JONATHAN KRAMER - POSTMODERNISM MUSIC THEORY

A very interesting aspect of postmodern music theory. This will help you with your next essay.

Media Theorist Jonathan Kramer says "the idea that postmodernism is less a surface style or historical period than an attitude. Kramer goes on to say 16 "characteristics of postmodern music, by which I mean music that is understood in a postmodern manner, or that calls forth postmodern listening strategies, or that provides postmodern listening experiences, or that exhibits postmodern compositional practices."
According to Kramer (Kramer 2002, 16–17), postmodern music":

1. is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension
2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic
3. does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present
4. challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles
5. shows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity
6. questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values
7. avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold)
8. considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts
9. includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures
10. considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music
11. embraces contradictions
12. distrusts binary oppositions
13. includes fragmentations and discontinuities
14. encompasses pluralism and eclecticism
15. presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities
16. locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers

Jonathan Donald Kramer (December 7, 1942, Hartford, Connecticut – June 3, 2004, New York City), was a U.S. composer and music theorist.

Active as a music theorist, Kramer published primarily on theories of musical time and postmodernism. At the time of his death he had just completed a book on postmodern music and a cello composition for the American Holocaust Museum.

Music Magazine & Video Conventions.

Music Magazine

Front Page

• Front cover features the artist.
• Masthead.
• Font.
• Coverlines.
• Rule of Thirds.

Contents Page

• Highlighting key articles.
• Categorising content.
• Images & Captions.

Double Page Spread

• Layout (Text & Image).
• Fonts Colour.
• Pull Quotes.
• Photography & Representation.

Other Media Texts.

• Graphics - e.g. iPod adverts.

Music Video

• Narrative.
• Theorists.
• Editing Effects.
• Choregraphy (Pop).
• Mis-en-scene.
• Clothes.
• Makeup.

1980s

The films I watched were Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Teen Wolf and Weird Science. All of these films had the same similarities such as:

• Set in American High School.
• Free and Young.
• Obvious Social Cliques (Nerds, Popular Kids)
• The 'Girl' (In each one of these films, there is a girl who the main character likes and makes her a important character to the film).
• Careless living.
• Having a good time.

Music


The Human League - Fascination

• Classic 80s sounds.
• Men wearing make-up.
• Women wearing strong make-up.
• Wearing All Black.
• No choreography, just dancing along with the music. 

Gary Numan - Cars

• 80s retro sound.
• A new age of music.
• Male singer wearing makeup.
• Use of editing effects.
• Lots of close-ups of the face.
• No choreography, just dancing to the music.
• Quite artistic and creative, through camera work and set design. 

A Flock of Seagulls

• Singer wearing makeup.
• Artistic Ideas.
• Close ups.
• Women wearing a lot of eyeshadow. 

BUT THE BAND LOOK NOTHING LIKE THE BAND

SummerCamp does not look like the band they have portrayed to be through their blogs and videos.

Hyperreality is a means to characterise the way consciousness defines what is actually 'real' in a world where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter an original event or experience.

Often, a 'copy' can replace the original.

1.A magazine photo of a model that has been touched up with a computer.

2.Films in which characters and settings are either digitally enhanced or created entirely from CGI (e.g.: 300, where the entire film was shot in front of a blue/green screen, with all settings super-imposed).

3.A well manicured garden (nature as hyperreal).

4.Any massively promoted versions of historical or present "facts" (e.g. "General Ignorance" from QI, where the questions have seemingly obvious answers, which are actually wrong).

5.Professional sports athletes as super, invincible versions of the human beings.

6.Many world cities and places which did not evolve as functional places with some basis in reality, as if they were creatio ex nihilo (literally 'creation out of nothing'): Disney World;Dubai; Celebration, Florida; and Las Vegas.

7.TV and film in general (especially "reality" TV), due to its creation of a world of fantasy and its dependence that the viewer will engage with these fantasy worlds. The current trend is to glamorize the mundane using histrionics.

8.A retail store that looks completely stocked and perfect due to facing, creating a world of endless identical products.

9.A life which cannot be (e.g. the perfect facsimile of a celebrity's invented persona).

10.A high end sex doll used as a simulacrum of a bodily or psychologically unattainable partner.

11.A newly made building or item designed to look old, or to recreate or reproduce an older artifact, by simulating the feel of age or aging.

12.Constructed languages (such as E-Prime) or "reconstructed" extinct dialects.

