Lately, in the midst of promoting our Ralph Munn Creative Writing Contest, I’ve been thinking about all of the aspects in a teen’s life that can impede creativity. Is the impulse just not there? Perhaps its there but is just being diverted? I wonder if any of these seem familiar:
(b Woodbridge, 15 May 1948). English composer and producer. While attending art school in Ipswich and then Winchester he developed an interest in ‘systems’ music, and much of his work can be seen as continuing the work of composers such as John Cage. He first worked professionally from 1970 to 1973 with the seminal art-rock band Roxy Music, lending their first two albums, Roxy Music (Island, 1972) and For Your Pleasure (Island, 1973), a quirky surrealist edge. By treating the group’s live sound electronically with a tape recorder and VC5 3 synthesizer, he defined a role for himself as an ‘aural collagist’. After leaving Roxy Music in 1973, Eno developed this interest in the timbral quality of music further with the albums No Pussy Footing (Island, 1973; with King Crimson’s Robert Fripp) and the seminal Another Green World (Island, 1975), the latter a brilliant combination of quirky songs and pastoral instrumentals. In 1975 his interest in aleatory music led him to produce with Peter Schmidt ‘Oblique Strategies’ cards, a collection of ‘over one hundred worthwhile dilemmas’, which formed a sort of musical tarot, each card containing a directive on how to proceed to the next creative stage. He then collaborated on three of David Bowie’s most innovatory albums (Low, ‘Heroes’ and Lodger), produced new-wave bands such as Talking Heads and Devo, and released two important ambient instrumental albums, Music for Films (EG, 1978) and Music for Airports (EG, 1979).
Basically, Brian Eno is a creative genius who is one of the most important musical artists of the seventies. And he’s a critically important part of making the following scene happen (you might remember it).
What I want to focus on today are the “Oblique Strategies” cards, which are a great legacy to leave to people of any creative persuasion.
Brian Eno and his artist friend Peter Schmidt had discovered that they both developed a set of working principles for whenever they were getting creatively stuck under pressure. They mixed, matched, meditated, and ultimately developed a deck of cards with ideas designed to move the creative process forward.
Whenever you’re stuck within a creative activity, draw a card, read it, and trust it.
While the original cards are long out of print, and while recent reincarnations are fairly expensive, some Eno historians have made electronic copies available to any creative adventurers. Check out this colorful web recreation. And, of course, there’s an app for that (and for Android, too).
Disclaimer: There are far too many important women in the history of music to even scratch the surface here. The following women are just some of my personal favorites who all had a positive message for females.
Aretha Franklin
Motown may have had so many amazing girl groups, but Atlantic Records had the Queen of Soul: Aretha Franklin. Not many vocalists could take an Ottis Reading song, then turn around and make people forget it was a cover. “Respect” gave African-American women an unprecedented voice and visibility in 1967, a time when our country was still battling both sexism and racism.
Joan Jett
Rock, particularly punk rock, was a predominantly male-dominated genre from its beginning. A member of one of the first successful all female bands, The Runaways, Joan Jett broke down barriers with attitude, heavy guitar riffs and a “Bad Reputation.” She is currently still rocking out & the founder of Blackheart Records, which has signed a whole new generation of female rockers.
Cyndi Lauper
Her debut solo album was titled She’s So Unusual and at the time that certainly described her. She wore funky thrift store fashions, had more vibrant hair color than Katy Perry and a squeaky Queens accent with an adorkable laugh. In 1983, she became the first female artist ever to achieve four top five hits off of one album on the Billboard Hot 100. Cyndi is still recording and now spends much of her time championing for LGBT rights. Her signature song, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” has gained recognition as a feminist anthem and the video was the first to win Best Female Video at the MTV Music Video Awards.
Queen Latifah
You may know her as an actress, television show host, and Cover Girl, but back in the day Queen Latifah was the reigning monarch of female rap. Her 1989 debut album, All Hail The Queen is still one of the greatest rap records of all time, regardless of gender. And the album’s signature track, “Ladies First,” was not only a call to arms in terms of feminine positivity, but also lyrically tight, while remaining smooth. *Some of the images in the following video deal with the battle to end the apartheid in South Africa. They may not be suitable for sensitive viewers.
