Entries in remix (8)

Monday
25Jan2010

Bolero Bill v3 (Ravel goes to war)

Date20100125 at 22:29

When I listen to certain film composers, it is sometimes immediately apparent they are fans of Ravel’s music. While Ravel himself didn’t consider Boléro an important piece, it has “gone viral” somewhat — probably due to the catchy rhythm that drives it relentlessly forward. When I heard Ennio Morricone using that rhythm in a sound track, it was an immediate cue, and a natural choice for a remix against Boléro. I also think any “warhorse” piece which has been over-played or misused is fair game.

Wikiepedia: Boléro

Boléro became Ravel’s most famous composition, much to the surprise of the composer, who had predicted that most orchestras would refuse to play it.[3] It is usually played as a purely orchestral work, only rarely being staged as a ballet. According to a possibly apocryphal story, at the premiere a woman shouted that Ravel was mad. When told about this, Ravel smiled and remarked that she had understood the piece.[6]

Imagine in your mind the villain from Diva (1981) — but instead of polka music, he’s listening to Boléro over and over… while he merrily commits terrible violence. The guns, brass, vocals and signature whistling are courtesy of Morricone. The ending was difficult, as I’m combining two separate recordings of Bolero; it has to have a “big finish” — a.k.a. fortissi-issi-issi-issi-issimo. One trick employed here is substitution sleight-of-hand; the “jump cut” out of Morricone is made possible by the two chords which lead to the “coda” in Boléro. Also, in the development I wove the theme onto itself to provide additional interest, since everyone knows the piece so well.

Maurice Ravel Ennio Morricone - Bolero Bill v3.mp3 (15:23 19.2M)

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Monday
25Jan2010

Da Capo al Fine v3 - Wise Guy Mix (homage to Godfather & Sopranos)

Date20100125 at 18:17

This sort of “sound track remix” is quite illegal technically but when approached correctly is unlikely to be a subject of legal proceedings. For example, under the last half of the Sopranos theme an original track was added to the mix. The title is a play on the musical direction “from the head to the end” - which you can also take to mean “from the Mafia Boss to the gunshot.”

Instrument doubling for the Godfather waltz is accomplished by carefully editing together sections of two separate recordings. There is a side-trip to Chicago included in the Godfather section. One can’t omit the Tarantella - but where to put it? Knitting together the two broad sections required a transition to the natural key of the Sopranos theme. I’m very careful to preserve original pitch and meter, which stems from the overall mandate to retain the “audio fidelity” of the sources.

It is quite unfortunate that content owners consider the musical themes to such classics as these ongoing profit vehicles. In my perfect world, the composers would be well-paid, up front, and ongoing royalties would come from film and television broadcasts. The theme music itself can be considered an advertisement for that content, and could be released into the wild, for “fair use” by musicians, producers, DJs and other culture jammers and trouble makers.

 

Da Capo al Fine v3 (wise guy mix) 
Henri Mancini Ennio Morricone Nino Rota Alabama 3 

ca·po 2   (kä’pō, kāp’ō) 
n.   pl. ca·pos
The head of a branch of an organized crime syndicate.

Da Capo al Fine v3 (Wise Guy Mix).mp3 (11:21 15.21M)

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Wednesday
16Dec2009

Rupert the Murdoch Reign Dear (Holiday song)

Date20091216 at 09:48

Rupert the red-nosed mogul 
Has a very large empire 
And if you saw his holdings 
You’d see things are very dire

All of the other moguls 
Used to laugh and call him names 
They never let poor Rupert 
Play in any mogul games

Then one bearish Christmas eve 
Greenspan came to say 
“Rupert with your gold so bright 
Won’t you buy some bonds tonight?” 

Then all the moguls loved him 
As they shouted out with glee 
“Rupert the red-nosed mogul 
You’ll own all of history!”

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Friday
02Oct2009

Glee Television Show (Fox)

Date20091002 at 09:08

UPDATE: Removed the “Single Ladies” clip because Fox is idiotic, and has issued a take-down. Perhaps I should just “take down” this entire post.

 

UPDATE: Added the recent video clip of the Glee football team doing “Single Ladies”

…because it’s very fun, and very good.

UPDATE: Added Bootie SF’s Its My Life Confessions Pt. II A+D Bootie Edit

 

This new Fox show about a Glee club at a high school has capitalized on the popularity of American Idol, and premiered a few months ago, before the Fall premiere season. The critics love it apparently, and I do too. Here is the show’s blurb:

From Ryan Murphy, the creator of “Nip/Tuck,” comes GLEE, a new comedy for the aspiring underdog in all of us.

The series follows an optimistic teacher, Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison), who — against all odds and a malicious cheerleading coach — attempts to save McKinley High’s Glee Club from obscurity, while helping a group of aspiring underdogs realize their true star potential.

