When I started at Birmingham, I was in
\nthe midst of a project where in I was soliciting commissions of
\npieces of music around one minute in length. My plan was originally
\nto compose 45 of these in total and release an album at the end. I
\nintend to pick up where I left off and finish the project after
\ngraduating.
\n
<\/p>\n
This project was an attempt to get a
\nbit of attention and to address some economic and political issues of
\nmusic distribution. The amount of music available to listeners only
\ncontinues to rise. Every day, somebody records something and makes
\nit available in a digital format. The cost of providing copies to
\nconsumers is practically nil. Any composer can upload an mp3 to
\nlast.fm or bandcamp at no cost. (\u201cBandcamp Pricing\u201d)
\n
<\/p>\n
Because copying and distribution is so
\ncheap and easy, consumers often share files without paying for them.
\nThe Recording Industry Association of America [RIAA] struck back
\nagainst this by suing fans (\u201cFor Students Doing Reports\u201d), an
\nidea which seemed poorly thought out and which has made them
\nextremely unpopular. (Reisinger) At the same time, the duration of
\ncopyright keeps being extended, seemingly so that Mickey Mouse will
\nnever fall into the public domain. (Springman) What used to be a
\nsystem to make sure that creators got their fair share is
\nincreasingly perceived as a way for big companies to control culture.
\n(Lessig 61) Rather than adapt to new conditions, media companies are
\nlobbying for new laws to force the genie back in the bottle. (Lessig
\n48) Some of these, like the Digital Economy Act are fairly draconian
\nin that households may have their internet switched off if only one
\nmember of the household breaks copyright law. (Digital Economy Act s.
\n10) Despite the severity of this crackdown, many are skeptical it
\nwill make any difference. (\u201cQ&A: The Digital Economy bill\u201d)
\nRather than adapt to changing conditions, powerful,
\npolitically-connected media companies are abusing state power. Their
\nposition is morally bankrupt and their claims of victimhood are
\nlaughably overstated. The RIAA tells students that sharing an mp3 is
\nworse than maritime hostage-taking: \u201cIt\u2019s commonly known as
\n‘piracy,’ but that\u2019s too benign of a term to adequately describe
\nthe toll that music theft takes . . ..\u201d (\u201cFor Students Doing
\nReports\u201d)
\n
<\/p>\n
It seems clear that copyright is in
\ncrisis and in need of a major reform. However, the crisis of
\ncopyright does not diminish the notion of authorship. Those engaged
\nin online music sharing still are deeply invested in who<\/I><\/p>\n
created the work they’re copying. Artists that chose to
\nparticipate in Open Culture models, such as Creative Commons are not
\nceding their work to the public domain, but instead protecting the
\nrights of their fans. (\u201cFrequently Asked Questions\u201d) An artist
\nchoosing this model may be potentially sacrificing some forms of
\nrevenue, but for most emerging artists, getting heard is far more
\nimportant than protecting rights which may<\/I>
\none day generate income. Even for successful artists like Bob
\nOstertag, this income has failed to materialise. He writes,
\n\u201c[S]elling recordings in whatever format has been a break-even
\nproposition at best.\u201d (Ostertag)
\n
<\/p>\n
However, artists
\nstill need to eat and pay rent. Sustainability is a major concern,
\nbut, economic support for non-mainstream composers will not be coming
\nfrom record labels. Indeed, they have historically worked against
\nthe interests of composers. In 2001, composer Judy Dunaway wrote:
\n
<\/p>\n
Of course, the recording industry does not care at all about
\ncontemporary and experimental music. The sales figures on such CDs
\nare miniscule compared to popular music. In the words of Foster Reed
\nat the New Albion label, "The corporate recording industry lives
\nin a completely different world, of commodity and markets, than the
\nindependents do, who make and publish work that is near and dear to
\nthem." But accessibility to innovative music on the internet may
\nbe blocked by the record industry\u2019s rush to protect and maintain
\ntotal control of its own high-profit intellectual property.