Kathleen Hanna
Kathleen Hanna is widely considered as the founder of the feminist riot grrrl movement. She overturned gender norms with her D.I.Y. punk zines and as the singer and songwriter for the band Bikini Kill. She basically made it her personal mission to increase feminist activity and female involvement in the 90’s punk rock scene.
In an article celebrating Hanna’s accomplishments in the music, The New York Times explains the riot grrrl movement:
“When it took hold in the early and mid 1990s, driven by bands from Olympia, Wash., like Bratmobile and Heavens to Betsy, it represented a new kind of youthful, D.I.Y. feminism, a grass-roots uprising aimed less at liberating women from the institutions that oppressed them than inviting women to create new ones.”
Kathleen Hanna went on to front Le Tigre, an electropunk band, in the late 90’s through the early 2000’s. Their song “Hot Topic” is a musical history lesson filled with feminist icons!
Now it is your turn to reply and share what female musicians rock your world!
I will admit, right here and now, that I listen to pop radio in my car. I was once the kind of person who, in high school and college, couldn’t be bothered to listen to anything on the radio unless it was NPR or WYEP because it was too “mainstream” and totally fake and lame. But I find myself not having the energy to care so much these days and turning on the radio gives me a line into pop culture that I don’t have otherwise. It’s a lot easier to hit a button that will always play music than to keep track of whether or not my ipod nano is charged. Yes, I am on the cutting edge, here.
Also, let’s face it, the songs can be pretty catchy. “Call Me Maybe,” anyone?
I’m posting about this because lately I’ve been hearing the fabulous Passion Pit song “Take A Walk,” on my radio. Not only does this song have a great beat and a super catchy refrain but the lyrics are SUPER depressing. Here’s just a few lines:
But then my partner called to say the pension funds were gone.
He made some bad investments, now the accounts are overdrawn.
I took a walk.
And:
You see I am no criminal, I’m down on both bad knees.
I’m just too much a coward to admit when I’m in need.
I took a walk.
Depressing right? For those of you who might not have heard the song, here it is:
I have to say, upbeat songs with depressing lyrics are one of my favorite things in the entire world. There’s something awesome about feeling the urge to dance while contemplating the injustices and tragedies of life, both big and small. I’m just saying.
Some other examples are Foster the People’s Pumped Up Kicks (lyrics, video), Robyn’s Dancing on My Own (lyrics, video), Lady Gaga’s Dance in the Dark (lyrics, video), and for a random taste of the classics, Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark (lyrics, video).
We’ve got a lot of dark dancing going on here. I guess that comes with the territory.
One of my favorite songs that are sad with an upbeat tempo is from a band I was first introduced to as a teen and have continued to love forever after and always. It’s Belle and Sebastian’s Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying:
What are your favorite sad, upbeat songs?
While you’re thinking, here are some awesome books to both help you in your selection and offer characters who might share your taste in music:
The great poet Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” This is definitely the case at The Labs @ CLP, where jumping headfirst into new digital terrain, experimenting as you go, is the way that many of our wonderful artistic creations got their inception.
However, it’s possible you’re like me, someone who is more comfortable knowing the foundations of what I’m getting into first–who likes knowing what a dial is and what it’s purpose is before twisting it around. Someone who wants to know how soft the floor is before you DROP THE BASS.
In that case, you’re lucky, because there are a lot of really cool free resources for people looking to learn about music-making software and principles they can use no matter what free or paid synth they’re using to wrangle out dope tracks.
A US-based electronic deejaying and production school that offers tons of free content that can get you making any kind of music, from dubstep to house.
Recently, while scanning through Netflix Instant’s “New Releases,” I found a documentary that piqued my interest called “Indie Game: The Movie.” Indie Game is about the burgeoning independent video game biz and it follows the development of two games: Super Meat Boy and Fez.
These aren’t your typical multi-million-dollar-budgeted blockbuster games like Halo or Call of Duty, they’re personal projects painstakingly designed and coded (often by just a couple of people), where ingenuity in gameplay takes precedent over flashy graphics. The budgets for these games are small, too, and most of them don’t have big publishers like SquareSoft or Bethesda to promote them after the game is finally complete.
