Week 4 Forum - Collaborations

This week we started our presentations. I found out this week that I am not presenting until week 10. Luckily it happened to be later in the semester. I didn't attend the first forum so I wouldn't have known if I was the first week or the last.

Our presenters this week were David Dowling, Vinny Bhagat, Will Revill, and Sanad.

David presented us with a collaboration between Metallica and a Symphony Orchestra. I thought the two went well together. To be perfectly honest I am not a Metallica fan and so I don't know any of their music really. Therefore I can't compare what David presented to us with how they sound on their own. I thought the sound of the orchestra definitely added something to their music. David mentioned that he would have liked to see the orchestra playing some of the music hooks rather than just being there in the background. Actually I think the way it was done would have been better than the orchestra playing the guitar parts. Maybe, I'm not really sure.

Next Vinny gave a presentation on the artist Trilok Gurtu. This was an artist he highly admired. I had never heard of him until today and it was interesting to see his collaborations with countless artists. I though Vinny's presentation was interesting and it would have been good if he could finish everything. I though the music he played was very atmospheric and I really liked his percussion.

William was next, and he talked about video game development. I found this talk very interesting, as it is a field that I would love to work in one day when I graduate. It would have been good to see some movies or perhaps more pictures. He also mention about the development of Star Wars Episode II Attack of the Clones. I have watched this video where George Lucas was doing vocal dubs of Yoda with the vocalist in another country (I think it was Australia). Will should have showed this video if had access to it. I saw it at SAE so it may be hard to find a copy of. I don’t know.

Finally Sanad gave his presentation. I’m not actually sure what his talk was on because it ended up becoming a debate on World Music. Actually I think he wanted to illustrate the collaboration between different cultures and their music. [1] Sanad was passionate about how it is not right that western music dominates the music industry. I said exactly the same thing on the day, but I’ll say it again: IT’S NOT ABOUT THE MUSIC!

Pop music is not mainstream because it is any better than other styles of music. It is mainstream because the music industry is a multi-billionaire dollar industry and is geared only for PROFIT. Are people going to buy music they’ve never heard of? The key word here is BUY. The music industry is a BUSINESS.

[2] you know what he's saying. . .


The music industry is also about IMAGE and SELLING an image to the youth of today. Let’s say, theoretically, that these two singers are both equally good at singing. Who do you want to watch on stage?
[3][4]



The same thing can be applied to other arts. Let’s take movies. Hollywood is again, a multi-billionaire dollar industry. The reason why the actors get paid millions of dollars to be in movies is because the producers know that people are going to BUY tickets and see the movie. Again IMAGE and MONEY are the key points to consider. It doesn’t matter how good you are at music and acting, if you can’t sell, you won’t. There are so many low budget films, plays and Broadway shows where the actors get paid next to nothing. Their skills may be just as good or better.

If you want to be a true musician, where you do it for the love then it doesn’t mean you have to have your music on the shelves at Sanity music. Therefore I think Sanad needs to think about collaboration where it’s happening and not worry about whether people know about it like they know western music.

Of course, there are commercial artists that are genuinely talented. I am just picking on the upmost marketable “musicians” that record companies put together as an experiment to see how many millions of dollars they can make. The Spice Girls is a classic example.

Surprisingly, for a music student, I am actually pro commercialism. This is because I want to be a commercial artist and make money in the music industry. I have accepted that if you want to be successful in the music industry you need to make music people like, not music you like.


[1] David Dowling, Vinny Bhagat, William Revill, and Khaled Sanadzadeh. 'Music Technology Forum Collaboration Presentations - EMU Space'. Lecture presented in the EMU Space, Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 22nd March 2007.

[2] ‘What's the Rumpus’ Blogger. http://whatstherumpus.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_whatstherumpus_archive.html (Accessed 30/3/7)

[3] 'Newsarama.com'. Write or wrong. http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B0000252VB.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg (Accessed 30/3/7)

[4] 'Britney Spears'. fnacMusic. http://www.fnacmusic.com/Images/artiste/spears-britney.jpg (Accessed 30/3/7)