This is the venue where, as a young man, some of the music that I wrote was first performed. It was, remarkably, a pretty good sounding room. With all the uneven walls and all the crap everywhere, it actually sounded pretty good. This is a song that was recorded there. (Music) This is not Talking Heads, in the picture anyway. (Music: "A Clean Break (Let's Work)" by Talking Heads) So the nature of the room meant that words could be understood. The lyrics of the songs could be pretty much understood. The sound system was kind of decent. And there wasn't a lot of reverberation in the room. So the rhythms could be pretty intact too, pretty concise. Other places around the country had similar rooms. This is Tootsie's Orchid Lounge in Nashville. The music was in some ways different, but in structure and form, very much the same. The clientele behavior was very much the same too. And so the bands at Tootsie's or at CBGB's had to play loud enough -- the volume had to be loud enough to overcome people falling down, shouting out and doing whatever else they were doing.
Ovo je mjesto gdje sam, kao mladić, prvi put izveo neke od pjesama koje sam napisao. Začudo, ta je prostorija imala zaista dobru akustiku. S neravnim zidovima i svim tim smećem uokolo, zapravo je zvučala jako dobro. Ovo je pjesma koja je ondje snimljena. (Glazba) Ovo nisu Talking Heads, barem ne na slici. (Glazba: „ A Clean Break (Let's Work)“ izvođač Talking Heads) Priroda te prostorije omogućila je riječima da budu razumljive. Riječi pjesama poprilično su se mogle shvatiti. Ozvučenje je bilo pristojno. I nije bilo puno jeke u prostoriji pa su i ritmovi mogli biti poprilično netaknuti, poprilično jezgroviti. Diljem zemlje i druga su mjesta imala slične prostore. Ovo je Tootsie's Orchid Lounge u Nashville-u. Glazba je bila na neke načine različita, ali u strukturi i formi, veoma slična. Ponašanje klijentele je također bilo više manje isto. I tako su bendovi u Tootsie's Lounge-u ili u CBGB-u morali svirati dovoljno glasno -- jačina zvuka je morala biti dovoljno glasna kako bi nadvladala padanje ljudi, njihovo vikanje i sve drugo što su radili.
Since then, I've played other places that are much nicer. I've played the Disney Hall here and Carnegie Hall and places like that. And it's been very exciting. But I also noticed that sometimes the music that I had written, or was writing at the time, didn't sound all that great in some of those halls. We managed, but sometimes those halls didn't seem exactly suited to the music I was making or had made. So I asked myself: Do I write stuff for specific rooms? Do I have a place, a venue, in mind when I write? Is that a kind of model for creativity? Do we all make things with a venue, a context, in mind?
Od tada, svirao sam i na drugim mjestima koja su mnogo ugodnija. Svirao sam u Disney Hallu ovdje i Carnegie Hallu i takvim mjestima. I bilo je to veoma uzbudljivo. Također sam primijetio da ponekad glazba koju sam napisao, ili sam pisao u to vrijeme, nije zvučala posve dobro u nekima od tih dvorana. Snalazili smo se, ali katkad se te dvorane nisu činile posve prikladne za glazbu koju sam radio ili sam napravio. Pa sam se upitao: Pišem li stvari za određene prostorije? Imam li na umu mjesto ili prostor kada pišem? Je li to model za kreativnost? Radimo li svi pjesme s mjestom, kontekstom na umu?