The movie does a great job of communicating the passions and frustrations of these game designers. And though I consider myself a life-long gamer (chronologically from Rogue on my first PC in the 80s, to the NES, Sega Genesis, N64, PlayStation 2, and, now, Playstation 3, with plenty of other PC upgrades and games along the way) I never really knew how games like these were made. Indie Game gives you a peak inside that process through interviews with journalists and such indie game luminaries as Phil Fish (Fez), Jonathan Blow (Braid), and Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes (Super Meat Boy). If the creators of Fez and Super Meat Boy are anything like other indie game designers (and I think they are), the process seems to include a lot of late nights, coding, poor nutrition, legal battles, and stress. But they make really cool games.
Watch the trailer to get a feel for the film:
This documentary is about more than the steps it takes to create a independent video game, it’s about gaming as an art form and a way of life. These guys grew up on classic games like Super Mario Bros. 3 and the Castlevania series; they want to contribute to the artform that captured their attention as kids. As they attempt to, you can see them struggle with creating just as a writer or painter might. They’re fighting to make their dreams tangible, and then, struggling to accept the opinions of the critics and gamers who suddenly have access to a part of them.
If you’re into gaming as a hobby or a possible career choice, or you just want to watch an interesting documentary, I suggest clicking over to Netflix and giving Indie Game a shot.
Beyond the story that Indie Game tells, there are indie video games themselves–they’re really worth checking out. Most are available as downloadable titles through X-Box Live Arcade, the Playstation Network, and the Wii Shop. X-Box currently has the best lineup of indie titles, but the Playstation Network is offering more all the time.
Indie Game picks:
The Unfinished Swan (platform: PS3) – The Unfinished Swan is a videogame about exploring the unknown. The player assumes the role of a young boy chasing after a swan who has wandered off into a surreal, unfinished kingdom. The game begins in a completely white space where players can throw paint to splatter their surroundings and reveal the world around them. [Metacritic]
Journey (platform: PS3) - Enter the world of Journey, the third game from indie developers thatgamecompany (creators of “flOw” and “Flower”). Journey is an interactive parable, an anonymous online adventure to experience a person’s life passage and their intersections with others’. You wake alone and surrounded by miles of burning, sprawling desert, and soon discover the looming mountaintop which is your goal. Faced with rolling sand dunes, age-old ruins, caves and howling winds, your passage will not be an easy one. The goal is to get to the mountaintop, but the experience is discovering who you are, what this place is, and what is your purpose. Travel and explore this ancient, mysterious world alone, or with a stranger you meet along the way. Soar above ruins and glide across sands as you discover the secrets of a forgotten civilization. [thatgamecompany]
Limbo (platform: PS3, XBox 360, PC) -LIMBO, a black and white puzzle-platforming adventure, puts players in the role of a young boy traveling through an eerie and treacherous world in an attempt to discover the fate of his sister.
Braid (platform: PS3, XBox 360, PC) - Braid is a puzzle-platformer, drawn in a painterly style, where the player manipulates the flow of time in strange and unusual ways. From a house in the city, journey to a series of worlds and solve puzzles to rescue an abducted princess. In each world, you have a different power to affect the way time behaves, and it is time’s strangeness that creates the puzzles. The time behaviors include: the ability to rewind, objects that are immune to being rewound, time that is tied to space, parallel realities, time dilation, and perhaps more. Braid treats your time and attention as precious; there is no filler in this game. Every puzzle shows you something new and interesting about the game world. Braid is a 2-D platform game where you can never die and never lose. Despite this, Braid is challenging, but the challenge is about solving puzzles, rather than forcing you to replay tricky jumps. Travel through a series of worlds searching for puzzle pieces, then solving puzzles by manipulating time: rewinding, creating parallel universes, setting up pockets of dilated time. The gameplay feels fresh and new; the puzzles are meant to inspire new ways of thinking. [Microsoft]
Super Meat Boy (platform: Wii, XBox 360, PC, iOS) - Super Meat Boy is a tough as nails platformer where you play as an animated cube of meat who’s trying to save his girlfriend (who happens to be made of bandages) from an evil fetus in a jar wearing a tux. [Metacritic]
Fez (platform: XBox 360, PC) - This quirky platformer stars a little white creature with a bright red fez. Gomez is a 2D being living in a 2D world. Or is he? When the existence of a mysterious 3rd dimension is unveiled, Gomez embarks on a journey that will usher him to the very end of time and space. Utilize your ability to navigate 3D structures from 4 distinct 2D perspectives. Explore an open-ended world full of secrets, puzzles and hidden treasures. Re-open the mysteries of the past and discover the truth about reality and perception. Alter your perspective and see the world in a different way. [Metacritic]
So recently I was talking music with a friend at the library. “My favorite band’s Rise Against,” they proudly exclaimed.