\n(Dunaway)
<\/p>\n
Composers are thus
\nleft to their own devices when it comes to both generating revenue
\nand attracting listeners. Without a budget for publicity, one of the
\nbest ways to gather attention is by word of mouth \u201cbuzz.\u201d Social
\nnetworking is one venue where this can happen, which has the
\nadvantage of the possibility of fast transmission and direct links to
\nonline content. I suspect people may be motivated to share music they
\nlike or find interesting because it gains them cultural capital. They
\nwould thus take on a curatorial role and hope to gain the respect of
\ntheir friends and social contacts. A musician interested in using
\nthis as a path to wider recognition would need to create music that
\nworks in an online context. For example he or she might want to
\ninclude video content, so it can be uploaded to YouTube or create
\nmusic that the sharer will identify with in some way. They may also
\nproduce music with the goal of having it sound good in stereo mp3
\nformat out of home speakers. The music should be engineered for the
\nplayback environment in which it is expected to be heard. The music
\ncreated must also be accessible in some way, although, obviously an
\nartist wishes to remain interesting. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In my case, I chose
\nduration as my most accessible component. All of my pieces in this
\nproject are around one minute long. I strongly suspect that if you
\nask most people to listen to ten minutes of noise music, they would
\nrefuse unless they were already fans of the genre or the composer.
\nHowever, in my experience, people are much more willing to sacrifice
\na minute of their time. Many more people are going to be willing to
\nlisten to very short pieces. However, just because people will
\nlisten to something does not mean they will share it. I thought
\nsharing would be more likely to occur if listeners felt connected to
\nthe music in some way. One way to get that feeling of connection was
\nto get a listener to commission me.
\n
<\/p>\n
The commissioner
\ngets their name attached to a short piece of music, which becomes
\nintegrally linked to them. The piece of music would not exist if it
\nwere not for their financial involvement. This, in return gives them
\ncultural capital. They are the proprietor of a new piece of music.
\nThis also solves the dilemma of sustainability. The commissioning
\namount should cover costs, at least. The commissioner would be
\nmotivated to share their new piece of music as far and wide as they
\ncan, as every re-sharing increases their own cultural capital.
\nInstead of fighting the online sharing that people seem inclined to
\ndo, this model requires it and does not require coercive action on
\nthe part of the state.
\n
<\/p>\n
I started by using
\neBay as my sales platform. This allowed me to control how many
\ncommissions I might sell at a time, handle the monetary transaction
\nand the platform itself made the commissioners feel engaged and
\ninterested some music press. (\u201cMusic Commissioning on eBay\u201d)
\nMuch to my surprise, a bidding war erupted on one of my early
\nofferings, despite the promise of many more to come. However, before
\nthat bidding war could conclude, eBay terminated my account, banning
\nme from the service. They refused to tell me why they had done this,
\nso I don’t know if it was because they suspected fraud or because
\nthey objected to my business model. I moved to Etsy, a much less
\nexciting web store where users sell craft items and resumed.
\n
<\/p>\n
During
\nthe course of my project, several people did share their short pieces
\nvia their blogs, facebook or another online medium. One person used
\nher piece as her ringtone. In 2008, I approached a popular blogger,
\nJosh Fruhlinger of The Comics Curmudgeon<\/I>
\nand asked if he would trade me advertising space for a free
\ncommission. His blog had been ranked #13 by PC Magazine’s \u201c100
\nFavorite Blogs for 2007\u201d (Heater) and won a Webby Award in 2008 for
\nBest Humor Blog. (\u201cBest Humor Blog\u201d) His blog was also popular
\nwith composers and was mentioned on Kyle Gann’s blog (Gann) and
\nothers. Fruhlinger agreed to this plan and I composed a short piece
\nrelated the the American comic strip Gil Thorp. In order to cope
\nwith the expected server traffic, I created a very simple video of
\nthe face of the titular character slowly zooming in with the piece as
\nsoundtrack and uploaded it to YouTube.
\n(http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=p__XzqnLDCQ) My small advertisement
\nran for a week and then Fruhlinger made a post specifically about the
\npiece. He was very positive, using words like \u201cstunning\u201d and
\n\u201cmasterpiece.\u201d (Fruhlinger) The video got 4000 views in a very
\nshort period of time. However, despite how happy Fruhlinger was and
\nsome positive comments from his readers such as, \u201cI stand amazed,\u201d
\n(commodorejohn) this got me no new
\ncommissions.
