Jonathan Kramer: postmodern music theory

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.

Postmodernism and music.

• The postmodern sensibility that anything can be considered cool in an ironic 'I know it's bad, but it's so bad it's good' way

• Work that is created based (entirely or in part) on older material. This incorporates sampling and will take you from the realms of hip hop culture transporting you finally in today's modern fragmented musical landscape. You will have to listen to some of the artists to fully appreciate them and their work.

• Audiences that are both niche and mainstream e.g. radio 1, 1xtra, BBC6, XFM

• The ways in which people engage and listen to music e.g. Ipod, DAB, mobile phones etc.

• The legal issues surrounding sampling. (Led Zeppelin 'borrowed' heavily from old bluesmen and it took years for the songwriters to be credited and paid royalties. The same group took a hard-line stance initially to be sampled by hip hop groups.)

Examples:

• The state of the music industry incorporating any recent developments that change how we access/interact with music e.g. Spotify, X factor, iTunes, illegal downloading free cds with newspapers etc. 

Other Examples:

More examples of postmodern films.

Essay - In what ways can Inglourious Basterds be considered postmodern?

IB essay

Are we living in a postmodern world?

We frequently hear it said that ‘we are living in a postmodern world.’ Are we? How do we know? And how is postmodernism as a theoretical perspective applicable to Media Studies?

Where do we start? How about some definitions? George Ritzer (1996) suggested that postmodernism usually refers to a cultural movement – postmodernist cultural products such as architecture, art, music, films, TV, adverts etc.

Ritzer also suggested that postmodern culture is signified by the following:

• The breakdown of the distinction between high culture and mass culture. Think: drama about Dame Margot Fonteyn, a famous prima ballerina, on BBC4.

• The breakdown of barriers between genres and styles. Think: Shaun of the Dead a rom-com-zom.

• Mixing up of time, space and narrative. Think Pulp Fiction or The Mighty Boosh.

• Emphasis on style rather than content. Think: Girls Aloud.

• The blurring of the distinction between representation and reality. Think, Katie Price or Celebrity Big Brother.

The French theorist Baudrillard argues that contemporary society increasingly reflects the media; that the surface image becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish from the reality. Think about all the times you have heard an actor on a soap-opera say, that when they are out and about, people refer to them by their character’s name. Look at The Sun’s website and search stories on Nicholas Hoult when he was in Skins: he is predominantly written about as though he is ‘Tony’, his character in Skins.

Key terms

Among all the theoretical writing on postmodernism (and you might like to look up George Ritzer, Jean Baudrillard, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Frederic Jameson and Dominic Strinati), there are a few key terms that you’ll find it useful to know. These terms can form the basis of analysis when looking at a text from a postmodern perspective:

• intertextuality – one media text referring to another

• parody – mocking something in an original way

• pastiche – a stylistic mask, a form of self-conscious imitation

• homage – imitation from a respectful standpoint

• bricolage – mixing up and using different genres and styles

• simulacra – simulations or copies that are replacing ‘real’ artefacts

• hyperreality – a situation where images cease to be rooted in reality

• fragmentation – used frequently to describe most aspects of society, often in relation to identity

This article first appeared in MediaMagazine 32, April 2010.

JACKIE BROWN - HQ Trailer ( 1997 )

24 Hour Party People (2002) - HQ Trailer

Creativity - Theory and Exercises.

What is creativity?

Task 1

The thesaurus definition of creativity is:

originality, imagination, inspiration, ingenuity, inventiveness, resourcefulness, creativeness, vision and innovation.

Whilst producing the work over the last 2 years, it was very difficult to be original. I used conventions from other magazines and music videos but creating my own would have been very hard as there is so much competition with similar products. It was easier to use and adapt conventions then challenge them and create my own. Any conventions that I would have used that are original would have been included in either my music magazine or music video or even the ancillary texts. The most original aspect of my work over the last year in A2 was the name of our band 'Pablo and the People'. It is quite unusual but still fits into the band genre. We researched band names that fit into the same genre and adapted them to create something new.

