Michael C. Santayana

October 2, 2015

                                                         SXSW has been Commercialized

 “SXSW brings swarms of influential people together in one place at one time. That many like-minded people in one place yields huge opportunities.” Pigeons & Planes, March 23, 2015.

As the largest music festival of its kind in the United States, the Austin South by Southwest music festival, known as SXSW, has become an important, transformative event since it started in 1987.  Music is transformed at SXSW commercially and creatively. Artists, audience, producers and consumers dynamically interact enlarging the event economically while enriching the vitality of the music. SXSW has inspired both recording artists and writers who chronicle the festival. One such writer is Jan Reid. 

Jan Reid, according to texasmonthly.com, writes books and is published in magazines and newspaper. He covers the cowboy side of western music rather than blues and other genres but sometimes touches on hippie and cosmic cowboy genres. In the book, Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock, Jan Reid wrote on musicians before and after their performance at SXSW. Besides the impact on artist’s musical styles as a result of exposure to the event, he covers their effects on the genres performed.

Reid also covers how musical innovators from obscure origins like cosmic cowboy and outlaw, evolve into more popular genres like bluegrass and country rock. One performer he interviewed for his book during the SXSW 2004 festival is the Marcia Ball.  “She reflected, “We’ve watched Austin go from rock and country to blues and now a new generation is reinventing country music. Good for them. But we’re not through. We’re the baby boomers, and those people are still buying records- a lot of records. Little radio stations in little towns all across the country are doing some very inventive programing. Also we’re the generation who started rock festivals. (362)” Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock by Jan Reid.

Marcia Ball was ready to abandon her music career until her breakthrough performance at SXSW. Reid describes how the festival affirms traditional Southwestern music while still being a springboard for both careers and musical innovations. Catering to young and old consumers who demand different genres, the festival not only provides different artists but helps transform those artists as well. Author Laurie E. Jasinski writes on the SXSW festival from a more statistical and commercial perspective.

Published by the Texas State Historical Association, Laurie E. Jasinski traces the festival from its rock and roll days to its growing technological and corporate focus. Showing her 17 years’ experience with the Handbook of Texas, she documents how artists begin as renegades and gradually conform to more commercial music as they sign with labels providing professional management. This is how the transformation starts; “Organizers launched an annual SXSW Preview Guide in February 2004, and in November 2006 they issued the first edition of a new quarterly magazine, SXSWorld, "devoted to coverage of the people and companies who collectively make us SXSW." The magazine is free to thousands of people in the entertainment industries. More than 12,600 music professionals participated in the twenty-second annual conference over a ten-day period in 2008. That year, 1,800 acts performed at more than eighty venues. SXSW celebrated its twenty-fifth conference in 2011 and showcased approximately 2,000 musical acts at more than ninety venues. The festival began in 1987 and is produced by the Austin-based private company South by Southwest, Inc. The internationally-recognized event in March serves as a showcase for musicians and provides a forum for music-industry professionals.” South by South West uploaded by Laurie E. Jasinski in The Handbook of Texas. The Austin Music Festival was already a magnet and platform for entertainers but then became the magazine propelled a corporate invasion into the spotlight. This brought more artists that brought more corporate interests. The performers becoming professional means service to the public and not just a get-together of local artists performing for fellow artists. By 2008, as this quote indicates, the upward spiral of artists and industries got momentum and the festival grew. Another view on the festival is from prize winning author Jon Swartz.   

Unlike Jan Reid, Swartz focuses on public reaction to enterprising corporations. Swartz according to techinclusion.co.com, has won many awards in the US and Britain. A Californian who writes for only liberal sources, Swartz is also lifelong technology fan. His readership is heavily techies and music fans. He writes, “To the uninitiated, SXSW is a confluence of tech ideas, music acts and film showings, where nerds get a chance to rub shoulders with movie stars and music legends. It has grown dramatically over the past few years, putting a strain on Austin but also pumping the local economy.” Swartz sees SXSW as a place where ideas spread, but what he sees is mostly “Tech” for Nerds, his target audience. Now remember, this magazine quote was posted 03/17/2015, and February 2004 is the year Austin changed from amateur to professional; SXSW is changing, pulling in different artists and stakeholders.

