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Read the following excerpt on the nature and social character of popular music and discuss how Adorno’s concepts of standardization, identification, and pseudo- individualization are affirmed in The Merchants of Cool by Douglas Rushkoff: 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/view/


Do these ideas hold told true for all forms of popular music creativity and consumption?


Theodor Adorno, “Popular Music” from Introduction to the Sociology of Music, New York: Continuum Press, 1988; pp 25-27. 

In the advanced industrial countries pop music is defined by standardization: its prototype is the song hit. A popular American textbook on writing and selling such hits confessed that with disarming missionary zeal some thirty years ago. The main difference between a pop song and a serious or-in the beautifully paradoxical language of that manual a “standard" song is said to be that pop melodies and lyrics must stick to an unmercifully rigid pattern while the composer of serious songs is permitted free, autonomous creation. The textbook writers do not hesitate to call popular music "custom-built," a predicate usually reserved for automobiles. Standardization extends from the overall plan down to details. The basic rule in the American practice that governs production everywhere is that the refrain consists of 32 bars with a "bridge," a part initiating the repetition, in the middle. Also standardized are the various types of song-not only dances, whose standardization would be plausible and by no means new, but songs celebrating motherhood or the joys of domesticity, nonsense or novelty songs, pseudo-children's-songs or lamentations at the loss of a girlfriend. For the last, which may be the most widespread of all, a curious name has become customary in America: they are called "ballads." Above all, it is the metric and harmonic cornerstones of any pop song, the beginning and the end of its several parts that must follow the standard schema. It confirms the simplest fundamental structures, whatever deviations may occur in between. Complications remain without consequences: the pop song leads back to a few basic perceptive categories known ad nauseam. Nothing really new is allowed to intrude, nothing but calculated effects that add some spice to the ever-sameness without imperiling it. And these effects in turn take their bearings from schemata. 

The effect of song hits-more precisely put, perhaps: their social role-might be circumscribed as that of patterns of identification. It is comparable to the effect of movie stars, of magazine cover girls, and of the beauties in hosiery and toothpaste ads. The hits not only appeal to a "lonely crowd" of the atomized; they reckon with the immature, with those who cannot express their emotions and experiences, who either never had the power of expression or were crippled by cultural taboos. To people harnessed between their jobs and the reproduction of their working energies, the hits are purveyors of an ersatz for feelings which their contemporaneously revised ego ideal tells them they should have. Socially the hits either channel emotions-thus recognizing them-or vicariously fulfill the longing for emotions. The element of esthetic appearance, the distinction of art from empirical reality, is restored to that reality in song hits: in the actual psychological household, appearance substitutes for what the listeners are really denied. What makes a hit a hit, aside from the manipulative energy of the moment, is its power either to absorb or to feign widespread stirrings. Couching texts and titles, in particular, in a sort of advertising language plays a part; but according to American research results these carry less weight than the music.

To visualize this, let me recall related processes from other mass media in which words or representational images are used. The growing tendency to integrate all such media entitles us to draw conclusions on pop music. In an imaginary but psychologically emotion-laden domain, the listener who remembers a hit song will turn into the song's ideal subject, into the person for whom the song ideally speaks. At the same time, as one of many who identify with that fictitious subject, that musical I, he will feel his isolation ease as he himself feels integrated into the community of "fans." In whistling such a song he bows to a ritual of socialization, although beyond this unarticulated subjective stirring of the moment his isolation continues unchanged. 

The difficulty facing the producer of pop music is that he must void the contradiction. He must write something impressive enough to be remembered and at the same time well-known enough to be banal. What helps here is the old-fashioned individualistic moment which in the production process is voluntarily or involuntarily spared. It corresponds as much to the need to be abruptly striking as to the need to hide the all-governing standardization, the ready-made aspect of form and feeling, from a listener who should always feel treated as if the mass product were meant for him alone. The means to that end, one of the constituents of popular music, is pseudo-individualization. In the cultural mass product it is a reminder of glorious spontaneity-also of freedom to choose in the marketplace, as needed-despite its own compliance with standardization. Pseudo-individualization is what fools us about pre-digestion.

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In a minimum of 300-500 words, discuss how film techniques manipulate time and space. How are the movies Pulp Fiction (1994) and Citizen Kane (1941) different in the way time and space are manipulated? Discuss another film you have seen (outside of those you watched for this class) that manipulates time and space in a traditional or non-traditional way.
Using the information from Chapters 2 & 3 from your American Cinema / American Culture fourth edition by John Belton

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Use any independent movie/movies to examine a group that has been marginalized by society (not in the popular majority). Give examples to back up your opinions. Incorporate new film terms learned in class so far.

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Do you prefer Realism or Antirealism in the cinema and why? Use examples from any movie/movies to back up your opinions. Incorporate new film terms learned in class so far.