Imagination was very important especially during the research and planning stage. It was important that any initial ideas that I came up with were developed further by being using different technologies and methods. I was imaginative when taking my initial ideas and developing them into an actual product. An example is when experimenting with mock ups and draft versions for the magazine and music video. This way I could develop more ideas with the help of technology that I may have not thought of originally. After I had gathered enough research to gain some ideas, I could then adapt these conventions into my own by being imaginative. Adobe Photoshop allowed me to generate ideas that I may not have been able to without the software. With this software I experimented with layout, font styles, colour palettes and the editing of images to create ideas and this is where my imagination came in useful.

Inspiration was an important factor to consider during the construction of my products in AS and A2. I would first start by researching magazines, videos or digipacks to look at some I find inspiring and focus on features I may consider using because they look effective. This way I could identify what I could achieve and how well it would work according to my target audience or genre. I gained inspiration from looking at websites, magazines, books, articles, previous products and current products released. For my A2 work I researched music videos on YouTube, looked at the chart on the Radio 1 website to see what competition there is in the current music industry and also watched music channels to identify what videos I thought were successful and which ones were not quite as effective. For the music magazine in AS, I researched on websites such as cover junkie to find inspirational covers that I could take conventions from.

Ingenuity was also important so that I could solve problems and overcome obstacles that I may have encountered. For each piece of work that I have produced over the last 2 years, there had to be some sort of contingency plan in case things didn't work out as well as they should whether this was due to lack of equipment, software, time, space or simply getting everyone together. An example of this is when we filmed our draft video in A2 as we were going to include a narrative aspect to the video so that it wasn't just band performance throughout. We found this very difficult as we had to organise times and places to meet with our actors, actresses and band members and if filming wasn't successful we then had to film it again which was very time consuming due to the lack of planning. We solved this problem by drawing up a brand new storyboard and focusing just on the band performance as this fit in well with our genre. This way we could focus on the personality of the band and their acting. Me and my other group member both combined our ideas during research and planning so that we could think of as many things as possible and create something different to everyone else. In AS it helped by producing draft versions of the music magazine so that I could generate more ideas and be more ingenious by gaining inspiration from background research from other magazines.

Planning resources over the last 2 years was extremely important particularly in the early stages of development. In AS I simply needed a digital camera, a memory stick, a computer with Adobe Photoshop, access to the Internet, a Microsoft package and my mobile. I used the digital camera for taking photos of people in the magazine, I used Photoshop to construct my music magazine and develop ideas in the research and planning stage, I used to Internet to view websites for inspiration, a Microsoft package to present my ideas and work in different ways and also my mobile for extra research and communicating with people that I needed and do extra research. In A2 I used all of these along with a video camera, tripod, Adobe Premiere Elements and social networking sites. Me and my other group member made we sure booked the equipment when needed and had a backup for when things went wrong. An example is when the editing software at school went down and we were very near the deadline for the draft version to be signed in, so we started using other editing software on the Macs and Windows Movie Maker until it was up and running again.

Creativity was essential during the construction of work from AS and A2. I believe that my creativity has improved dramatically over the last 2 years and I have learnt how to present my ideas and work in different ways to make it more interesting and eye catching. The products would be very dull and unappealing if I wasn't creative so it was important to have a structure to my research so that my initial ideas helped my think more creatively before producing my music video, magazine and ancillary texts.  This aspect was particularly important when experimenting with ideas on software such as Photoshop and Premiere. If I started with a rough idea of what I was aiming to achieve, I could develop this by experimenting with the tools provided whilst referring back to my research for more inspiration on how to be creative. By coming up with more than one idea, it lead to a good backup if certain things were not successful or was not what i was aiming to achieve. Examples of when I was creative in AS was when I tried editing the photos that I had taken and trying different effects. This was similar in A2 because I had never used Premiere before so by experimenting with the tools and colours allowed me to identify what I could aim for.

