes, I found it really important to play the artist from the past to help drive my point home. In the final part of the first interview I had, Frank Zappa explains about how we were better off with the producers in the past because in this new era the producers and the “young hip new guys” are ruining the art form.
Rhetorical Velocity and Kairotic Moment – I think that now would be a good moment to release my remix but I feel that it would have been a better time if it was after another popular song with not much meaning or lyrics came out, such as a Justin Bieber single. I would use most of the mainstream channels such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to try to get my remix out there and I would also tell all my friends through word of mouth and try to get it out that way too. If my remix was to be redistributed or even remixed again I think that you can do a good argument against what I am trying to say and show songs of this decade that are very metaphorical and have many deeper meanings too them. I think that you can also include all of the protest music that has happened throughout history and show how music has rallied people together and we don’t have many artists like there was back in the day.
Unique Challenges – My initial plan was to use more different types of music and show how it has a certain impact on a person such as rap music and violence, and how genres such as electronic music don’t really have many lyrics and are more for the beat and catchy tune. I didn’t do this because I found these interviews of how the music industry is changing and all it really cares about is money and thought that it would be a great argument to grow on and expand. I used wevideo so I found it really slow when I was working in the dorms, but it would be a lot better when I had better wifi. However, when I was using wevideo to publish my final product, it cut off some of the ends of the video clips for some reason and because of that the transitions aren’t as smooth as I normally planned. In addition the transition from the original “Get Low” song followed by the acoustic version didn’t really sync up like I thought it would.
English 111 - Inquiry 4
For my video, having Billy as a partner was very helpful in changing up my Inquiry 3 for a different audience and remixing it into a video. We tried to incorporate a lot of video clips together as well as interviews to emphasize the importance of music in the past, as well as what artists are doing today to change the culture. We tried to show how different types of music can still come together and have meanings that affect the listener and can change their opinions. We tried to also show the artist’s view on what they were doing to their music and how they wanted the fans to be affected. I think we did an good job on this project and we found it easy to use the wevideo system so that we made an interesting movie filled with both videos, music and pictures.
We started off with an interview with John Lennon and his view on how music back then was affecting the culture, and then tied that into the Vietnam and war era with songs that were really big anthems of the time. During the songs we provided many pictures as well as video clips to show protests, both violent and peaceful and how this music brought the people together. Not only that but the videos showed how the issues brought on by war, politics and other cultural differences were affecting the people and how the music went against some of that and brought the people together and united them with one common goal. By doing this clash of both the video and music, we tried to get the full audio and visual affect about the topic. Over this, we provided quotes and other textual evidence showing how music is just more than notes and words. The quotes included music icons such as Jimi Hendrix and Edgar Winter. We tried to bring the message that it can bring people together with similar opinions as well as change opinions of others by bringing light on social and political issues. We felt that the music we included provided an extra part of what we were trying to say with words, as well as the images and videos provided. We also tried to get a variety of music to show that it is not only one or two artist’s that are doing this. We also provided pictures of multiple big name artists that really care about getting their music out there and how it affects the people of the world. I feel as though the interviews were the most effective form of showing our audience that music really does affect the people, and not only that but they provided examples on how artists are going about doing this. We started off with Lennon which was in the past and by the end of the video transitioned to a modern artist of this time, Kanye West.
The video follows the same structure of chronological order that my Inquiry 3 did, with the examples of history and what has worked in the past, all the way through what artists are doing now in the future. However, the content was geared more about people who have affected and will affect music now and in the future. We rethought our audience and made it more towards students. We tried to provide the history of music at first, followed by how change is not only is in rock music, but all music including rap, metal and pop. From there we provided another interview, a more recent one, with Kanye West and his way of making his music and how he wants it to affect his fans and listeners.
In the initial planning stage we wanted to show how different types of music affected people in different ways, but instead we went with the idea that music affects people as a whole in different ways and can change their opinions on certain topics. I think peer response helped the video because we were told about what we needed to focus on for our argument and that we needed to add a lot more to the video to make it effective. I think we did a good job with our video, however I felt that the time constraint of 2 to 5 minutes was a little hard to work with for our project because there was so much music we wanted to incorporate but couldn’t because our video would have been too long.
We started off with an interview with John Lennon and his view on how music back then was affecting the culture, and then tied that into the Vietnam and war era with songs that were really big anthems of the time. During the songs we provided many pictures as well as video clips to show protests, both violent and peaceful and how this music brought the people together. Not only that but the videos showed how the issues brought on by war, politics and other cultural differences were affecting the people and how the music went against some of that and brought the people together and united them with one common goal. By doing this clash of both the video and music, we tried to get the full audio and visual affect about the topic. Over this, we provided quotes and other textual evidence showing how music is just more than notes and words. The quotes included music icons such as Jimi Hendrix and Edgar Winter. We tried to bring the message that it can bring people together with similar opinions as well as change opinions of others by bringing light on social and political issues. We felt that the music we included provided an extra part of what we were trying to say with words, as well as the images and videos provided. We also tried to get a variety of music to show that it is not only one or two artist’s that are doing this. We also provided pictures of multiple big name artists that really care about getting their music out there and how it affects the people of the world. I feel as though the interviews were the most effective form of showing our audience that music really does affect the people, and not only that but they provided examples on how artists are going about doing this. We started off with Lennon which was in the past and by the end of the video transitioned to a modern artist of this time, Kanye West.
The video follows the same structure of chronological order that my Inquiry 3 did, with the examples of history and what has worked in the past, all the way through what artists are doing now in the future. However, the content was geared more about people who have affected and will affect music now and in the future. We rethought our audience and made it more towards students. We tried to provide the history of music at first, followed by how change is not only is in rock music, but all music including rap, metal and pop. From there we provided another interview, a more recent one, with Kanye West and his way of making his music and how he wants it to affect his fans and listeners.
In the initial planning stage we wanted to show how different types of music affected people in different ways, but instead we went with the idea that music affects people as a whole in different ways and can change their opinions on certain topics. I think peer response helped the video because we were told about what we needed to focus on for our argument and that we needed to add a lot more to the video to make it effective. I think we did a good job with our video, however I felt that the time constraint of 2 to 5 minutes was a little hard to work with for our project because there was so much music we wanted to incorporate but couldn’t because our video would have been too long.