Girl Talk

[manny at garfieldartworks.com]

You are underinformed about me, per se.

I know exactly what a symphony conductor does.
I took conducting classes both at CAPA and Carnegie Mellon, and I also
took some theory classes at both places arranging and interpreting
orchestral scores. I took many 'serious' music classes
at both institutions, and having worked for the Pgh New Music Ensemble for
ten years, as well as having sung in a professional choir for over a
decade, I knew many serious professional musicians.

An orchestra or other classical ensemble almost always plays other
people's music, not their own.
DJs almost always play other people's music, not their own.

Yet in fact, at the rare instance that original music is played, it's much
more likely that the DJ will play original music than the orchestra will.
That is because today, a DJ who also writes music can
compose it on computers, and even press it on a dub plate, for very little
cost and relatively little effort. Whereas the cost of commissioning an
orchestra to perform original music composed by its own conductor or one
of its players is rather vast and time-consuming in the classical world,
so it's not done as often. When it's done, it's usually in the context of
a "New Music Ensemble", which is something else entirely that most lovers
of classical music don't want to attend or hear, because they just want to
hear the tried and true classical chestnut hits.

The same way that a crowd wants to hear familiar hits played by the DJ.
Shall I go on with the analogies, or is it starting to make sense?

Note that my intention is by no means to denigrate the function of either
an orchestra or a DJ.
They both have their function, which is to replay or reinterpret
previously composed music.
But what they both don't usually do, at least in widely accepted and
popular situations, is play their own original, composed music.

However, Girl Talk does.

> While Girl Talk isn't an a-list celebrity, he is a celebrity nonetheless.
>
> It should be noted that being a serious musician is not "the 18th
> century equivalent of a DJ." Apparently you don't know what a symphony
> orchestra conductor does, or what serious musicians do. That's OK.
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 8:02 PM,  <manny at garfieldartworks.com> wrote:
>>
>>> You compared Girl Talk to the conductor of a Symphony Orchestra. Heh.
>>
>> Well, technically, you said he is an example of celebrity.
>>
>> So I merely brought out an example with which I thought you'd resonate,
>> that is the function of a symphony orchestra conductor as celebrity,
>> which
>> is quite common. They don't put the entire orchestra on billboards and
>> bus
>> stop ads, they put the face of the conductor, who is the face of the
>> orchestra, even though he does not perform on an instrument, nor create
>> or
>> perform his original music. The conductor, unless he is conducting his
>> own
>> music, has nothing to do with the performance of original music
>> creations
>> (and neither do the symphony players), only with the reinterpretation of
>> others' works, like the 18th century equivalent of a DJ.
>>
>> And therefore, the conductor is more about celebrity, and less about
>> performance, than Girl Talk is, who performs his own original works
>> live.
>>
>> In other words, the medium of performance has changed so much - from
>> orchestra, to rock band, to banks of synths and drum machines, to a
>> laptop
>> - that the frame of reference has to change radically as well. The
>> performance should be put in its proper contemporary context (and not
>> misunderstood), which is that of a single guy using Ableton Live to play
>> his music on stage in a performance setting.
>>
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