13.Second Life The distinction becomes blurred when it becomes the platform for RL (Real Life) courses and conferences, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or leads to real world interactions behind the scenes.

14.Weak virtual reality which is greater than any possible simulation of physical reality.

SUMMERCAMP, BRICOLAGE, FOUND FOOTAGE

Bricolage - moving something from one place to another - changing the context.

Fount Footage - not documentary. Already made clips put together, creating a new meaning.

How does Stella and Ella make you feel?

• It made me feel quite relaxed and sad for some reason, unlike some people in the class who thought that it was quite creepy. The reason for why it made me feel kinda sad was because at the start of the video when they said that one of the sisters had died, and it made me feel quite relaxed because the song choice for the video was quite good.

Is it Postmodern?

• Yes, the author/ creator of the video has changed the meaning of the video by changing the original song 'Holy Night' which is something that is thought to be joyful and religious, but by changing the song to Radiohead's 'Street Spirit' it suddenly makes the video creepy, although it does look like the video goes with the song because the movement of the sisters match the song. 

SummerCamp

• Different from Stella & Ella.
• There is a narrative with flows with the song.
• By choosing young kids, it makes it cuter and sweeter. 

DISCUSS WHY SOME PEOPLE ARE NOT CONVINCED BY THE IDEA OF POSTMODERN MEDIA

Postmodernism as a whole is said to be a rejection to modernism. To be able to understand postmodernism, we first must understand modernism and why the postmodernism movement happened.  Modernism was about always looking towards the future and not looking back and that everything was original, the argument that postermodernists have come up with is that how can we move forward, if we don’t acknowledge the past,. Surely if we don’t learn from our mistakes, we would just be repeating it over and over again, therefore we wouldn’t be moving forward, and we would then only staying still. A postmodernist would will also take in the Jean Francois Lyotard’s theories of the Grand Narratives such as Science, Politics and Religion. As we speak, post modernists would take aspects of the grand narratives and put it together to create their own, there are numerous examples of this in our everyday lives, it can happen with Fashion, Music and media.

In order to understand Postmodernism you have to look at the examples of postmodern texts, an example would be where a director of a film has taken influences from other texts, this would be called an 'Homage' as he/she is respectfully taking influences from existing works such as television shows, computer games, music etc. to incorporate into his own. An example of a postmodern text which I have looked at is Dan Black's 'Symphonies' created by following the Levi Strauss's theory of 'Addition, Deletion, Substitution and Transposition'. In this video, Dan Black makes clear intertexual references to other  texts, there are various examples which run through the video but to name a few, he has chosen to include the Universal Studios-like clip at the very start, the use of 'Umbrella' soundtrack during the opening credits, the old hollywood style etc. There are many more which play throughout the video, but the point that I am making is that only a postmodernist would be able to spot these intertextual references because he/she would have already seen the original texts which only then, can they see what Dan Black is doing. But you do not have to be a postmodernist to admire and like the video, for example someone who did not have the knowledge of the intertextual references could easily be as amused while watching it as a postmodernist, he/she would just think that the video was creative through the use of different effects.

An example of a film which is postmodern is 'Hobo With A Shotgun', the reason for this being is because the film was based on a fake trailer, made for a non-existent imaginary film. Directed by Jason Eisener, this film does not have a productive and dynamic storyline. The reason why it was made to be gore to gore sake, the film features scenes showing people getting killed or tortured in the gruesome-ist ways. There is no point to the film and some postmodernists say that the film was too good at being bad.

Another example of a postmodern text is the game 'Desert Bus', this game could possibly the real-est game I have ever played. The reason for this is not because of the graphics, or the story line as such, the game does not even have a story line. All it requires the player to do is to get from point A to point B by driving a bus on a straight line for 8 hours to get to Las Vegas, 8 hours actually being accurate as it would actually take 8 hours to drive there on a bus in real life which makes it such a real life game. The game does have a reward system, when you finish the 8 hours and get to Las Vegas, you receive 1 point and then you have to drive back again. You cannot pause the game and if you slow down or drive of the road, you will have to wait for the amount of time you have played on the game for the bus to be towed back to the start to be able to play it again. 

WHAT IS POSTMODERNISM?

Ideas to include in essay.

