Thursday, October 30, 2008

Weather


Tonight I am going to see Girl Talk, an electronic musician who is well known for his mash-ups, which is a song composed of elements from different existing songs in order to create a new one.  He has been called a "lawsuit waiting to happen" because of his use of snippets of copyrighted songs without permission.  I think that he understands where his accusers are coming from, his record label that he is signed to is called Illegal Art.  

But the question is is this kind of creation music?  I think so.  What separates Girl Talk from a regular DJ is that he mixes the elements of songs on the fly, giving each performance its own personality, kind of like an electronic form of jazz, as opposed to just making a playlist and fading in and out of songs like so many college kids do and call it DJing.  Girl Talk is very media literate when it comes to music.  He does what a twelve year old does when they recut a film trailer only in a different medium and to a higher degree.  

Students could learn a little more about what Girl Talk does and how he does it by listening to two songs that are of different genres pointing out similarities and thinking about how they could blend together.  Then if they are feeling ambitious, they could try their hand at mashing them up with garage band.  

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