In 1987, the festival was mostly local artists performing for artists. By 2008, the music industry was bringing more artists but was also there to find talent and ride that talent to profit.   Local music stepped aside to make way for the commercial juggernaut that SXSW has become. Music, astounding in itself, is affected by the way we hear it and how it develops. The Music environment has become more complex than before. SXSW has proven to be a popular and effective platform for spreading ideas throughout the world and those ideas can have profound impacts on people’s lives.

Bibliography

Laurie E. Jasinski., The Handbook of Texas; South by South West Uploaded on June 15, 2010. Modified on August 26, 2015. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

Jan Reid. “Improbable rise of redneck rock” DCCCD.edu’s online library, 2004

“SXSW Music 2015 QUOTES”, March 15-20,

Jon Swartz DCCCD.edu’s online library. .USA Today. 03/17/2015.{ ebscohost.com.library.dcccd.edu}

Michael C. Santayana
September 28, 2015

Claude Debussy

Achilles-Claude Debussy, France 1862-1918, added dimension to music through his originality, he created a new style that compliments American culture while glorifying French culture.

This artist achieved success, despite doubts from the critics, because the public loved him. He was trying to make his own movement. “Debussy’s incredible original approach to timbre, rhythm, melody, harmony, and musical form created a music the likes of which no one had ever heard before. In this, he is one of the great originals in the history of western music and, along with Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg, one of the most influential composers of the twentieth century (283-4).” How to Listen to Great Music by Robert Greenberg. Beethoven mastered conventional forms before he innovated. In contrast, almost from the start, Claude Debussy is one of the most original musicians in history. Debussy is influenced by his French surroundings but was also marked by originality. Helping to create the field of impressionist music, he also painted and wrote poetry. Despite this, he denied and hated the idea of just being a part of any movement, including impressionism. He wanted his artistic view to be as important as Marx or Darwin’s.

Claude Debussy’s view affected our cultural views of the arts in the United States today by adding a new feature that would become important to modern America. Traditionally, program music was used and if it was not, then the musical piece will describe some ideal or emotion (i.e. Eroica). “Instead of dealing with human emotion, Debussy evokes the atmosphere of nature (349).” from Culture & Value, vol. II, Lawrence S. Cunningham and John J. Reich. Debussy was focused on the delivery of his floaty symphonies. His symphony was not symphonic and his content was not a reflection of human emotion. In the Parisian mind, it is not focused on the self, but what is around the self in the environment; unlike the Italian rooted musical genres that were all about human emotion. However his respect for nature and nationalism was very relatable to the American Romantics who had same preocuppations. He spoke to the Franco-American composer Edgard Varèse in his of painting as much as music. Once tried to create The House of Usher by Edger Allan Poe into an opera. Edward Lockspeiser suggest that Robert Usher was also much like Debussy in his expression.

Impressionism painting grew in strength and color when Debussy works went public, however, they were sometimes critiqued as an anarchist form of music. He is completely original and is as atmospheric as the impressionist paintings which at the time, were strong in movements like the American Hudson River School. Both of these compliment the transcendental authors like Emerson and Thoreau. He also knew tone color very well “Similarly, he saw that woodwinds need not be employed for fireworks displays; they provide, like the human voice, wide varieties of colour.” by Edward Lockspeiser from http://www.britannica.com/biography/Claude-Debussy. Think of the idea of describing a new thing using music, which was not the word painting of the renaissance, program music of the baroque or just human emotion, but something almost more objective. Claude Debussy may have helped unleashed some of the modern era approaches and devices latter used in Jazz and Ambient music.

Claude Debussy pioneered impressionist music and helped the progress of the modern era music possible. His music was angelical and new, yet had not developed into its own school or style. However, the impact his music had and its idea that it was worth experimenting makes it a classic and makes it stand out from millions of other musicians. He really was an artist; painter, poet, and musician who created something immortal. 

Presentation aid

Play French language and explain its history of isolation after the Prussian war.  This inwardness caused French culture to become more French. How the way something was said was just as important as what was said. This was witnessed in French music in its timbre becoming as important as pitch and rhythm, which was particularly useful in drama.  “Finally, Debussy applied an exploratory approach to the piano, the evocative instrument par excellence since notes struck at the keyboard are, by the nature of the piano mechanism, neither eighth notes, quarter notes, nor half notes, but merely illusions of these notes.” by Edward Lockspeiser from http://www.britannica.com/biography/Claude-Debussy

Pick interpretive impressionist painting and play the piece of music that which is being interpreted.

