Friday, January 18, 2019

Noah Safian: Week 2 Terms


1. Quantize: Primarily found in digital music processing, quantization is the process of eliminating the imprecision of musical notes due to expressive performance. Because of the impeccably precise timing of quantized notes, the resulting sound is commonly referred to as “mechanical” and “manufactured”.

2. Humanize: In contrast to quantization, humanized music and rhythms have slight incongruences in timing, velocity, and timbre that are consistent with human instrumental performance.

3. Audio Automation: Modern digital audio consoles or mixers use automation, which allows the audio engineer to make adjustments to EQ, panning, faders, etc during the post-production editing process. A timecode is necessary for the synchronization of automation. Automation allows for the further manipulation of recorded sound, and can be used to evolve a particular sound in different ways throughout a track.

“Ghostwriting”: Throughout history, musicians and composers have composed music for other artists to perform, or performed work that was not their original songwriting. Nowadays, primarily in hip-hop, the concept of having one lyricist write a song for another rapper to perform is frequently scrutinized as being inauthentic. However, the fact that an artist did not compose the work they are performing does not necessarily negate the significance of their performance or its value to the performer. 

2 comments:

  1. On one hand, I do understand why some people would be upset that someone else wrote a rapper's lyrics; traditionally, rappers are identified by a combination of their flow and lyrics. However, in contemporary mainstream pop and hip-hop, just about every part of the songwriting process is handled by someone different. So I agree, it only makes sense that the lyrics might be written by someone else.

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  2. I've definitely considered becoming a song writer as a job and potentially trying to ghost write. It seems like the coolest way to get your work out there if your someone who is nervous about performing themselves, and up until recently, I fell into that category. But I can understand why people frown upon it

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