Okay, Africa. (Music: "Wenlenga" / Various artists) Most of the popular music that we know now has a big part of its roots in West Africa. And the music there, I would say, the instruments, the intricate rhythms, the way it's played, the setting, the context, it's all perfect. It all works perfect. The music works perfectly in that setting. There's no big room to create reverberation and confuse the rhythms. The instruments are loud enough that they can be heard without amplification, etc., etc. It's no accident. It's perfect for that particular context. And it would be a mess in a context like this. This is a gothic cathedral. (Music: "Spem In Alium" by Thomas Tallis) In a gothic cathedral, this kind of music is perfect. It doesn't change key, the notes are long, there's almost no rhythm whatsoever, and the room flatters the music. It actually improves it. This is the room that Bach wrote some of his music for. This is the organ. It's not as big as a gothic cathedral, so he can write things that are a little bit more intricate. He can, very innovatively, actually change keys without risking huge dissonances. (Music: "Fantasia On Jesu, Mein Freunde" by Johann S. Bach)
Ok, Afrika. (Glazba: „Wenlenga“ različiti izvođači) Većina popularne glazbe danas ima velik dio svojih korijena u zapadnoj Africi. I glazba tamo, instrumenti, zamršeni ritmovi, način na koji se svira, okruženje, kontekst, sve je savršeno. Funkcionira savršeno. Glazba u tom okruženju funkcionira savršeno. Nema velike prostorije koja bi stvarala jeku i pomiješala ritmove. Instrumenti su dovoljno glasni da se mogu čuti bez pojačavanja itd. itd. To nije slučajnost. Savršeno je za taj određeni kontekst. I bilo bi katastrofa u ovakvom kontekstu. Ovo je gotička katedrala. (Glazba: „Spem In Alium“ autor Thomas Tallis) U gotičkoj katedrali, ovakva je glazba savršena. Nema promjene ključa, note su duge, gotovo pa uopće nema ritma i prostor pogoduje glazbi. Zapravo ju poboljšava. Ovo je prostor za koji je Bach pisao neke od svojih skladbi. Ovo su orgulje. Nije veliko poput gotičke katedrale, pa može pisati neke malo zamršenije skladbe. On može, veoma inovativno, zapravo mijenjati ključ bez riskiranja velike disonance. (Glazba: „ Fantasia On Jesu, Mein Freunde“ autor Johann S. Bach)
This is a little bit later. This is the kind of rooms that Mozart wrote in. I think we're in like 1770, somewhere around there. They're smaller, even less reverberant, so he can write really frilly music that's very intricate -- and it works. (Music: "Sonata in F," KV 13, by Wolfgang A. Mozart) It fits the room perfectly. This is La Scala. It's around the same time, I think it was built around 1776. People in the audience in these opera houses, when they were built, they used to yell out to one another. They used to eat, drink and yell out to people on the stage, just like they do at CBGB's and places like that. If they liked an aria, they would holler and suggest that it be done again as an encore, not at the end of the show, but immediately. (Laughter) And well, that was an opera experience. This is the opera house that Wagner built for himself. And the size of the room is not that big. It's smaller than this. But Wagner made an innovation. He wanted a bigger band. He wanted a little more bombast, so he increased the size of the orchestra pit so he could get more low-end instruments in there. (Music: "Lohengrin / Prelude to Act III" by Richard Wagner)
Ovo je malo kasnije. Ovo su prostorije poput one u kojoj je Mozart skladao. Mislim da se nalazimo otprilike u 1770. godini. Prostorije su manje, još manje odjekuju, pa on može pisati veoma ukrašenu i zamršenu glazbu -- i to funkcionira. (Glazba: „Sonata u F-duru“ KV 13 autor Wolfgang A. Mozart) Savršeno se uklapa u prostoriju. Ovo je La Scala. To je otprilike isto vrijeme, mislim da je sagrađena otprilike 1776. Ljudi u publici u tim opernim kućama, kada su sagrađene, običavali su dovikivati se. Oni su jeli, pili i vikali prema ljudima na pozornici, baš kao što to čine ljudi u CBGB-u i takvim mjestima. Ako im se svidjela arija, oni bi uzvikivali i predložili da se ponovi kao bis, ne na kraju priredbe već odmah. (Smijeh) I to je bilo iskustvo opere. Ovo je operna kuća koju je za svoje potrebe sagradio Wagner. Veličina prostorije nije toliko velika. Manja je od ovog. Ali ovdje je Wagner uveo inovaciju. Želio je veći orkestar. Želio je više bombastičnosti pa je povećao veličinu orkestralne rupe kako bi ondje mogao smjestiti više instrumenata za niske lage. (Glazba: „Lohengrin/ preludij III. čina“ autor: Richard Wagner)
Okay. This is Carnegie Hall. Obviously, this kind of thing became popular. The halls got bigger. Carnegie Hall's fair-sized. It's larger than some of the other symphony halls. And they're a lot more reverberant than La Scala. Around the same, according to Alex Ross who writes for the New Yorker, this kind of rule came into effect that audiences had to be quiet -- no more eating, drinking and yelling at the stage, or gossiping with one another during the show. They had to be very quiet. So those two things combined meant that a different kind of music worked best in these kind of halls. It meant that there could be extreme dynamics, which there weren't in some of these other kinds of music. Quiet parts could be heard that would have been drowned out by all the gossiping and shouting. But because of the reverberation in those rooms like Carnegie Hall, the music had to be maybe a little less rhythmic and a little more textural. (Music: "Symphony No. 8 in E Flat Major" by Gustav Mahler) This is Mahler. It looks like Bob Dylan, but it's Mahler. That was Bob's last record, yeah.