Self-Reflection

What was your thesis sentence?

Achilles-Claude Debussy, France 1862-1918, added dimension to music through his originality, he created a new style that compliments American culture while glorifying French culture.

List the major steps you followed to complete this project?

1.      Read: read the study guide. Circle the absolute necessaries and know the rest as to get a rough idea of what I’m going to do.

2.      Plane: To avoid small mistakes, my weakness, I lay out the basic structure like MLA format, the basic questions, and the outline. I also go right ahead and do anything easy, something that doesn’t need any research.

3.      Act: I gather textual evidence relevant to the basics, and writing down comments and thoughts.

4.      Keep at it: Every day, I add more to the interpretation and do a little re-organizing and rewriting. Rechecking mistakes.

5.      Self-Reflect: Answer all the Self-Reflect.

6.      Proof read.     

What is the most important thing you learned in this project?

·         That Britannica is hands down, the greatest source of paper information. Having material that could embarrass the 3 other Textbook I analyzed.

·         That not only Claude had anything to do with the U.S. today, but that he even wished to write an opera on the House Of Usher.

·          He also painted and wrote poetry.

What do you wish you had spent more time on or done differently?

I Wished I could of found more ways on how Musical influence spread. As well as using Britannica to find it.

What part of the the project did you do your best work on?

      Finding how Claude Debussy was recognized in his field.

What was the most enjoyable part of this project?

      Actually using all of my real books at home to find the information, They got to pay for themselves some how, and discovering Britannica.

How could your teacher change this project to make it better next time?

      The American specific question is not very applicable to all artist, as well as it being to different to the second question, which meant providing creative transitionals.

Works Cited

Greenberg, Robert, “How to Listen to Great Music. A Guide To Its History, Culture, And Heart” The Great Course Edition, LLC, The Teacher Company © 2011

Cunningham, Lawrence S., and Reich, John J., “Culture & Value. A Survey of the Humanities”, 6^th edition, vol. II, Thomas Wadsworth © 2006

Lockspeiser, Edward “Britannica”, http://www.britannica.com/biography/Claude-Debussy, Last Updated 5-6-2015.

 

October 2, 2015

Michael C. Santayana

Charm

The composer Kevin Puts wrote the composition “Charm” during the era known as Modern America. The piece was written between January and June of 2012 and premiered May 9, 2012. The major influencing events in history that occurred at the same time this piece was created are yet to be determined because we are so close to this date that we do not have a full historical perspective on what the significant events might have been. The beginning is characterized by an edgy and optimistic sound, with fast paced diatonic major chords.  The number of instruments were played in a way that the sound seemed to grow and swell as it approached the climax with a well-developed theme. The primary instruments were woodwinds but the full orchestra was involved a robust but balanced way. The texture was very distinguishable and the overall visual effect or mood of the work is indeed charming, in every meaning of the word.

The role that texture plays in the work is by laying out its homophonic beginning. The texture has been used within the work in making the opening movement fast and distinguishable, while the piece moves forward, the woodwind adds a smoother thread to it. The artist used this element in the work making it an active and exciting piece.

The overall visual effect of the work was achieved by the use of the elements in the music. The motive was kept up at a good speed and the pitch grew with the change in tone color, the theme was so strong and kinetic near the climax that the listener felt the mood of the adventure, or was under a spell. The major diatonic scale was uplifting and the tonality was obviously charming and this tonality was a key note to the piece.

Kevin Puts is an American and the winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Silent Night. A professor who developed his skills in various schools including Yale. He has composed across America but he is now a professor at the University of Texas in Austin. Kevin Puts’ statement in the “Charm” was that school is charming. It’s telling a story of excitement. Particularly of his excitement as it relates to his school experience. This excitement for Kevin came in what he heard as a tone when driving back from a school in Scarsdale Middle School Band in Scarsdale, NY. It was a sort of middle-ages fantasy or a piece that means enchanting peril. It has a sense of imparting to the listener a positive, optimistic take on adventure. This relates to me and my life in the choices I make when I’m in school. Many people start inventing and creating ideas while still in college and before they even start their careers. The feelings I have when experiencing this music totally tugs on a sense of exploration and creativity. The artist chose to work in this manner and made these kinds of artistic decisions to push the listener out of their perspective and to share the inspiration he received from his school experience; his sense of excitement and discovery in school is contagious and is felt in the music.  The artist started with the melody and gave breath and width to the piece according to the time and place (clapping), however, some of the elements where built around the melody alone and magnifying the melody.