\n
<\/p>\n
Does this mean that
\nthe model fails? I had predicted that I would get some new
\ncommissions out of such a high profile endorsement, but didn’t.
\nThere are a few possible explanations. Consumers may be unused to the
\nidea of commissioning a composer. In my brief stint in marketing, I
\nwas told that consumers do not absorb an idea until they encounter it
\nmultiple times. This was just one post. Or, conversely, it could have
\nbeen their lack of familiarity with me. A better known composer may
\nhave fared better. It may also have been the economy, which was not
\ndoing well at the time and has since gotten worse. Commissioning
\nmusic is a luxury and one that might seem eccentric and easy to
\nforego.
\n
<\/p>\n
Marketing this
\nproject is actually quite difficult. I found I could do three
\ncommissions in a week. There is no way I could cope with the volume
\nthat mass-market success would imply. Therefore, going after
\nhigh-profile general subject bloggers is not the way to draw in new
\ncustomers, as success could be as much a disaster as failure.
\nHowever, it is a way to draw in new listeners. Most of the visitors
\nto the blog would not have heard my piece otherwise. My attempts at
\nan accessible duration did pay off, even if social media buzz didn’t
\ngain me new customers. Making a piece for one person motivates that
\none person to share it, but it does not motivate his or her friends
\nto share it also.
\n
<\/p>\n
Musically, I was
\ninterested in very short pieces because of the 60×60 Project, in
\nwhich I had participated. I found it very frustrating to make a pice
\nso short. While my piece Clocker<\/I> had been accepted, I did not
\nfeel happy with it. I started listening to very short pieces, for
\nexample, tracks from the albums Haikus Urbanis<\/I> and Snakes
\nand Ladders<\/I>, to get into the right mindset.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When constructing
\nmy very short pieces, I’ve found that it’s best to have three closely
\nrelated ideas, and three overdubbed mono tracks. A minute is too long
\nto only have one idea, but too short to go through a lot of material.
\nThere is also not a lot of time for major density changes, unless
\nthat is the focus of the piece. As I worked on this project, I found
\nthat a minute began to seem longer and longer. A composer could
\neasily fit over a hundred discrete events in a minute.
\n
<\/p>\n
In my portfolio, I
\nhave included several of these pieces, listed here with their
\nprogramme notes:
\n
<\/p>\n
Shorts #29: Raining Up <\/I><\/p>\n
Commissioned
\nand titled by Autumn Looijen
\n
<\/p>\n
This piece was created using a MOTM Shorts #28: Untitled<\/I> I wasn\u2019t looking for a I made this piece with a Evenfall MiniModular Synthesiser. This Shorts #27:<\/I> Josh gave me the title before I Bird-like sounds remind me of high school sports, but that\u2019s Shorts #26: Ecstatic Rivulet<\/I> For this piece, I wanted to use a Shorts #25: Untitled<\/I> When Shorts #24: College Promo<\/I><\/p>\n Commissioned I Shorts #23: Gamut<\/I> This Bibliography: \u201cBandcamp Pricing.\u201d Bandcamp.<\/I> \u201cBest Humor Blog.\u201d The 2008 <http:\/\/2008.weblogawards.org\/polls\/best-humor-blog\/<\/A>> commodorejohn. Digital Economy Act 2010 s. 10. UK. Dunaway, Judy. \u201cThe MP3 Phenomena and <http:\/\/on1.zkm.de\/zkm\/Institute\/Musik\/texte\/MP3><\/A> \u201cFor Students Doing Reports.\u201d RIAA- \u201cFrequently Fruhlinger, Josh. Gann, Haikus Ubranis<\/I>. Heater, Lessig, \u201cMusic 14 April 2007. Web. 11 August 2011. Ostertag, Bob. \u201cThe \u201cQ&A: 9 April 2010. Web. 11 August 2011. Reisinger, Rubin, Neal and Whigham, Rod. Gil Slaw. Snakes and Ladders.<\/I> Springman, Chris. \u201cThe Mouse that Ate When I started at Birmingham, I was in the midst of a project where in I was soliciting commissions of pieces of music around one minute in length. My plan was originally to compose 45 of these in total and release an album at the end. I intend to pick up where I left off … Continue reading Dissertation Draft: Copyright, Social Networking and Commissioning Music<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76,17,122],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-celesteh","tag-commission","tag-thesis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2383,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions\/2383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nsynthesiser and mixed in Ardour<\/A>.