• Movement of media.
• Rejection of modernism.
• Breaking down boundaries - no more genres, conventions.
• Homage - taking past influences and putting it together. E.g. Kill Bill
• Pastiche - Parody, making fun. E.g. Scary Movie
• Replacing idea of reality with a reality - Exaggeration. 'Hyper-reality'
• Interacting with the text - 'pro-sumers', have to think and question about what you're watching.
• You have to understand the history to understand the context of post modernism.
• Bricolage.
• Grand Narratives - Modernism, religion, science, politics. To make it post modernism, you take aspects of it and combine it.

POSTMODERNISM - wants to see the PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE at the same time. 

BRIAN ENO

No one is interested in one particular genre anymore, people take bits of what they like.

15 random shuffled songs.

Sugababes - Get Sexy
Aerosmith - I Don't Want To Miss A Thing
Coldplay - Major Minus
Cobra Starship - The World Will Never Do
Tinie Tempah - Snap
Usher - Love In This Club
Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Want To Have Fun
Miley Cyrus - Party In the USA
Kylie Minogue - Too Much
Vampire Weekend - Giving Up The Gun
One Direction - Up All Night
The Saturdays - Why Me, Why Now
Mark Ronson & Amy Winehouse - Valerie
JLS - The Club Is Alive

BRICOLAGE

Bricolage - Changing traditional objects and words to give them subversive meanings.

Punk with the safety pin - To rebel, using something that was used to hold a nappy together on a baby, they have changed the meaning by wearing it as a piercing .

Symbolic code - having the opposites next to each other. E.g. Fat Wealthy man and a poor child.

Cool - 'something we like', also depends on the context - meaning how people see it.

Confidence is 'Cool'.

You do not have to be fashionable to be 'cool'.

Michael McIntyre  - 'Lad' - nice man and everyone likes him. - Links to popularity, being popular makes you 'cool'.

Uncool - can be cool. Ironically wearing the geek glasses, which makes them cool.

Being 'Too Cool' can be uncool, like you're trying too hard.

Uncool can be cool.

Peers, Journalists, Celebrities, influential people decide what is cool and the rest follow.

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY TURNS MEDIA CONSUMERS INTO MEDIA PRODUCERS

In your own experience, how has your creativity developed using digital technology to complete your coursework productions?

I think that Technology has played a crucial role in my own experience of developing my creative ideas, I believe that without the Technology I had at hand, I would not have been able to achieve the work I have produced.

When I was making my music video, technology allowed me to research all the different conventions of a music video. I was able to watch multiple music videos online on video playing platforms such youtube, vimeo etc. This allowed me to gather the knowledge of what was in music videos, I was able to find similiarities which all of them shared and how they also differed from each other. Not only did technology allow me to look at other music videos, it also helped me throughout the whole process of the actual making and also after I had finished. Equipments such as Cameras, Computers, iPods and Smart phones helped me along the way to portray my thoughts and ideas, without these, it would've have been almost impossible to make the music video. Programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Premiere were probably the most important components when it came to expressing how I wanted my products to look. I don't think that it was just these particular programs, but some sort of editing program which allowed me to have the freedom of using a variety of tools and editing effects to achieve the look I wanted.

Looking back at AS and now at A2, I would say that my creativity has definitely developed further since then. I am able to come up with a simple idea, use it as a foundation and build upon it to create something that is and I say this lightly 'authentic and original' as nothing is really original or authentic anymore, we take inlufences from other people's work and put our own spin onto it to make it ours. When I think of my AS magazine, I definittely believe that it was not 100% original, I took influences from other magazines through the use of technology, I picked out the aspects I liked about them and I tried to blend them together to create something that I would like to read. I don't beleive that Technology has been the biggest influence, I believe that everything around us can inspire us. The simplest shapes and forms can evolve into the weirdest and bestest ideas. I came up with the 'Pop-Art' theme for my Magazine by looking at artists I was interested in, I came across Andy Warhol who has done some of the most famous portraits. I was attracted to the use of bright colours he used on his screen prints of famous celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Michael Jackson. So I 'replicated' this effect through Photoshop, I had to experiment with the effects and tools to get the right look I wanted.

CREATIVITY

Ideas and thoughts on Creativity:

“There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns. Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way. It is also a great motivator because it makes people interested in what they are doing...it makes life more fun and more interesting." - Edward de Bono

"Out of limitation come creativity." - Debbie Allen

"A truly creative person rids him or herself of all self-imposed limitations." - Gerald G. Jampolsky

"Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them." - Albert Einstein

"Can anybody be given a great degree of creativity? No. They can be given the equipment to develop it - if they have it in them in the first place." - George Shearing

"Creativity and artistic endeavours have a mission that goes far beyond just making music for the sake of music." - Herbie Hancock

How have you tried to facilitate and encourage your own creativity?

