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.