\nThere were several false starts. I had been doing field recordings of
\nstorms and for a while, every artificial sound I made seemed to also
\nsound like weather. The title Autumn chose seems to indicate that I
\ndidn\u2019t quite get away from weather-related sounds.
\n
<\/p>\n
\nCommissioned
\nby Cecile Moochnek
\n
<\/p>\n
\ncommission when I walked into the Cecile
\nMoochnek Gallery<\/A> on 4th Street in Berkeley, California. I was
\nlooking to do Christmas shopping. But I got talking to the gallery
\nowner about art and music and she asked me to write her a short
\npiece. This was in December of 2007. I wrote the piece in 2008.<\/p>\n
\nwas an all-in-one box modular synthesiser from the 1990\u2032s. It\u2019s a
\ngreat little synth.
\n
<\/p>\n
\nGil Thorp<\/I>
\nCommissioned
\nand titled by Josh Fruhlinger
\n
<\/p>\n
\nstarted the piece. Gil Thorp is the name of a surreal American
\nnewspaper comic which is supposed to be about high school sports.
\nJosh runs a blog discussing newspaper comics, called the Comics
\nCurmudgeon<\/A>.
\nI recorded (British) football from my TV, which included my
\nhousemate clapping after a goal. Then, I decided to use white noise,
\nbecause it\u2019s very similar to crowd sounds. I filtered it a lot to
\nmake sort of screetchy sounds. The football announcers didn\u2019t
\nexactly have the accent that I would expect Marty Moon to have, so I
\nkept them in the background. My girlfriend said that it struck her as
\nvery Mark Trail-like, so I raised the volume of the background at the
\nend, to make the sports connection clearer.<\/p>\n
\nprobably because my high school had a terrible seagull infestation.
\n
<\/p>\n
\nCommissioned
\nand titled by Clyde Nielsen
\n
<\/p>\n
\nfield recording that I made while camping over the summer. Visually,
\nthe campground looked like it would make a suitable set for a horror
\nmovie. The animals were correspondingly loud and screetchy at night
\nand so I made a recording with my cell phone.
\nI listened to the recording a few times and it made me think of
\nGrainPic<\/A>,
\na project that I had intended to abandon. Everything I do with this
\nalways sounds kind of rough and unpolished, which is why I stopped
\nworking with it. But it seems to fit well with my memory of that
\ncampground.
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nCommissioned
\nby Scott Wilson
\n
<\/p>\n
\napproached for a title for this piece, Scott
\nnoted that the piece has a \u201cflatulent quality,\u201d but it would be
\nbetter to resist referencing that in a title.
\nTo make this piece, I recorded myself playing a bovine signaling
\nhorn and a didjeridu, both of which I ran through a Sherman
\nfilterbank to use as FX. There\u2019s also a little bit of feedback,
\nespecially the very last sounds. Processing a didgeridu turns out to
\nbe much more straightforward and easy than processing a cow horn.
\n
<\/p>\n
\nand titled by Jean Sirius
\n
<\/p>\n
\nwanted to something that started out serious, but got more playful
\nfurther in. The opening is square waves, which are pulse-width
\nmodulated and slightly frequency modulated. While I was recording
\nthem, my dog was sleeping nearby. She started barking in her sleep.
\nThe almost never barks when she\u2019s awake, but when she\u2019s asleep,
\nshe barks quiet, air, high pitched barks which cause her snout to
\nslightly inflate, since she doesn\u2019t open her mouth. Maybe she\u2019s
\nactually dreaming of chasing pigeons? The sleep-barking sounded
\nreally great with the music! I couldn\u2019t record my dog without
\naccidentally waking her, so instead I tried to mimic the sound with a
\nSherman filterbank. I failed miserably, but I like the sounds that I
\ngot. Every time I use this instrument, I have a little more fun with
\nit and like it a little bit more. It\u2019s frustrating at first, but
\nthe effort is paying off.