Creativity is a component which each everyone of us has, although it is how we express our own creativity which makes us differ from everyone else. Not everyone has the same idea of what is creative and what isn't, I feel that everyone is creative because we all have imaginations. Our imaginations allow us to build a fantasy where we are able to combine our individual thoughts, opinions and emotions to create something that is unique and different from everyone else. I do feel like creativity is built in everyone of us, but only a few people are able to use it to their potential. People like Madonna, Picasso, Andy Warhol, these people are icons and have shape the world we live in today. If we look at Music, artists such as Lady Gaga, you can clearly see the resemblance of Madonna's younger career being relived in the 21st Century. As technology is constantly evolving, we are able to develop the past and improve it with the materials and components we have today. Although we do have to remember that without the past, I do not think that we are able to move onto the future because there would be nothing to move on from.



- Did you experience limits/blocks on your own creativity?

I would say that I did not experience any 'Limits' to my creativity, I would say that there have been 'blocks' or obstacles which have tried to stop me from doing what I want to do. But I think that nothing has really limited or blocked my creativity, you learn to overcome what's in front of you and you move on from it, by overcoming and working out what you need to do, I think that you'll achieve something that is far greater than you've ever achieved. Especially if there is a lot of blocks or obstacles trying to stop you from reaching your goal, it makes it even more satisfying when you find an answer to overcome it, its then that the final result will be yours.


- How easy/difficult was it to be creative while still working to the brief?

I found that it was actually quite easy and hard at times when working to a brief. The easy parts was that the Brief gave me a clear instruction of what to do, like for the AS magazine, the brief was to make a music magazine, not a fashion or a lifestyle but a music one. At first I wanted to make a fashion magazine instead, but as I had to follow the brief, I was able to bring in aspects of Fashion into it. I was able to keep the core of the magazine Music related, but then I added elements which made it fashion forward but still kept the music concept right on top of my mind.

- Did working within conventions stifle your creativity?

I don't think that working within conventions stifled my creativity, I feel that I was able to combine an aspect of any idea into my product all the while still sticking to the conventions of the product. For example with the digipak I created to go with my Music Video. I did not follow the usual conventions of a digipak as the majority of the digipaks out there feature pictures of the artists or bands predominantly so the audience can easily spot it if they wanted to buy it. Instead of following this, I chose to take a different path with using shots I had taken when we went to London to shoot the scenes for our music video. Even though this doesn't fall into the 'coventions' of a digipak, I found that the end result was quite effected in being professional looking, and also to creating a sort of 'brand' for my band without actually featuring them on the digipak or the poster.

- To what extent did you need to work with others and ‘bounce ideas’ off other people to be truly creative?

I would say that working around and with other people definitely helped me develop my ideas, I was able to listen to what their ideas were and I was able to give them feedback about what I thought about it and visa versa. By working together or just being around people while you are trying to generate new ideas definitely helps, because you may hear something another person has said that you probably wouldn't have even thought off and you could take an aspect of that and include it into your work

How much of your creativity was about trying to picture things in your mind’s eye?

I would say that a my imagination was able to picture the creative ideas I had in my mind, I found that this was very helpful when it came to trying to figure what what my final product would look like. Like with my music video, I was able to visualise the shots in my mind and incorporate it where I thought it would be most effective.

- How much of your creativity was about trial and error?

I would say that my creativity definitely depending on trial and error, some things that I picture in my mind don't look the same in real life. For example with our music video, I thought that it would actually be a good idea to ghost the people while we were in London. But when I watched it back, this didn't look so good so we just kept the picture normal.

- To what extent was a lack of confidence an issue in terms of your creativity?

I would say that a lack of experience affected my confidence in terms of my creativity, I wasn't sure that if my ideas were 'right' or 'wrong' and if it even fitted to the brief. But when during the process of making my products, I began to be more confident with my creative ideas.

- To what extent was a lack of technical competence/confidence an obstacle to your creativity?

To an extent, the lack of technical knowledge did limit me from portraying the creative ideas I had in my mind. But when I had learnt how to use the technical equipments and software, it was very easy to bring my ideas ti life and show them through my work.