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The Sportification of Politics

[This has been edited on 11/6/2024 to reflect the election results.]

The Republican sweep was decades in the making, and a win for unbridled capitalism (as seen in the market reaction). What role did the media play, including Roger Ailes and Fox News? Elon Musk who controls the platform X? It’s also important to look at the cumulative advantage given through media exposure to a particular individual, party or agenda. The Apprentice ran fifteen seasons from 2004 to 2017, a time period which coincided with the rise of social media in the mid-2000s and the prioritization of algorithmic feeds in the mid-2010s, further amplifying polarization.

Further read/listen on the relationship of the election result and the media: Jon Stewart Looks Back with Sanity and/or Fear (NYT 11/04/2024)

On Elon Musk: Elon Musk’s Unmatched Power in the Stars (NYT 7/28/2023), Elon Musk could be the biggest winner of a second Trump Term (NBC News, 11/5/2024)


[Original post, slightly revised and shortened.]

Recently, I found myself inside a Trump Store. I hadn’t seen a Harris store or a Walz Store so I was curious. The walls were entirely covered by Trump merchandise: T-shirts, flags, posters, hats. There was a ballpoint pen of Trump dressed in boxing gear; click a button and his tiny, red-gloved plastic hands would swing tiny punches. 

The middle-aged storekeeper was tangling with a rambunctious puppy in the otherwise empty store. We chatted about kids, his dog, the future of higher education in this country. We agreed on the importance of education; his son had recently been accepted to the prestigious UPenn. We spoke of our wishes as parents to provide great opportunities for the next generation.

Fast forward to this week, and I found myself pacing the room and shouting at the screen during that fateful fifth inning of the final World Series game, everyone going wild, celebrating or cursing Aaron Judge’s costly error, yelling and screaming as the Yankees went through an epic, public, nightmare meltdown. Adrenaline pumping, profanities flying. What is it about sports that excites us to this degree? And what was this reminding me of?

The sportification of politics has been much talked about. On my reading list is The Increasingly United States: How and Why American Political Behavior Nationalized. “Dan Hopkins, associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania… explores how politics in the U.S. have largely become a spectator sport. That is, politics have become more nationalized—issues are more likely to be argued and adjudicated at the national rather than local level. This stands at odds with the historical intent of our framers, who envisioned that political power would favor states and municipalities.” [1]

Unlike sports, politics will have a far larger and possibly devastating consequences for all. As a former media professional, I was particularly concerned about exposure to information in today’s networked world: the cumulative advantage given through media exposure to a particular individual, party or agenda. The Apprentice ran fifteen seasons from 2004 to 2017, an inconceivable amount of exposure priming an individual for the candidacy. This time period coincided with the rise of social media in the mid-2000s and the prioritization of algorithmic feeds in the mid-2010s, further amplifying polarized reach and general polarization.

Media exposure, including information shared on social media, favors the rich and the powerful regardless of party affiliation. Media platforms are for-profit, and their gatekeeping works in tandem with technological advances which also favor the rich and powerful. By keeping our eyes glued to the spectator sports of the presidential election, are we missing something important?

This election was a win for runaway capitalism. But we all have the choice to keep working for a better future, together.


[1] French, C. (2022, December 11). Democracy from the Sidelines: How U.S. politics became a spectator sport – behavioral scientist. Behavioral Scientist. https://behavioralscientist.org/democracy-from-the-sidelines-how-u-s-politics-became-a-spectator-sport/

How Do We Find Music?

Ruben Whitaker's chart tracking exposure points to the music they listen to.
Ruben Whitaker's chart tracking exposure points to the music they listen to.
(Above chart by Ruben Whitaker)

How do we find music? Recommendations from friends? Movies? Video games? Algorithm? Music is everywhere. But when 120,000 tracks are being uploaded every day to digital streaming platforms1 and Spotify gives us access to over 100 million tracks,2 the chances of us encountering a piece of music become surprisingly low. 

Yet, we find them.

This semester at Bennington College, my class “Musical Taste and Monetization” took another deep dive into music discovery methods. The image above is a page from a project by Ruben Whitaker, recent graduate of Bennington College, who analyzed years of their playlists and made the following observation: “Friend recommendation + Algorithm seems to be a powerful phenomenon of exposure especially if the artist and sub-genre are completely new…I was surprised at the low number of artists and songs I encountered through algorithms, this highlights that peer-to-peer recommendation is strong…” 

Ruben continues: “I think a lot of people listen to…music they know personally or locally because it’s more of a personal relationship. I think this aligns with the hypothesis of music being developed for social bonding. This is something to think about in terms of how to build strong musical networks and offer something that AI music or mass-produced popular tracks cannot.”

When I first designed this course back in 2021, I anticipated students to rely heavily on the Spotify algorithm. How wrong I was! Although Spotify is the main platform many use to listen to music, the ways in which students discover music were remarkably diverse and creative, with person-to-person communication and live concerts playing huge roles, that I had to completely rethink and recalibrate all I had thought I knew. 

Daniel Ek recently made comments about the cost of creating content, and my class too had previously reached a similar conclusion specifically regarding digital content: anything that can be reproduced digitally ad infinitum with a click of a button skews the traditional supply and demand curve. We discussed what it means to live in a society surrounded by technologies of abundance: “New technologies continue to democratize, decentralize, and disrupt production, offering the possibility that scarcity will be a thing of the past for many industries. We call these technologies of abundance. But our economy and our legal institutions are based on scarcity.” 3  

Music is so much more than digital content. Reexamining the non-digital component of music feels especially important right now. Music has been integral in every culture since the dawn of humanity, with many researchers highlighting the relationship between music and social bonding.4 In that spirit, I continue to make music and explore the opportunities of social bonding through music. The next generation already understands this. These students are creating our future. We have so much to learn from them. 

[All images by Ruben Whitaker, used with permission. Ruben Whitaker is a Chicago-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, and a graduate of Bennington College. During college, Ruben ran a radio show called “Folkloric Geography” which showcased music from around the world. Ruben has several releases under the name “Ruben Jai” including the the album Present for You and the singles Washburn and Neighborhood Planets.]

  1. Stassen, M., & Stassen, M. (2023b, May 24). There are now 120,000 new tracks hitting music streaming services each day. Music Business Worldwide. https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/there-are-now-120000-new-tracks-hitting-music-streaming-services-each-day/ 
  2. Konstan, E. & Spotify Technology S.A. (2023). FORM 20-F. In UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION [Report], P.35, https://s29.q4cdn.com/175625835/files/doc_financials/2023/ar/26aaaf29-7cd9-4a5d-ab1f-b06277f5f2a5.pdf 
  3. Desai DR and Lemley MA (2023) Editorial: Scarcity, regulation, and the abundance society.
    Front. Res. Metr. Anal. 7:1104460. doi: 10.3389/frma.2022.1104460 
  4. Mehr, S. A., Krasnow, M. M., Bryant, G. A., & Hagen, E. H. (2021b). Origins of music in credible signaling. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 44. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x20000345 

(This article originally was written for, and appeared on, New York Jazz Workshop blog)

友人の辻田希世子さんが本を出しました!

35年来の友人、辻田希世子さんが本を出しました!

「ヴェネツィアの家族」(社会評論社)
https://www.shahyo.com/?p=13602

カーニバル、お針子、映画祭、そして家族…。記憶の引き出しにしまってあった面影たちが、ある日心の扉を静かにたたく。海の都ヴェネツィアで、かつて時を共にした人たちへの追想と愛惜。喜びと哀しみが今新しくよみがえってくる。

著者
辻田希世子(つじたきよこ)
1965年、大阪生まれ。上智大学外国語学部比較文化学科卒業。広告代理店にてコピーライターとして働いた後、1995年、イタリアへ留学。ヴェネツィアに移住し、ライターをしながら、ヴェネツィア大学、ボローニャ大学で日本語を教える。元イタリア記者協会会員。2007 年、日本に帰国。2019 年にHP トリリンガル・マム https://trilingual-mom.com を開設、イタリアおよび英語に関するエッセーと情報を発信している。翻訳書に「くろいちょうちょ」(講談社)。

アマゾンからのご購入はこちらから。
https://www.amazon.co.jp/ヴェネツィアの家族-辻田希世子/dp/4784513892

ーーーーーー
希世子はヴェネツィアで、私はパリと東京で、人生の最も多感な時期を過ごしました。友達歴35年以上。彼女の文章を読むと、あの頃の自分達を思い出します。現在は二人とも母親兼社会人としてセカンドキャリアを歩んでいますが、あの時間があって今がある。たくさん笑いましたが、限りなく切なかったことも。懐かしく思い出します。北村京子

Bridging the Gap

“Bridging the Gap” is Kitamura’s new project concept conceived in 2024. Kitamura has always been interested in ways to bring people of diverse backgrounds and generations together, the main reason she has continued to pursue wordless vocal music – because language, while being an important tool to communicate, can also exclude.