\n
<\/p>\n
\nCommissioned
\nand titled by Devin Hurd
\n
<\/p>\n
\npiece was made with a MOTM analogue synthesiser.
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nWeb. 12 August 2011. <https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/pricing<\/A>>
\n
<\/p>\n
\nWeblog Awards.<\/I> 31 December 2008.
\nWeb. 11 August 2011.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\ncomment on \u201cMetapost: I sing the body beefy.\u201d The
\nComics Curmudgeon<\/I>. 15 April
\n2008. Web. 11 August 2011.
\n<http:\/\/joshreads.com\/?p=1519#comment-480008><\/A>
\n
<\/p>\n
\nWeb. 11 August 2011.
\n<http:\/\/www.legislation.gov.uk\/ukpga\/2010\/24\/section\/10?view=plain><\/A>
\n
<\/p>\n
\nInnovative Music.\u201d ZKM<\/I>. 9
\nApril 2001. Web. 11 August 2001.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nRecording Industry Association of America<\/I>.
\nWeb. 11 August 2011. <http:\/\/www.riaa.com\/faq.php><\/A>
\n
<\/p>\n
\nAsked Questions.\u201d Creative Commons. <\/I>28
\nJuly 2011. Web. 11 August 2011.
\n<http:\/\/wiki.creativecommons.org\/Frequently_Asked_Questions<\/A>><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n\u201cMetapost: I sing the body beefy.\u201d The Comics Curmudgeon<\/I>.
\n15 April 2008. Web. 11 August 2011. <http:\/\/joshreads.com\/?p=1519<\/A>>
\n
<\/p>\n
\nKyle. \u201cSeriously Off-Topic.\u201d PostClassical: Kyle Gann
\non music after the fact<\/I>. Arts
\nJournal. 29 April 2007. Web. 11 August 2011.
\n<http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/postclassic\/2007\/04\/seriously_offtopic.html<\/A>>
\n
<\/p>\n
\nCavel2Disks, 1997. CD.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nBrain. \u201cOur 100 Favorite Blogs.\u201d PC Magazine<\/I>.
\n15 October 2007. Web. 11 August 2011.
\n<http:\/\/www.pcmag.com\/article2\/0,2817,2195379,00.asp<\/A>>
\n
<\/p>\n
\nLawrence. \u201cFree Culture \u2013 How Big Media Uses Technology and the
\nLaw to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity.\u201d SiSU
\ninformation Structuring Universe<\/I>.
\nUniversity of Oslo: The Faculty of Law. 2004. Web. 11 August 2011.
\n<http:\/\/www.jus.uio.no\/sisu\/free_culture.lawrence_lessig\/doc.html<\/A>>
\n
<\/p>\n
\nCommissioning on eBay.\u201d PodComplex.<\/I><\/p>\n
\n<http:\/\/www.podcomplex.com\/blog\/music-commissioning-on-ebay\/<\/A>>
\n
<\/p>\n
\nProfessional Suicide of a Recording Musician.\u201d
\nQuestionCopyright.org.<\/I> 9 April 2007. Web. 11 August 2001.
\n<http:\/\/questioncopyright.org\/bob_ostertag_speaks<\/A>>
\n
<\/p>\n
\nThe Digital Economy bill.\u201d BBC News.<\/I><\/p>\n
\n<http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/technology\/8604602.stm<\/A>>
\n
<\/p>\n
\nDon. \u201cThe RIAA speaks \u2013 and it gets worse.\u201d Cnet<\/I>.
\n14 January 2008. Web. 11 August 2011.
\n<http:\/\/news.cnet.com\/8301-13506_3-9849441-17.html?tag=more<\/A>>
\n
<\/p>\n
\nThorp<\/I>. GoComics.com. Web. 11
\nAugust 2011. <http:\/\/www.gocomics.com\/gilthorp\/<\/A>><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nDoubtful Palace, 2002. CD.
\n
<\/p>\n
\nthe Public Domain: Disney, The Copyright Term Extension Act, and
\nEldred v. Ashcroft<\/I>.\u201d
\nFindLaw.<\/I> 5 March 2002.
\nWeb. 11 August 2001.
\n<http:\/\/writ.news.findlaw.com\/commentary\/20020305_sprigman.html<\/A>><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"