Episodes one through five are available now on Hulu, and episode five “The Rhodes Not Taken” scores a significant win in casting Kristin Chenoweth. She’s a very real star of the musical stage, and has branched out to television. I think it’s quite a compliment to the show that she accepted this “guest star” part. She would “love to come back and do more”, as she says in the embedded interview below. She’s quite a talented actress and comedian in addition to her undeniable musical gifts.

Kristin Chenoweth on Glee - Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

 

Don’t bother looking for episodes on the Fox site, unless you want to install a “special player” on your computer (which is provided by Fox — and since I doubt they can resist adding e.g. spyware, that’s an automatic and permanent no.)

I usually don’t post geographically limited or content subject to removal, but what starts on network TV will eventually make its way around the world, to dvd rental, cable TV and your local TV stations. Apologies to readers outside the U.S. — I’ve embedded Hulu’s Glee, episode 13 below.

 

 

 

Glee Cast Its My Life Confessions Pt. II A+D Bootie Edit

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Saturday
19Sep2009

Dj Mix Technique Number One (Several Reversals)

Date20090919 at 07:16

Assume for the sake of this post that ART means “audio reversed in time”, i.e. any audio clip played (and saved) backward. This is an invertibly lossless transform.

Consider this mix, track times approximate:

00:00 -00.00 ART of “Barber - Adagio for Strings - Bernstein & L.A. Philharmonic “
02:00 -00.00 “William Orbit - Barber Adagio for Strings Techno Remix”

This mix goes from strangely familiar mourning straight to techno, and in between a short eight bars where you get the original theme. Were it not an overplayed piece you could insert the original (non-ART version) in the middle and go in and out of techno and/or the ART version.

ART tracks are more appropriately named by using the original name, with all the letters back to front, i.e.

“cinomrahlihP .A.L & nietsnreB - sgnirtS rof oigadA - rebraB”

Note that the reversed name is unique for all uniquely named tracks, and the capitalization is a hard-to-miss clue. Note also lack of misrepresentation and improper taking of credit where none is due. Also, no need to define a new abbreviation for this transform, which can be very confusing.

Another favorite example of this technique is the mix:

00:00 -00:00 “nialecroP - yboM”
00:00 -00:00 “Moby - Porcelain”

This is a pure “audio-palindrome” if you will; the ART version is undeniably musical and listenable. Key points: start with the ART version of a very familiar ART-friendly track, followed by the original track.

The question of applicability of copyright law to ART-transformed tracks is an open one. It is quite complex, and assuming copyright did apply automatically, what of an ART-transformed sample? It seems unfair to think that ART-transformed tracks would be automatically limited, as they are not the same as the original at all. There is also a good bit of skill in knowing beforehand what tracks will sound like reversed, but of course this is a type of “recombination” art form, much as collage and remixing are.

In this sort of symmetrical mix I always add a “ping” and a “gnip” at the start and end, and a “pinggnip” at the midpoint, to cue the listener.


A term I coined for unreversed backwards speech (* see below) is “Lynchified” with an abbreviation of single capital “L”, but that does not really describe this transform: all [non-live] audio is ART-ible but only spoken or sung words are “Lynchifiable”, furthermore “Lynchifying” begins at the time you make a recording, and cannot be applied after the fact since the vocalist must use phoneme-reversed words. And, ART reverses the entire track whereas “Lynchification” is the un-phoneme-reversal of many single words, but preserving the order of the words.

Related tidbits about reversal of glyphs, letters, phonemes, words, speech and audio:

  • Phoneme reversal (phoneme-reversed words, or PRW): “it is not” becomes “tih zih tahn”
  • Letter-reversal of text (letters reversed in time, or LRT): “it is not” becomes “ton si ti”
  • Reversed letters (letter-reversed words, or LRW): “it is not” becomes “ti si ton”
  • Word-reversal of text (words reversed in time, or WRT) “it is not” becomes “not is it”
  • PRW, WRT, and ART together give you Lynchified speech. (Note: WRT and ART together restore word order)
  • Reversed letter glyphs (flip single letters graphically on the X axis, or LRX): “p becomes q becomes p, b becomes d becomes b, z becomes s-like, s becomes z-like”
  • “X-mirror” transform is related, allows you to make an “ambulance” sign readable in a rear-view mirror (hint: LRT with LRX)


Exercise left for the reader: Explain why one can’t use ART transform with live audio, or LRT transform with live text/speech.

[* Note: David Lynch invented the technique as far as I’m aware, used very effectively in Twin Peaks]

Dj Mix Technique Number One (Several Reversals)

Moby - Porcelain (palindroMixiMordnilap) nialecroP - yboM

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