This work has value coming from a modern American who creates a mood of enterprise and invention. The overall impression of the performance was indeed charming, I sort of wished it could be my theme song. Some interpretations of the piece express the xylophone as the stronger piece. This performance of the piece can be overwhelming and can be played with a speed that smooths the texture and this effect emphasis on the xylophone detracts from the charm of  “Charm’.

If I don’t go to the symphony to be stimulated by the presence of live music, I would go just for the pleasure that the whole experience provides. The day of the symphony I woke up   feeling sick; the whole day my legs were sore and I had a headache and a grouchy attitude. The Music became the escape I have heard so much about. I physically felt better and even was carried away by the mood the music created, I felt whatever the piece felt. The worries of planet earth didn’t come to disturb me. However inconvenient the concert was that day, it was very much worth the trip. When the “Charm’ called for clapping, the performers could not help but smile at literally, how charming it really was. These University students enjoyed the performance after practicing it perhaps many times before. How could anybody not smile after a Composer introduces something so primitive in such a sophisticated genre? The feeling, as corny as it sounds, was “Weeee!”. We were clapping and it actually sounded musical!  A composer trying to surprise an audience will not easily succeed unless he does something bold. The collective clapping used overtone when suddenly, everyone in the orchestra started clapping; instrument by instrument, they would each return back to clapping. When the venue lets the composition do all the talking, as it did in this performance, the experience is so engaging that you forget so many petty and serious problems and your soul is lifted and transported at least for the time you are there. 

Michael Carlos Santayana

January 14, 2015

The Spirit of the Law.

     The American theory of motive in leadership is that the man can naturally rule himself if he is orgenized right. There are two parts to this argument; the American heritage (or old world), and American foundation (new world); all composed of authors who have done their work.

The American heritage includes the works of Aristotle and Polybius. These two old world authors are familiar classics. Aristotle and Polybius, who were pioneers of early political writing,  had a pure idea political science that was less distracted by writers.

     Aristotle came to his conclusion by reading over a 100 constitutions. He is the reference, if not foundation of most academic thought. Aristotle establishes the basic motive of all what he has read was the rule of the good. "As to the question of whether the virtue of the good man is the same as that of the good citizen, the considerations already adduced prove that in some states the good man and the good citizen are the same, and in others different. When they are the same it is not every citizen who is a good man, but only the statesman and those who have or may have, alone or in conjunction with others, the conduct of public affairs" (Aristotle III, chp5, 10). The fact that trying to make the good citizen matching the good man is proof that they are not the same. Here he makes a vinediegram where he places the good man  circle intersecting the good citizen circle. This and that if "they are the same it is not every citizen who is a good man, but only the (good) statesman". Now if the good regime was in power, it would be like the good man circle is within the good citizen circle. Now Aristotle finally says that these men who are both a good citizen and a good man is the one who should be "the conduct of public affairs." This is relevently about the rule of the virtues as meritocracy.

     Publius was a diplomate and analysed many governmental motives in reference of time and change. Government is not bound to progress in time. He builds up a cycle of regimes that imitates the vague cycle of every political governmental history. Also talking about the roman solution, the mixed regimes and the balance of powers, which act to keep the people steady.  "For whenever any danger from without compels them to unite and work together, the strength which is developed by the State is so extraordinary, that everything required is unfailingly carried out by the eager rivalry shown by all classes to devote their whole minds to the need of the hour, and to secure that any determination come to should not fail for want of promptitude; while each individual works, privately and publicly alike, for the accomplishment of the business in hand. Accordingly, the peculiar constitution of the State makes it irresistible, and certain of obtaining whatever it determines to attempt. No, even when these external alarms are past, and the people are enjoying their good fortune and the fruits of their victories, and, as usually happens, growing corrupted by flattery and idleness, show a tendency to violence and arrogance—it is in these circumstances, more than ever, that the constitution is seen to possess within itself the power of correcting abuses" (polybius 30). There is two halves to this quote; the first half is on the cornered nation, the second, the decadence in the citizens in time. Now when he first said “whenever any danger from without compels them to unite and work together, the strength which is developed by the State is so extraordinary,” When the issue arises, it brings out the best of us and the worst of us. everybody focuses on the “danger”, when they are cornered. The people enjoying the fruits of victory begin to weaken. the decadence of citizen was explained as so; “the people are enjoying their good fortune and the fruits of their victories, and, as usually happens, growing corrupted by flattery and idleness, show a tendency to violence and arrogance” the leisure time they earn is miss use and so the become decedent. They hurt themselves and then others. He then simply says that this is what the mix regime is for, this moment; “the constitution is seen to possess within itself the power of correcting abuses" and litteraly the word “abuses,” because that is the decadent world. So Polybius claimed that the roman constitution was constructed for time. 