At the start of AS and A2 I had a vision of what I was hoping to achieve so that I knew what to aim for. This vision changed frequently as my ideas were constantly evolving but this wasn't always a bad thing because it enabled me to be more creative and experiment with different things. When we were given the brief I started with some initial ideas and with help from research I had conducted my ideas could develop and then when constructing practical work, my ideas started to narrow down and I knew specifically what I wanted to create. For my AS music magazine, I knew what genre I wanted to do because I thought it would be quite easy due to current magazines that fall into the same category. I took elements from these products and decided on what direction my magazine was going to go in. This process worked the same for the music video in A2 but my vision changed when we found that the narrative aspect wasn't working so we just focused solely on the band performance.

Innovation was important so that I did not just use one type of technology to present my ideas. My presenting them using different technologies also helps enhance my creative skills by using technologies that I may not have used previously. For example I produced mind maps on Prezi, produced videos on Animoto, created Slideshows on MS Powerpoint, posters on Photoshop and also slideshare to upload the powerpoints onto Blogger.

From AS to A2 I believe my creativity skills have improved and by doing research in the early stages it has lead to me being more confident and has allowed to to try more complex things without setting a limit to what I was aiming for. This way I know exactly what I was aiming to achieve and not limiting myself just focusing on initial ideas without developing them into some more creative and different. I have found that planning the music magazine, music video and ancillary texts was more difficult than I thought because there are so many conventions to consider. I wanted to produce something quite different but I still found it hard to challenge original conventions because some are at such a high standard. Creativity is a very important aspect of the course because without this skill it would be very hard to develop ideas from basic research. My creative skills can be seen through the use of different technologies and my ideas in A2 were much more challenging compared to AS because I pushed myself to produce something more complex. I learnt more skills during the production process of the video, magazine and ancillary texts which also helped me be more creative.

Before producing my work over the last 2 years, I had to identify any problems that may occur in advance so that I could overcome them without wasting time or losing the quality. In AS I found it quite difficult to be creative because there was so much competition will fellow class members. I found it quite difficult to develop ideas from the research I had conducted because the conventions where quite complex so it was hard to create something similar. In A2 me and my group member came across many more problems due to the mass of planning and time limits that we had. One main thing that caused us significant problems and stopped us from working was when the editing software for our video went down at school. Because of this we wasted valuable time before our set deadline because we had no software to use. Because the deadlines were so strict and frequent we had to make use of other editing software on the Macs and on Windows Movie Maker which we also encountered problems with. At some points during production we also had problems with booking the equipment because of the high demand. These factors affected my creativity because we were so strict on time and we may have been more creative if we had more time to experiment with the tools and add more effects to the video.

I found that it was better to be given just one brief for each year of the course. This way we didn't have the choice and everyone was doing the same so we didn't have to waste time choosing a brief or changing our minds. I think it was also helpful with each piece of coursework split into separate sections such as research and planning, production and evaluation. By doing these stages in order allowed to to have time to develop initial ideas then go on to more definite ideas by the production stage. The boundaries of the task enabled me to be more creative in each stage of the coursework because I knew what targets to make and refer back to the progress I was making and what direction my ideas were going in to actually produce the work.

Task 2



1. "A process needed for problem solving...not a special gift enjoyed by a few but a common ability possessed by most people." (Jones 1993)

2. "The making of the new and the re arranging of the old." (Bentley 1997)

3. "Creativity results from the interaction of a system composed of three elements: a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts who recognise and validate the innovation." (Csikszentmihalyi 1996)

4. "There is no absolute judgement [on creativity] All judgements are comparisons of one thing with another." (Donald Larning)

5. “Technology has taken all the creativity out of media production.”

6. “A project that is too well planned lacks opportunities for spontaneity and creativity.”

7. “Media producers can learn nothing from studying the conventions of old texts.”

8. “The creation of bringing something new into existence this particular understanding of creativity involves the physical making of something, leading to some form of communication, expression or revelation.” (David Gauntlett)

 

9. “If creativity is not inherent in human mental powers and is, in fact, social and situational, then technological developments may well be linked to advances in the creativity of individual users.” (Banaji, Burn and Buckingham, 2006).