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Chapter 10 from American Cinema / American Culture by John Belton - 4th Edition has been uploaded for your review. 

Recently we have watched some films with some dark/negative themes such as war (Full Metal Jacket), murder (Detour) (The Night of the Hunter), and deception (Double Indemnity). Film noir is by definition a "dark" genre and even the tamest war films feature some killing and at least implied violence. Upcoming films feature similar themes as we will move into the western and horror genres. These films stand in contrast to other types of films that are inspiring or have positive outcomes.

In 400 words or more, answer the following questions.

1. Think about the films you watch outside of this class. Are most of the films you watch generally positive or negative in terms of theme or plot?

2. Why do you think that films about war, killing, mob violence, etc. are so popular now and have been in the past? Why do you think American movie audiences seek out some entertainment that makes them feel uncomfortable, scared, or disgusted? Is this normal? Should it be normal?

3. Do you think people can become desensitized toward violence by watching it on film and TV frequently? Have you become desensitized over the course of your life watching images in film and other media? Cite some examples of films you have seen recently that may have disturbed you more at a younger age. What is the most disturbing film you have ever seen that left you with negative emotions?

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The Role of Dubbed Turkish TV-series in Arabic channels and its Effect on The culture values of Arab Student

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Benjamin Britten wrote an outstanding orchestral piece entitled The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.  It is a guide to the amateur listener to help him or her clearly hear and decipher the different instrumental groups and individual instruments of the orchestra, and how they work together to form a cohesive group.

In your opinion, what does Britten do to feature individual groups and instruments while unifying the entire orchestral group together as a whole?
Explain in this case why the total is better than the sum of its parts.  We can hear the unique timbres of all the different instruments, but talk to the class about the marriage of these instruments in different ways to express the theme.
Finally, what is your favorite instrument, or instrument family, and why?
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/02/ APA format

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I want you to read the PDF and answer the 3 questions below  

nk about what he is arguing and how it relates to today. Now he was talking about ideas from the 1970's so you will see how forward thinking he was. 



What you should take away from his lecture -

There are two main theories to Communication 

1 . Transportation Theory - How Information Moves through Society 

2. Transformation Theory - How Information Changes Society

THOUGHT Challenge! Now apply this to Photography - How does the photograph move through society versus how does it change society? What is more important?



Visual Culture is for an  Individual Culture / Phonetic Culture is an Tribal  Culture



THOUGHT Challenge! Are photographs phonetic or are they visual? They actually could be either as visual language means there are agreed upon signs that do not change as they travel and phonetic language is that the signs are always changing as the communication travels.  If it is clear to society what the photograph means then it is phonetic or it is it visual. 



Individuality is found in visual language  and the phonetic language is Tribal Mentality. 

THOUGHT Challenge - Do photographs operate for the individual or  for the tribe? Is the job of a photograph to role play the emotions of the individual to others or is it the job of a photograph to carry a specific task to the tribe?

The argument is that the medium is the message and this mean that the 

AFFECTS of the PHOTOGRAPH are what DEFINES it's POWER 

NOT the physical PHOTOGRAPH 

THE PHOTOGRAPH or the VIDEO is NOT THE MEDIUM 

IT IS THE MESSAGE

THOUGHT CHALLENGE - If the photograph - the actual image - is irrelevant to the power of the message what is it's purpose?

McLuhan argues that it's ONLY PUPOSE IS THE ENVIRONMENT it CREATES

THOUGHT QUESTION - THEN if this is TRUE what ENVIRONMENT has and is the photograph and the Digital Image Creating and HOW is it CHANGING the WORLD?



PLEASE NOW ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION IN A ONE PAGE RESPONSE - 

WHAT ARE THE PHOTOGRAPH'S AFFECT on SOCIETY?

IS IT DESTROYING INDIVIDUALITY OR TRIBALISM and VICE VERSA? IF  it is destroying TRIBALISM then WHY are AMERICAN POLITICS BECOMING TRIBAL or maybe we are becoming more Individual (it is up to you)?

IS THE DIGITAL IMAGE actually becoming instead of a VISUAL LANGUAGE a PHONETIC LANGUAGE where there are no absolutes or truths... but ONLY FEELINGS and as it travels it changes based on the tribe's need?

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Instructions:

Demonstrate knowledge of artistic production, aesthetic properties, and the way music is shaped by artistic and cultural forces, how each musician developed his/ her artistic style, and how the culture of the time impacted their particular art form and their social, cultural lives,how the art forms mirror the culture of the time,develop and defend informed judgement about music.
Write two pages on Ellen Zwilich's music

1. Questions we Can Help you to Answer

   Paper Instructions:

   Which fictional character in a book or movie/film are you most like? Name the character and the title of the book or movie/film.

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Paper Instructions:

Application for music entertainment needs in Indonesia

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Paper Instructions:

What is Liturgical/Sacred Dance? The history behind it