Ok. Ovo je Carnegie Hall. Očito, ovo je postalo popularno. Dvorane su postale veće. Carnegie Hall je poštene veličine. Veća je od nekih drugih simfonijskih dvorana. One odjekuju puno više nego La Scala. Otprilike u to vrijeme, prema Alexu Rossu koji piše za New Yorker, pojavilo se pravilo da publika mora biti tiha -- nema više jedenja, pijenja, vikanja prema pozornici ili tračanja jednih s drugima tijekom predstave. Morali su biti vrlo tihi. Dakle, te su dvije stvari kombinirano značile da je drugačija vrsta glazbe najbolje funkcionirala u takvim dvoranama. To je značilo da može biti ekstremne dinamike, koje nije bilo u nekim drugim vrstama glazbe. Tihi dijelovi, koji bi prije bili ugušeni tračanjem i vikanjem, sada su se mogli čuti. Zbog jeke u takvim prostorima poput Carnegie Halla, glazba je morala biti možda malo manje ritmična i malo više teksturalna. (Glazba: „Simfonija br. 8 u Es-duru“ autor Gustav Mahler) Ovo je Mahler. Izgeda kao Bob Dylan, ali je Mahler. To je zadnja Bobova ploča, da.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Popular music, coming along at the same time. This is a jazz band. According to Scott Joplin, the bands were playing on riverboats and clubs. Again, it's noisy. They're playing for dancers. There's certain sections of the song -- the songs had different sections that the dancers really liked. And they'd say, "Play that part again." Well, there's only so many times you can play the same section of a song over and over again for the dancers. So the bands started to improvise new melodies. And a new form of music was born. (Music: "Royal Garden Blues" by W.C. Handy / Ethel Waters) These are played mainly in small rooms. People are dancing, shouting and drinking. So the music has to be loud enough to be heard above that. Same thing goes true for -- that's the beginning of the century -- for the whole of 20th-century popular music, whether it's rock or Latin music or whatever. [Live music] doesn't really change that much.
Popularna glazba napreduje u to isto vrijeme. Ovo je jazz bend. Prema Scottu Joplinu bendovi su svirali na riječnim brodovima i u klubovima. Ponovno je bučno. Sviraju za plesače. Postoje pojedini dijelovi u pjesmi -- pjesme su imale različite dijelove koji su se jako sviđali plesačima. I oni bi rekli: „Svirajte taj dio ponovno.“ Međutim, ne možete plesačima svirati jedan te isti dio pjesme u nedogled. Pa su bendovi počeli improvizirati nove melodije. I rođena je nova vrsta glazbe. (Glazba: „Royal Garden Blues“ izvođači W.C.Handy/ Ethel Waters). Ovakva glazba se svira uglavnom u malim prostorima. Ljudi plešu, viču i piju. Dakle, glazba mora biti dovoljno glasna da se čuje unatoč tome. Nešto započinje za -- to je početak stoljeća -- za svu popularnu glazbu 20. stoljeća, bio to rock, latinoamerička glazba ili bilo što drugo. (Živa glazba) zapravo se ne mijenja puno.
It changes about a third of the way into the 20th century, when this became one of the primary venues for music. And this was one way that the music got there. Microphones enabled singers, in particular, and musicians and composers, to completely change the kind of music that they were writing. So far, a lot of the stuff that was on the radio was live music, but singers, like Frank Sinatra, could use the mic and do things that they could never do without a microphone. Other singers after him went even further. (Music: "My Funny Valentine" by Chet Baker) This is Chet Baker. And this kind of thing would have been impossible without a microphone. It would have been impossible without recorded music as well. And he's singing right into your ear. He's whispering into your ears. The effect is just electric. It's like the guy is sitting next to you, whispering who knows what into your ear.
Mijenja se otprilike nakon jedne trećine 20. stoljeća, kada ovo postaje jedan od glavnih prostora za izvođenje glazbe. I ovo je jedan od načina na koje je glazba ondje došla. Mikrofoni su omogućili osobito pjevačima, ali i glazbenicima i skladateljima da posve promijene vrstu glazbe koju su pisali. Do tada, puno je stvari na radiju bilo živa glazba, ali pjevači, poput Franka Sinatre su mogli uzeti mikrofon i izvoditi stvari koje bi bez mikrofona bile nemoguće. Pjevači nakon njega otišli su još dalje. (Glazba: „My Funny Valentine“ izvođač Chet Baker) Ovo je Chet Baker. Ovakva vrsta stvari bila bi nemoguća bez mikrofona. Bila bi nemoguća i bez snimljene glazbe također. On vam pjeva ravno u uho. Šapće vam na uho. Efekt je jednostavno električan. Kao da čovjek sjedi do vas, šaputajući vam tko zna što na uho.