     The new world, or our new world, is a focused study of the mixed regimes. Many American studied and experiment; Essex Results, the Federalist Papers, with regimes and try to bring the new material in mix of the old in construction to the art of organizing offices.

     Essex Results was the public conversation of the Essex county. They also bring history to the table in providing the tries in the past. Their conclusion was that the office must make as many people conform to nature and appear to be in a nature of freedom. "To determine what form of government, in any given case, will produce the greatest possible happiness to the subject, is an arduous task, not to be compassed perhaps by any human powers. Some of the greatest geniuses and most learned philosophers of all ages, impelled by their solicitude to promote the happiness of mankind, have nobly dared to attempt it: and their labours have crowned them with immortality. A Solon, a Lycurgus of Greece, a Numa of Rome are remembered with honor, when the wide extended empires of succeeding tyrants, are hardly important enough to be faintly sketched out on the map, while their superb thrones have long since crumbled into dust" (Essex 18). Now this conformity to nature is thought to be the true happiness. The idea is to form a government that makes this happen. This passage list four things; the two people and the second person’s effort and result. The two people are the thinkers and the doers. The thinkers are the one who speculate and “promote the happiness of mankind,” however, it is the nobler who think and attempt so. The more noble are the doers, and the document provides examples, they work hard with great effort to fore fill conformity of nature and self-rulership. What Plato may call attempters of the philosopher king, these doers are labeled “tyrants” by this document. Tyrants who are dislike at the moment and their treasures are forgotten latter. However, they oppose a system that must be working with the people that they conform to nature and be in a nature of freedom, and that this is the governments gaul.

     James Madison was sent overseas to read most everything political, including constitutions. He wrote the Federalist Papers. What the Federalist Papers added to the research was that motive of the people as a force, in specifically the American interest. "Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government" (Federalist No. 10). Madison is communicating two things in this passage; the in-escapable interest of the people, and the solution. The interest of the people is diveded in two, creditors and dedtors. This divide might was a modern divide for the time, the rich and poor. these men are interested in a veried fanincial idaes. These interest will change and the bifurcation will also. The growing population will add to the tendencies of spliting. So it is practicle that the system fit all, as much as it is that they agree on some ground. With this he say that "various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation," maening that the legislation needs to work with the huge diverse groups. That this legislature should allow people to orgenize themselves in th form of parties; "involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government." The parties sole existence is to not win and unit the people enough that they can still work together. Know the fact that it has the legislature word and that the Americans of all belief want and should contribute to the republic to make their change, and let it be feltered and cut down to be in agreement with all else who care.

The Constitution was primarily wrote by Madison. This is the meaning why Madison had the first paragraph of constitution expressing the spirit of the law, or its motives. Thus making the american understand that the general motive of the office. "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Prosperity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." their is the beginning, a listing, and then an ending of purpose. The first address is legendary; "We the People of the United States." this in reference to the power of the people to fraction the country is made into the philosopher king and construct the more perfect union. The next four clauses is what is basic to live a life that  “promotes the happiness of mankind,” The fifth clause, "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Prosperity," this is the constitution making available the individual's fruits of labor for their own financial interest. The end was that these people, the doers, "do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." This means that the people are given their responsibility of their own responsibility, or that the people rule the people. That the through the checks and balances and balance of powers “the constitution is seen to possess within itself the power of correcting abuses."  The people are in control of the "the conduct of public affairs," and they have been given their motives to conduct by.

The American research developed a theory that is made perminent in our constitution. The American motive is that the people can rule themselves because they are orginzed by a mixed regime. That really the meritocracy in America is partially the system in place.

Bibliography

http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.3.three.html

http://humanistictexts.org/polybius.htm#The Cycle of Six Forms of Govrnment

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch4s8.html

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp