Human beings are social beings, each unique, each misunderstood, and each in desperate need of expression. If i were to go around the world and ask people what they felt was most influential to them in their daily lives, some would name an object like a television or gaming device, others would say family, some say passion and others will say music. Since the egining of time, people have been expressing themselves and connecting with the emotions of others through music. In the United States music has always been a large part of our nations history as well. Historians have even said that certain periods of the nations history can be better understood through the context music. In present times, this trend continues to occur, but on a much more massive scale.Although in the present day, much talk about music is done by members of the preceding generation in reference to copyright law (SOPA and PIPA)the creation of music and the emotions that they express has always been more important to me. In the present, many artists have begun to use technology to create new types of music to express emotions and influence history.
When I first began to listen to music, it was through the aid of my friend in middle school, Christopher. Having grown up in a home without a computer during my younger years, when i entered middle school and computers were a requirement I was deeply excited. Christopher who had already spent alot of time with computers was well trained in most of their functionality and was able to download and create CDs. So one day I asked him to create me a CD that consisted of a collection of theme songs from our favorite cartoons. The music that I listened to back then was a mix of different instruments and vocals, and the beginnings of what we now call dubstep. Known for its “wah-wah” like sound Dubstep is bass heavy electronic music, created solely with the use of a computer. The people who create dubstep are known as producers. Producers are people who specialize in the creation of electronic music. Although producers are knwon for mainly working with artists who supply vocal components to rap and trance music, in the modern day they are used for nearly every type of music.Popular producers such as Skrillex, Porter Robinson and the The Adventure Club generally are very young. This is important to note because as technology advances, those who are the first to adapt to it are the young. Popular programs that these producers use are similar to Audacity that we used in class. Many famous producers use expensive programs such as Ableton Live, but there are also many amateur producers who take advantage of freeware programs like Reaper.
Ijn Dubstep artists generally take soudns from videos or other songs and remix them in a creative way. In Skrillex’s new song “Breakin a Sweat” he uses a snippet of an interview with lead singer of the Door’s who describes a vision of music far beyon his own, hes quoted as saying ” its not going to be a band anymore, its going to be one person witha bunch of tapes”. This is rather ominous but has interesting implications. Do you think that music has greatly influenced history?