Taking this a step further, and building on her experience honing her craft as a sideperson-vocalist under many musical elders, Kitamura expanded her activities to create opportunities to bridge the gap in performance settings. Kitamura recently took on a volunteer consulting role for the multi-generational and diverse Brooklyn Free Spirit Festival (July 12&13 at IBeam Brooklyn) as well as set up gigs for next generation musicians to perform with seasoned veterans at small NYC venues.

The first of these activities will happen on July 2, 2024 at the Downtown Music Gallery, where two Bennington College music students, Julius Boxer-Cooper (fl) and Paige Draiss (dms), will perform with veteran bassist Ken Filiano and Kitamura herself. The second will happen on July 13th, when Julius Boxer-Cooper will demonstrate an excerpt of a work by Anthony Braxton during the workshop segment of the Brooklyn Free Spirit Festival. Kitamura hopes to inject this concept into all of her future activities.

PR strategy for a performing arts organization during the pandemic

The following is based on a presentation I recently did during a class visit at Dartmouth College.


When the pandemic hit, live in-person performances were suddenly cancelled, the phrase “force majeure” was thrown around to nullify contracts, and the organization had to quickly reevaluate its raison d’être as well as shift its PR strategy. In the beginning, we probably didn’t understand its severity, or perhaps we were in denial. What we had thought would be a few months became half a year, a year, and now we are hearing that normalcy, whatever that means, may not be back until perhaps 2022. It was, and still is, a terrible and difficult time for all of us. There will be no easy way out of this situation. Throughout it all, I had a job as the executive director of an arts organization. I looked at five criteria:

  1. Visibility
  2. Relationship with the audience
  3. Community
  4. Funding
  5. Creativity

Visibility

Visibility today includes exposure in traditional mass media as well as social media where self-generated content can be disseminated to the masses. It is usually a symbiotic process on our scene; presenters or labels and artists work together to publicize events or album releases. For example, when I work with a festival, I will be in close communications with their communications team about when to announce (embargo), contents of the release including press photos, discuss press requests and promote the event to our networks.

Once the pandemic hit, the symbiotic relationship with presenters and their huge networks disappeared along with live in-person performances. However, new relationships quickly strengthened, namely arts organizations working with other arts organizations and amplifying visibility together. This was already going on before the pandemic because artistic collaborations are a natural part of our work, but I believe I am seeing an increase in number of requests our organization receives for collaborations, consultations and pedagogy. We are all searching for ways to maximize our new two-dimensional platform: the screen. Organizations working together meant a larger network and reach.

The focus of live performance is in the moment, with a medium length pre-event publicity often in the form of “what to do and see” articles, and a very short post-event publicity in the form of reviews. Now, events were live streamed or taped beforehand, and the post-event publicity has grown a very long tail. The International Contemporary Ensemble, NYPL and Tri-Centric collaborated to produce a Braxton75 event which was broadcast over Facebook and YouTube (I.C.E. was the lead organizer). That event produced the wonderful lecture on the music of Anthony Braxton and an interview with the ensemble Thumbscrew, both of which can be promoted independently. Tri-Centric’s Carl Testa and Belgian guitarist Kobe Van Cauwenberghe worked together for a live streaming EEMHM performance which was then written up in a wonderful interview article.

Basically, we moved to a two-dimensional digital platform sans geographical constraints, and an event format which could be synchronous or asynchronous. The more organizations work together, the wider our reach (and it’s usually more fun). We are definitely making more use of post-event publicity. I don’t see this as a replacement of the old; in-person live performances cannot be replaced. I see this as a branching off, with its own modest possibilities. We were also fortunate to be able to work with many artists and ensembles interested in performing Braxton works, of which a sample can be seen on this YouTube playlist.

Relationship with the audience

In-person events were where artists could interact with the audience, and we missed those moments terribly. Here, I had to rethink what it was that happened between audience and artists during a performance. I always felt that there was an exchange going on between the audience and artist, in the form of attention for experience. According to Wikipedia, “Attention remains a crucial area of investigation within education, psychology, neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, and neuropsychology.” For me, attention is a finite gift, zero sum, as explained by Michael Goldhaber in a recent NYT opinion piece. A performance space is usually set up so that the finite attention won’t be taken away from the action on stage: a bright elevated stage with the audience sitting in the dark. So, could I somehow distill this essence and apply it in another way?