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1. This quote states that problem solving may come more naturally to some people than others but it is a very important skill to have. Most people can solve problems but some better than others. I do agree with this quote because I know myself that some problems are hard to solve but by planning in advance always allows you to recover from a disaster. I found that problem solving was difficult especially when their is so much pressure from other competitors but by working as a team you can think of another plan to solve the problem.

2. This quote basically says that you can be original and create something completely new or take aspects from existing elements and just adapt them without challenging them. I agree with this statement because you can either use elements or create new elements by being creative. It is very difficult to successfully create something new and original but it is still possible.

3. This quote states that creativity can evolve from three different ares. I do not necessarily agree with this quote because you can be creative in many ways. You do not always have to be an expert to be creative and it doesn't always involves symbolic rules or people bringing novelty into the symbolic domain. You can be creative without doing some of these things.

4. This quote means that any judgement made on creativity will always be compared to other things and is not seen individually. There is no judgement on creativity so stops people from limiting themselves to being creative. By comparing judgements of one thing to another enables you to compare how creative they have actually been. This is why I agree with this statement.

5. I disagree with this quote because I feel that technology has offered us many more opportunities to be creative by experimenting with developing technologies. there of of higher quality and include more tools which allows us to develop better standards of work and generate more complex ideas.

6. This quotes explains that if you plan too much in depth and strictly adhere to the plan it may restrict you from being more creative by experimenting and changing your ideas. I agree with this to some extent because I believe that by planning sets a good structure to what you aim to achieve but I also believe that you should be creative at the same time by doing extra work outside the plan to help gain more inspiration and ideas. By sticking to the plan limits your creativeness because you are just going along with basic ideas that may not be developed if creativity is not explored.

7. I disagree with this statement because I feel that is media producers look at previous texts, they can gain inspiration and ideas and identify how they can produce something better by adapting and challenging these conventions. If they do not understand what conventions must be included, they may miss out on vital detail that needs to be included which may effect the quality. If anything they can learn more form researching conventions so that they can aim for better things.

8. I agree with this quote because I do believe that you must physically produce something to bring something new in existence. It would be difficult to be creative if initial ideas to not develop through later stages so by communication the progress enhances the creativity because it is easier to show creativeness through actual work.

9. I completely agree with this quote because I believe that technological developments are directly linked to the developments of creative skills. It is easy to be creative without technology but technology has many functions to aid our decision making and develop ideas that we may not have been able to without it.

Two quotes that I agree with is quote 1 and 6. Problem solving was an important skill to have during the whole of the two years because if you couldn't move on with ideas or work. A contingency plan must always be in place in case problems do occur and it is important that you know what to do to overcome these problems. An example of when I had to use problem solving was in A2 when the editing software went down and our deadline for the draft version was only  few days later. We made the best use of the resources we had so used basic editing software until Premiere was up and running. An example at AS was when my music magazine didn't save properly on my memory stick and once again the deadline was only a few days away so I had to think of a way to recreate certain conventions to replace the ones that had been deleted. A also agree with quote 6 because I think that planning too much limits yourself to basic skills and stops you from being as creative as you can be. I found this during the research and planning stage in both AS and A2. I did everything on the specification but I felt that I had to do extra to develop my ideas and skills further. Therefore I didn't stick to the plan which enabled me to be more creative particularly in the construction part of my video, magazine and ancillary texts.

Two quotes that I disagree with is quote 5 and 7. Without technology I wouldn't have been able to create the work that I have. It has provided me with tools to make the products at a standard quality. I used Photoshop for creating my music magazine and ancillary texts and Premiere for my music video. Without these technologies I wouldn't have been able to produce them and they have also developed my creative skills dramatically because I feel a lot more confident whilst using them. I have used technology for nearly all aspects of my coursework. I disagree with quote 7 because I feel that if you don't research previous conventions of products that you are producing, you have no knowledge of what is effective and what isn't. This was particularly important during the research and planning stages of AS and A2 because analysing videos and magazines in depth provided me with important information on how to use conventions effectively and decide on whether to just use them or take it further and challenge existing conventions.