Music and Manipulation


Book Description

Since the beginning of human civilization, music has been used as a device to control social behavior, where it has operated as much to promote solidarity within groups as hostility between competing groups. Music is an emotive manipulator that influences attitude, motivation and behavior at many levels and in many contexts. This volume is the first to address the social ramifications of music’s behaviorally manipulative effects, its morally questionable uses and control mechanisms, and its economic and artistic regulation through commercialization, thus highlighting not only music’s diverse uses at the social level but also the ever-fragile relationship between aesthetics and morality.




Digital Signatures


Book Description

How sonically distinctive digital “signatures”—including reverb, glitches, and autotuning—affect the aesthetics of popular music, analyzed in works by Prince, Lady Gaga, and others. Is digital production killing the soul of music? Is Auto-Tune the nadir of creative expression? Digital technology has changed not only how music is produced, distributed, and consumed but also—equally important but not often considered—how music sounds. In this book, Ragnhild Brøvig and Anne Danielsen examine the impact of digitization on the aesthetics of popular music. They investigate sonically distinctive “digital signatures”—musical moments when the use of digital technology is revealed to the listener. The particular signatures of digital mediation they examine include digital reverb and delay, MIDI and sampling, digital silence, the virtual cut-and-paste tool, digital glitches, microrhythmic manipulation, and autotuning—all of which they analyze in specific works by popular artists. Combining technical and historical knowledge of music production with musical analyses, aesthetic interpretations, and theoretical discussions, Brøvig and Danielsen offer unique insights into how digitization has changed the sound of popular music and the listener's experience of it. For example, they show how digital reverb and delay have allowed experimentation with spatiality by analyzing Kate Bush's “Get Out of My House”; they examine the contrast between digital silence and the low-tech noises of tape hiss or vinyl crackle in Portishead's “Stranger”; and they describe the development of Auto-Tune—at first a tool for pitch correction—into an artistic effect, citing work by various hip-hop artists, Bon Iver, and Lady Gaga.




Programming for Musicians and Digital Artists


Book Description

Summary Programming for Musicians and Digital Artists: Creating Music with ChucK offers a complete introduction to programming in the open source music language ChucK. In it, you'll learn the basics of digital sound creation and manipulation while you discover the ChucK language. As you move example-by-example through this easy-to-follow book, you'll create meaningful and rewarding digital compositions and "instruments" that make sound and music in direct response to program logic, scores, gestures, and other systems connected via MIDI or the network. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About this Book A digital musician must manipulate sound precisely. ChucK is an audio-centric programming language that provides precise control over time, audio computation, and user interface elements like track pads and joysticks. Because it uses the vocabulary of sound, ChucK is easy to learn even for artists with little or no exposure to computer programming. Programming for Musicians and Digital Artists offers a complete introduction to music programming. In it, you'll learn the basics of digital sound manipulation while you learn to program using ChucK. Example-by-example, you'll create meaningful digital compositions and "instruments" that respond to program logic, scores, gestures, and other systems connected via MIDI or the network. You'll also experience how ChucK enables the on-the-fly musical improvisation practiced by communities of "live music coders" around the world. Written for readers familiar with the vocabulary of sound and music. No experience with computer programming is required. What's Inside Learn ChucK and digital music creation side-by-side Invent new sounds, instruments, and modes of performance Written by the creators of the ChucK language About the Authors Perry Cook, Ajay Kapur, Spencer Salazar, and Ge Wang are pioneers in the area of teaching and programming digital music. Ge is the creator and chief architect of the ChucK language. Table of Contents Introduction: ChucK programming for artistsPART 1 INTRODUCTION TO PROGRAMMING IN CHUCK Basics: sound, waves, and ChucK programming Libraries: ChucK's built-in tools Arrays: arranging and accessing your compositional data Sound files and sound manipulation Functions: making your own tools PART 2 NOW IT GETS REALLY INTERESTING! Unit generators: ChucK objects for sound synthesis and processing Synthesis ToolKit instruments Multithreading and concurrency: running many programs at once Objects and classes: making your own ChucK power tools Events: signaling between shreds and syncing to the outside world Integrating with other systems via MIDI, OSC, serial, and more




The Cambridge Companion to Electronic Music


Book Description

Musicians are always quick to adopt and explore new technologies. The fast-paced changes wrought by electrification, from the microphone via the analogue synthesiser to the laptop computer, have led to a wide range of new musical styles and techniques. Electronic music has grown to a broad field of investigation, taking in historical movements such as musique concrète and elektronische Musik, and contemporary trends such as electronic dance music and electronica. The first edition of this book won the 2009 Nicolas Bessaraboff Prize as it brought together researchers at the forefront of the sonic explorations empowered by electronic technology to provide accessible and insightful overviews of core topics and uncover some hitherto less publicised corners of worldwide movements. This updated and expanded second edition includes four entirely new chapters, as well as new original statements from globally renowned artists of the electronic music scene, and celebrates a diverse array of technologies, practices and music.