The out-of-the-box idea was a tote bag with a musical score. A score, from a communication perspective, is music trapped in ink, a message which can be transmitted to and decoded by someone other than the composer. During the pandemic, we can’t interface with the audience in person. The tote would be a way for us to reach the audience, to disseminate the music, and for us to hopefully still be present in their lives. This bag was used as part of the 2020 year-end fundraising campaign and performed remarkably well. We were also able to communicate with the supporters while mailing the totes. It was not a substitute, but it was something. Otherwise, we kept up our regular newsletters to inform our audience of any activities such as online performances of Braxton works. (As an aside, an activity such as making a tote bag can help boost intraorganizational morale. Communication strategies should also take into account issues of communication among the board and staff of a nonprofit.)

Community

Without the community of artists, we would not have a scene. There is no solution to what is going on now during the pandemic, with artists out of work, moving away, going back to school, etc. Marshall McLuhan’s global village has encroached on a scene which thrived on propinquity, the in-person full-body experience of playing music together in the same room. For the moment, all we can do is to try our best to support each other, and if we can highlight each others’ works somehow, e.g., a newsletter, that should count for something. It’s similar to ingredient branding except we have become the ingredients. This is an evolving situation. We probably will not understand the full impact for a few years. Although it is important that we do our best to keep the community intact, the reality is that the community probably has become dormant and will certainly undergo a change. A desert bloom waiting to happen, waiting to rebound.

Funding

Another difficult area, but if all of the above somehow came together, then there might be wonderful people and institutions who can see value in what an organization does and be inclined to support it. I am always so thankful for donors who generously support arts organizations. At the same time, I see it as a responsibility for those who receive the money to keep delivering the best. And what is the best during a pandemic? That is a key question that I have no answer for. I also applied to grants and loans; got rejected by two grants but did receive two forgivable loans for the organization. For the moment, things are okay, but there is no guarantee for the future.

Creativity

An arts organization can’t stay static. I have no answer to the current situation except to say that crisis situations will always bring about change. Whether that is positive or negative or both will depend on the organization. In my professional experience, the ability to navigate crisis situations depends largely on the ability for the people involved to be flexible. Also, whatever issues that existed prior to the crisis will most likely be exacerbated. In some cases, one crisis may have already been brought about by preexisting issues but were somehow hidden or tolerated, while another crisis pushes the organization over the edge so that those hidden issues would have to be dealt with. The crisis may be a way to tackle those issues head-on and resolve them once and for all.

 

Anthony Braxton Trio (after Big Ears Festival and ZIM MUSIC)

So, the Big Ears Festival was a big surprise in terms of Braxton repertoire. I wrote in the last post that the Anthony Braxton Trio, which I am part of, usually performed Braxton’s Falling River Music. That was before I left for Big Ears. The 10+1tet had been getting ready to perform Ghost Trance.

But in Knoxville, Anthony began to explain ZIM MUSIC.

ZIM MUSIC is Anthony’s newest system. Don’t quote me here, but I believe it was recorded last year in Alabama (release date TBA) and performed once before in Poland. Like all things Braxton, it is related to his previous systems and can accommodate everything from GTM to the opera. ZIM MUSIC is based on gradient formings, or number 11 in his Language Music System. In the case of ZIM MUSIC, it is specifically about volume and intensity (Braxton explains his Language Music System on video here). The scores have curved lines of different colors, the lines expressing volume dynamics and the colors expressing timbre or pitch. Some lines can lead to circles, squares and other shapes, leading to more open area of improvisation.

All I can say for the moment is that it is gorgeous. It works in the 10+1tet like magic, bellowing like a mystical gigantic creature which can instantly turn into a whisper of the wind blowing over a grassy field stretching infinitely. The performers in the 10+1tet are one of the best in the field that I know. They dive fearless into the music and make it their own, even if it is a new Braxton musical system they learned the day before. And boy, did they deliver. The entire theatre erupted into massive applause when the set finished. I thought the place was going to explode. I don’t know how ZIM MUSIC sounded in the trio but the feedback from listeners has been tremendous as well.

Anthony Braxton’s musical systems are the opposite of top-down. It is not about the conductor leading an orchestra or the composer specifying every single note, although it could be about those things at certain moments. The lines of communication for each performer goes in all directions. Any one of us can lead or follow another, by a set of cues, usually hand signals. The scores can determine the direction of the improvisation as in Ghost Trance, or be specific notation as in the opera, or can lead to more open sections of improvisation. I call it collective composition in real time, with our tools being musical systems, improvisation and written scores, every ensemble member making musical decisions about the larger overall structure as the music develops, shaping the composition organically from the inside. It is multi-layered to the extreme.

