Week 10 - Forum - Construction and Deconstruction (1)

After all the ramblings of hit formula and psycho acoustics,one thing is definite. I’m no public speaker.

Everything resonates. It’s the simple fact of the universe, but can we willfully affect that resonance to basically “do our bidding?” Can every number 1 song be deconstructed and stripped of all their dissimilar aspects to only leave the exact same elements remaining for every single song? I would recommend reading the chapter (Well the whole book really. Parts of it is in our readings) in “Mixing With Your Mind” that I refered to today as Stav says it better than I did. What I hoped to achieve was to take it one step further and see if his concept could be applied to discover the ‘secret ingredients’ that go into other genres of music for film scoring and soundtracks. Namely the horror genre.

Some people may have misinterpreted my intention for the Slipknot video (which is my fault for the poor presentation). The purpose of the video was to demonstrate fear in music, whether it could be manufactured/constructed at will and the bodily reactions one has without even realising it, not whether someone would buy an album based on seeing what the artists look like or a debate on whether Slipknot is scary. Slipknot was the best reference I had since I had the video and the album and could do an easy A B comparison with and without visual stimulus. Even though a horror film tends to build tension and suspense in the music and doesn’t usually just jump out at you at the start like a metal concert, it served the purpose of the experiment by seeing the various reactions such as squirming, staring in disbelief, rapid eye blinking and laughter but in hindsight it may have been better to use a film such as the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Presented once with the footage, then with the lens covered so as just to listen to the soundtrack (a dark musical section, not one filled with screaming and a howling chainsaw). Unfortunately I don’t have that video. It is a known fact that famous record producers use formulas. It is also a known fact that marketing gurus use formulas in advertising to sell us their products. Formulas are used everywhere where a buck is to be made. Ignore it if you will, but we are either the manipulators or the manipulated. Anyone that doesn't believe this is a naive fool.

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The other two presenters also basically spoke about “deconstructing” a piece of work. Dragos spoke of the addition and subtraction of loops in songs while Matthew talked us through the working processes of a piece he worked on. I have a funny feeling we will be in for more of this sort of theme in next weeks forum. I hope I’m wrong and there are more lateral thinkers out there.

Whittington, Stephen. 2007. Forum Workshop “Construction and Deconstruction in Music(1)”. Forum presented at the University of Adelaide, 17th May.

May, Frederick. 2007. Forum Workshop “Construction and Deconstruction in Music(1)”. Forum presented at the University of Adelaide, 17th May.

Nastasie, Dragos. 2007. Forum Workshop “Construction and Deconstruction in Music(1)”. Forum presented at the University of Adelaide, 17th May.

Mazzone, Matthew. 2007. Forum Workshop “Construction and Deconstruction in Music(1)”. Forum presented at the University of Adelaide, 17th May.