“Cool,” I said.
At some spot along our ensuing point-by-point analysis of Rise Against, I added something like, ‘…and they’re mostly all straight edge too – except for the drummer, I think.’
“What’s that?”
I had a full-on Jack Skellington eureka moment: Yes! Blog post idea!
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Basically, straight edge is a lifestyle choice. At its core, it’s a personal decision to not drink alcohol, do drugs, or have promiscuous sex. Many people who identify themselves as straight edge are also vegan or vegetarian and are against the use of violence; however, these beliefs are not central to being ‘straight’ (a word used to describe one’s desire to remain in control of themself, rather than in the sense of a sexual orientation).
The straight edge mentality grew primarily out of the American hardcore punk scene of the early 1980s. When punk began in the mid-1970s, it was a direct response to the pretentiousness and excess of mainstream 70s rock music. However, by the close of the decade and the beginning of the 80s, punk too had become riddled with the same familiar vices it had set out to destroy. Straight edge, in a way, was a punk reaction to punk itself. It presented a new opposition in saying that alcohol and drugs do not make you look cool and are not needed to have a good time.
Ian MacKaye
A guy named Ian MacKaye is often credited with either creating or naming and propelling the straight edge “movement” – although this was never his intention. As the singer in an awesome band called Minor Threat, Ian MacKaye wrote lyrics that expressed his personal ideals of not drinking, doing drugs, or having random sex. One of these Minor Threat songs, Straight Edge, gave the mindset its name. MacKaye later went on to form Fugazi, who, in this blogger’s less than humble musical opinion, were the most important band that has ever existed.
Give a listen. A few great bands with straight edge members:
The other day, I was headed out to Pianos ‘N Stuff to pick up some items for last night’s The Labs @ CLP launch party. I hopped in my carshare, turned on the radio, and was greeted by the opening bars of this dope electro-disco track, “Cry (Just A Little),” that I like by the Dutch group Bingo Players.
Then the unthinkable happened, the worst nightmare of any European club house producer: Flo Rida started rapping, for his new song, which is uniquely titled “I Cry.”
People getting upset over sampling is certainly nothing new, and possibly the music equivalent of yelling “get off my lawn,” but regardless of whether I enjoy Flo Rida’s bouncy club raps (I kind of do, especially the song featured on Step Up 3D), I wonder: at what point does Flo Rida veer into rap karaoke territory? We can take a look at the journey from Etta James song to Flo Rida radio hit to decide for ourselves.
To begin, we should first take a listen to this 60s soul song from the legendary jazz & soul vocalist Etta James:
Sound familiar? It should, so you probably know where we’re heading. It reentered dance floors in 1991, from this 90s house song by the England house production trio Doi-Oing:
A decade later (and after a few, less striking uses of sampling that song), in 2006, the electronic hip hop soul producer Pretty Lights transformed it to fit into a chill, almost trip-hoppy track.
Fast forward to 2011, and the Swedish DJ/producer Avicii created one of the most obnoxiously-infectious “big room” club house songs of the entire year with his track “Levels” (in fact, it became such a joke for DJs to have fans clamoring for that song at clubs, that the request “play Levels” became a Dillon Francis Twitter meme).
Then, of course, HERE COMES FLO RIDA:
The cool part about sampling is seeing an artist transform bits and pieces into an entirely new work, but how different do Flo Rida’s “Good Feeling” and Avicii’s “Levels” feel to you? Do you believe the interplay between lyricist and producer is important, or do you not mind that performers like Flo Rida and Pitbull essentially party rap over European producers’ songs? For the last few years, we’ve seen soul samples, electronic producers, and rappers mining each other in shorter and shorter cycles, but is it sustainable? If you are interested in taking a journey into where that evolution has taken us so far and where it might be going, you can read this book:
Just a quick note from your friendly neighborhood librarian to let you know, one more time, about the launch of a brand-new, exciting, ongoing teen library program–The Labs @ CLP.