ZIM MUSIC adds another dimension, a detailed elaboration of one of the twelve pillars of his system. Again, I am astounded by Anthony Braxton’s vision. Great recap of Big Ears here by Seth Colter Walls which is possibly the first reporting ever of ZIM MUSIC and some great photos here. Hooray for life!

Anthony Braxton Trio (before Big Ears Festival)

Listeners often ask me about the Braxton trio I am part of (with AB, Taylor Ho Bynum, me), usually along the lines of “what’s going on musically?” Braxton’s musical systems are multi-layered and interconnecting. The main composition used in our trio, or what we refer to as the primary composition or territory, belong to his visually arresting Falling River Music (FRM) system.

Then there’s the secondary material, which are compositions we can jump into from the primary territory. As I understand it, once a Braxton composition is performed in its original state for the purpose of being recorded, and once the recording is in the can, that composition is said to have an “origin” recording after which it becomes ready to be incorporated into other compositions as secondary material. Like a rite of passage. Because Braxton compositions continue to change shape after they’re written. The first time I performed with the trio in 2014, we used parts of Ghost Trance Music (from here on, abbreviated as GTM, and great notes regarding this system by James Fei here) and his duo compositions as the secondary material. Later, we used parts of opera Trilium E and J.

As for Anthony’s operas, Seth Colter Walls wrote a wonderful and informative article a few years back entitled Blasting Opera Forward. Of the 12 operas in the Trillium cycle, Anthony has completed six of which five have been performed, is currently working on his seventh, and has the framework for the rest. Each opera takes years to complete.

Here again, his musical systems work together. In one scene of Trillium J performed in 2014, I was part of the choir singing GTM on the balcony accompanying the double dutchers below (listen to the Syntactical GTM Choir here, similar to the GTM choir in the opera). It occurred to me then that, perhaps, when Anthony created GTM back in the mid-90s, he purposefully developed a flexible system which could be incorporated in his new works decades later. GTM is also used in his recent gorgeous interdisciplinary system Pinetop Aerial which fuses movement logics with music (watch it here with beautiful vocalist Anne Rhodes) where the vocal syllables of GTM function as cues for movement. Inversely, opera and other compositions can become the secondary material for GTM, with surprising and dramatic results.

I can’t help but wonder if Anthony composes knowing how his musical systems would be used in the future, if there is “future composer Braxton” constantly informing “present-day composer Braxton”. When most people talk about the big picture, it’s usually in the present. Anthony’s big picture, to me, always seems to contain a perspective from the future. Perhaps he is the quintessential time-manipulating artist. Or maybe he’s just great at planning ahead. I don’t really know. But I am in awe. Having a perspective from the future would certainly be useful to us improvisers, spontaneous composers who must travel ahead in time to see the whole picture because we can never go back and edit our compositions. Maybe we’re already doing it. Wouldn’t that be something. (Writer Stuart Broomer, in his recent wonderful review of Echo Echo, also mentions how Braxton’s music affects the listener‘s sense of time.)

Anthony Braxton’s 12 Duets (DCWM) 2012

Some of the scores used for

12 Duets (DCWM) 2012

Tracks 1 – 4

12 Duets (DCWM) 2012

Available at http://tricentricfoundation.org/12-duets-dcwm-2012-cd

These tracks were recorded over two days, Aug. 14 and 15 in 2012, at Wesleyan’s Crowell Concert Hall. Each track consists of two different Falling River Music scores (graphic scores), one each for Anthony and myself, plus one Ghost Trance score which was the same for both of us. The four tracks are arranged in chronological order and have a distinct developmental arc for me. Track 1 was where I was very busy trying to do different things to figure out how and what I could contribute to the music. By Track 4, I was listening more, and there is a certain serenity and space coming from a place of slightly deeper understanding of the music, although I knew I was only scratching the surface. There is a similar developmental arc within each track, how it starts and where it goes over the course of an hour as measured by Anthony’s hourglass. I am always grateful for the fact that Anthony allows me to fail, then pick myself in my own way so that I can find something personal.

IMG_0110

Track 1: Composition No. 366b (+214, 365b)

Composition No. 366b

Composition No. 366b

Composition No. 365b

Composition No. 365b

Track 2: Composition No. 366d (+239, 365f)

Composition No. 366d

Composition No. 366d

Composition No. 365f

Composition No. 365f

Track 3: Composition No. 366a (+240, 367b)

Composition No. 240

Composition No. 240

Composition No. 367b

Composition No. 367b

Track 4: Composition No. 364e (+346, 363a)

Composition No. 364e

Composition No. 364e

Composition No. 346

Composition No. 346

Composition No. 363a

Composition No. 363a