Music as Mao's Weapon


Book Description

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2022 China's Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) produced propaganda music that still stirs unease and, at times, evokes nostalgia. Lei X. Ouyang uses selections from revolutionary songbooks to untangle the complex interactions between memory, trauma, and generational imprinting among those who survived the period of extremes. Interviews combine with ethnographic fieldwork and surveys to explore both the Cultural Revolution's effect on those who lived through it as children and contemporary remembrance of the music created to serve the Maoist regime. As Ouyang shows, the weaponization of music served an ideological revolution but also revolutionized the senses. She examines essential questions raised by this phenomenon, including: What did the revolutionization look, sound, and feel like? What does it take for individuals and groups to engage with such music? And what is the impact of such an experience over time? Perceptive and provocative, Music as Mao's Weapon is an insightful look at the exploitation and manipulation of the arts under authoritarianism.




World Music: A Very Short Introduction


Book Description

'World music' emerged as an invention of the West from encounters with other cultures. This book draws readers into a remarkable range of these historical encounters, in which music had the power to evoke the exotic and to give voice to the voiceless. In the course of the volume's eight chapters the reader witnesses music's involvement in the modern world, but also the individual moments and particular histories that are crucial to an understanding of music's diversity. World Music is wide-ranging in its geographical scope, yet individual chapters provide in-depth treatments of selected music cultures and regional music histories. The book frequently zooms in on repertoires and musicians - such as Bob Marley, Bartok, and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - and attempts to account for world music's growing presence and popularity at the beginning of the twenty-first century. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.




Freedom After the Sharks


Book Description

Each of us is, to some extent or other, a reflection of the experiences of our lives. However, whether and how we succeed is determined at least in part by how we cope with those experiences and what we learn from them. This is the story of a man who, despite a difficult family life and professional setbacks, developed the determination, drive and skills to create a successful business and happy life. Geoff’s skills and self-motivation gave him the drive, determination and tenacity to continue a journey through hardship to reach self-fulfillment and, ultimately, success. His book describes the life journey of a young man’s heart and his desire to turn his dreams and vision into a business success. Freedom After The Sharks shows how, even in a declining economy, a business can survive and even succeed. It covers some real-life experiences and offers some suggestions for dealing with problems and issues. It provides a guide to finding your way in the business world. The book is suitable for entrepreneurs who might not be sure of the path to take or who want to benefit from other people’s mistakes and failures. Other audiences include middle management or junior executives who are looking for a fascinating life story of courage, drive and inspiration, as well as graduates and college students, who will find information that will help prepare them for their careers.







Dark Psychology and Manipulation


Book Description

What Is Dark Psychology? How Can People Be Manipulated?Do you want to get rid of Dark Psychology? Are you facing trouble to overcome manipulation?Do you want to know how you can manipulate your boss, teachers and parents in a positive manner?Do you want to identify how manipulators behave?If you agree with any of these questions then your problem is solved this is the right book for you. In this book you'll figure out how to identify and get rid of the manipulators. You will be encouraged to adopt certain behaviors and do certain practices to avoid manipulation. Avoid being the desire to be a victim. Buy this book now and break the curse of being manipulated. There are no magic tricks understanding your mind is all you have to use, and only then can you avoid dark psychology. This book is an excellent guide for those people who want to overcome dark psychology and want to get rid of itAfter reading this book you will have a complete knowledge about dark psychology and how it works. Also, you will learn to manipulate certain people in your life, you happen to meet on daily basis, to get what you want from them. So, what are you waiting for ? Quickly get one for you !




Thought Manipulation


Book Description

This thoroughly intriguing volume explains the many ways our thoughts are manipulated through temptation, distraction, misdirection, and more. From politics to sales, education, romance, and parenthood, everyone plays—wittingly or not—the roles of manipulator or manipulated. Thought Manipulation: The Use and Abuse of Psychological Trickery offers a thorough understanding of the art of manipulation, leading readers on a fascinating journey into the gray areas of ethics, politics, leadership, advertising, psychotherapy, and intimate relationships. The book explains how manipulation works, exploring morally questionable tricks, such as temptation, distraction, and misdirection and introducing manipulative strategies, both simple and sophisticated. At the same time, the author allows that manipulation is not always a bad thing as any effective change in decision-making and human behavior cannot be achieved without employing it to at least a certain degree. Manipulation operates in an infinite variety of guises and situations. Sapir Handelman explains how we can resist such effects, with a focus on ethics and freedom of choice.