Posts tagged creation and cultivation

There is a whole new category of technology appearing—video games like Guitar Hero, apps from Glee and Taylor Swift—that make you look and sound incredibly good without requiring practice or talent. For several years I've been trying to make the case that true fulfillment comes from embracing difficult and demanding practices over time. But it may well be that the technology of creating ersatz experiences of skill is improving so fast that most people will gladly settle for "pop-star fantasy fulfillment." In the new consumer culture, it's not just your consuming that is the target of marketing and sales, but your creativity as well.

re: copying, creation and cultivation, pop culture, remixes

Andy:

The [Glee iPhone app] uses a special, gentle version of auto-tune, the recording effect that rounds off your notes to the nearest correct pitch. (Most pop singers today are, in fact, routinely auto-tuned during the recording process.) You’re also given generous reverb and other effects; it’s the high-tech version of singing in the shower.

But the app also somehow multiplies you, duplicates your own vocal line and assigns your clones to other notes. Now you’re singing in lush four-part harmony with yourself, with absolutely zero effort. If you can carry a tune, you can turn off the processing and go it alone.

The result — professional backup band, you processed to sound gorgeous and perfect — is exhilarating, no matter how rotten a singer you are. It’s pop-star fantasy fulfillment for a buck, and everyone who tries it goes nuts. . . .

What both apps teach you along the way is that to sound like a pop star, technical singing talent is not necessarily a prerequisite. (This is especially apparent when, ahem, you isolate Taylor Swift’s vocal track in her app.) With these apps, you now have the same support structure the pros do. You get all the benefits of state-of-the-art vocal processing — and even a taste of the public adoration — that comes with being a star.

Here's the first of three excerpts about the initial reactions to early-20th-century experiments in avant-garde "noise music." While I think that Andy's comments in Culture Making about John Cage's most (in)famous work—that in the end it amounted to "a provocative but fruitless attempt to cut off the cultural tradition of music"—are certainly worth bearing in mind. Still, there is something thrilling about the passion evident on both sides of this particular audience dispute. In the next excerpts we'll from some of the more thoughtful (and less pugnacious) early listeners.

re: creation and cultivation, cultural worlds, horizons of the possible, modernity, music, noise

Nate:

The first public performance of the noise orchestra took place on 21 April 1914 at the Teatro dal Verme in Milan. According to Russolo, the audience of conservative critics and musicians came only “so that they could refuse to listen.” As soon as the orchestra began to play, the crowd broke into a violent uproar. The musicians continued undaunted while fellow Futurists hurled themselves into the audience and defended the Art of Noises with their fists. In the end, eleven people were sent to the hospital, none of them Futurists, as belligerence was a central component of the Futurist approach to art and life, and many were talented boxers.

Insight into the hard work of creativity -- not just coming up with or considering myriad possibilitys, but deciding which is the one worth pursuing and pruning away the rest.

re: biology, creation and cultivation, life sciences, psychology

Nate:

Why is making a determination so taxing? Evidence implicates two important components: commitment and tradeoff resolution. The first is predicated on the notion that committing to a given course requires switching from a state of deliberation to one of implementation. In other words, you have to make a transition from thinking about options to actually following through on a decision. This switch, according to Vohs, requires executive resources. In a parallel investigation, Yale University professor Nathan Novemsky and his colleagues suggest that the mere act of resolving tradeoffs may be depleting. For example, in one study, the scientists show that people who had to rate the attractiveness of different options were much less depleted than those who had to actually make choices between the very same options.