So what is The Labs?It’s Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s teen digital media lab program. And what’s a digital media lab? Well, it’s a computer lab of sorts, but full of equipment and software specially designed to help you create.
We’re launching the program with a big party this Wednesday at CLP-Main and mini Launch events at the other three locations next week. (For in-depth information on the program as well as dates and times for each launch, go HERE.)
About the program: From iMacs to music production equipment (M-Audio Fast Track Pro and Apple’s GarageBand) to graphic design (the full Adobe Creative Suite) and filmmaking (HD Canon Vixia camcorders plus a green screen), plus plenty more, The Labs is your resource for getting creative in the library.
We’ll be offering weekly themed programming at all four Labs locations as well as open Labs time where you can explore and create with the help of Labs mentors–digital media artists and librarians who will be on-hand leading programs and acting as a resource for creation. Each month the theme will change. This October, for example, we’ll focus on filmmaking. Then, in November, we’ll focus on Audio/Music Production with podcasting and music recording. Check back for our ongoing schedule.
Why simply consume media when you can create it? You can use The Labs as a resource for creative multi-media school projects or as a place to do something completely separate from your school work–something based on your own personal interests. Work on a podcast with friends, film a scary movie scene (that’s what we’ll be doing this October!), or get help recording your music in the library. There are so many options!
And where are The Labs? There will be four digital media labs located throughout the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh system. Here are their hours and a link to the first day of October’s program: The Scary Story Filmmaking Challenge.
CLP-Main, Teen Dept. Hours: Monday-Thursday, 3-7PM
Friday, 3-5PM Workshops: Wednesday and Thursday 4-6PM starting in October October Workshop:Scary Story Filmmaking Challenge
Hi, I’m Henry. Since I was born 16 years ago, my biggest claim to fame has been winning the state geography bee in 2009. I run cross country and track for Seton-La Salle High School. I play trombone in the school’s marching band and am a member of the Mock Trial and Academic Games teams. I like to read the Greeks and Romans, and I love opera.
Heinz Hall: Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
As I arrived at Heinz Hall Friday evening, I couldn’t help noticing a number of things I normally do not see here. One of the most conspicuous of these was the select number of the audience who arrived dressed for the occasion in green caps that made them look like as if they were decorations in the spirit of the music we were to hear. All in all, the crowd generally seemed to have been drawn more by the “Zelda” in the title than the “symphony.”
The stage was dominated by a very large screen suspended over the orchestra’s chairs. When the conductor, a Ms. Eí mear Noone began the music, the screen showed screenshots from different games of the Zelda franchise. The images on the screen evoked laughter from time to time among the audience in general, but I, having never played a game in the franchise, was not sure when and why to laugh.
At the beginning of the symphony, I resented the screen as an unnecessary distraction; by intermission, I was curiously mesmerized by it. It was a very different experience from when I’ve been there for more conventional works. I think it would be detrimental to some works whose music is attractive enough to sustain interest (in my case, music of Mozart and his generation); for others which I do not care for as much (e.g., Bruckner, Debussy, Wagner, etc.) it would almost certainly hold my attention better.
The music itself presented, I think, did not need such sideshows. It was, as is much video game music, catchy and facile (in the best sense of that word). The main theme was repeated innumerable times, but not ad nauseam. The style of the music defied categorization, but I would call it modern if I had to call it anything. My personal favorites were the first two movements, which were respectively descriptive of a dungeon and a pastoral village in the universe of Link and Zelda.
In its entirety, I thought the show was better than average, and not merely for the novelty of the staging or the unusual music (or, perhaps, in spite of them). The quality of the music was overall very good, and, as usual, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra showed us the reasons why it is so highly acclaimed.
![Women singer-songwriters in rock [electronic resource] : a populist rebellion in the 1990s by Ronald D. Lankford Jr](http://clpteensburgh.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/women.jpg?w=468 "Women singer-songwriters in rock [electronic resource] : a populist rebellion in the 1990s by Ronald D. Lankford Jr")
attention better.