So at this point, music diverged. There's live music, and there's recorded music. And they no longer have to be exactly the same. Now there's venues like this, a discotheque, and there's jukeboxes in bars, where you don't even need to have a band. There doesn't need to be any live performing musicians whatsoever, and the sound systems are good. People began to make music specifically for discos and for those sound systems. And, as with jazz, the dancers liked certain sections more than they did others. So the early hip-hop guys would loop certain sections. (Music: "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang) The MC would improvise lyrics in the same way that the jazz players would improvise melodies. And another new form of music was born.
U ovom trenutku imamo razilaženje u glazbi. Postoji živa glazba i postoji snimljena glazba. I one više ne moraju nužno biti posve iste. Postoje prostori puput ovog, diskoteke, i postoje „đuboksi“ u barovima, gdje više uopće ne morate imati bend. Više uopće ne postoji potreba za sviračima žive glazbe, i sustavi ozvučenja su dobri. Ljudi su počeli raditi glazbu posebno za disko i takve sustave ozvučenja. I kao što se dogodilo i sa jazzom, plesači su voljeli neke dijelove više nego neke druge. Pa su rani hip-hoperi u petlju stavili određene dijelove. (Glazba: „Rapper's Delight“ izvođač the Sugarhill Gang) MC bi improvizirao riječi na isti način na koji su jazz izvođači improvizirali melodije. I tako je nastala još jedna vrsta glazbe.
Live performance, when it was incredibly successful, ended up in what is probably, acoustically, the worst sounding venues on the planet: sports stadiums, basketball arenas and hockey arenas. Musicians who ended up there did the best they could. They wrote what is now called arena rock, which is medium-speed ballads. (Music: "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by U2) They did the best they could given that this is what they're writing for. The tempos are medium. It sounds big. It's more a social situation than a musical situation. And in some ways, the music that they're writing for this place works perfectly.
Nastupi uživo, kada bi bili nevjerojatno uspješni, završili su u akustično najgorim prostorima na planetu: sportskim stadionima, košarkaškim i hokej arenama. Glazbenici koji su tamo završili radili su najbolje što su mogli. Pisali su ono što se danas zove arena rock, tj. srednje brze balade. (Glazba: „I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For“ izvođač U2) Napravili su najbolje što su mogli s obzirom da je ovo ono za što pišu. Tempo je umjeren. Zvuči veliko. To je više socijalna nego glazbena situacija. I na neki način, glazba koju pišu za ovakva mjesta savršeno funkcionira.
So there's more new venues. One of the new ones is the automobile. I grew up with a radio in a car. But now that's evolved into something else. The car is a whole venue. (Music: "Who U Wit" by Lil' Jon & the East Side Boyz) The music that, I would say, is written for automobile sound systems works perfectly on it. It might not be what you want to listen to at home, but it works great in the car -- has a huge frequency spectrum, you know, big bass and high-end and the voice kind of stuck in the middle. Automobile music, you can share with your friends.
Dakle, ima više novih prostora. Jedan od novijih je automobil. Ja sam odrastao s radijem u autu. Sada je to evoluiralo u nešto drugo. Auto je jedno cjelovito mjesto. (Glazba: „Who U Wit“ izvođač Lil'Jon & the East Side Boyz). Glazba koja je, rekao bih, napisana za zvučne sisteme u autima, na njima savršeno funkcionira. To možda nije glazba koju bi slušali kod kuće, ali super funkcionira u autima -- ima veliki spektar frekvencije, znate, dobar bas i gornje lage i glas koji je negdje u sredini. Automobilsku glazbu možete dijeliti s prijateljima.
There's one other kind of new venue, the private MP3 player. Presumably, this is just for Christian music. (Laughter) And in some ways it's like Carnegie Hall, or when the audience had to hush up, because you can now hear every single detail. In other ways, it's more like the West African music because if the music in an MP3 player gets too quiet, you turn it up, and the next minute, your ears are blasted out by a louder passage. So that doesn't really work. I think pop music, mainly, it's written today, to some extent, is written for these kind of players, for this kind of personal experience where you can hear extreme detail, but the dynamic doesn't change that much.
Postoji još jedna nova vrsta prostora, privatni MP3 player. Po svoj prilici, to je samo za kršćansku glazbu. (Smijeh) Na neke načine isto je kao Carnegie Hall, ili onome kada publika mora šutjeti jer sada možete čuti svaki detalj. Na neke druge načine, više je kao glazba zapadne Afrike jer ako glazba na Mp3 playeru postane pretiha, pojačate je, i sljedeće minute uši vam otpadnu zahvaljujući glasnom odlomku. Dakle, to zapravo ne funkcionira. Mislim da je pop glazba danas pretežito, u dobroj mjeri, napisana za takvu vrstu playera, za tu vrstu osobnog iskustva gdje možete čuti ekstremne detalje, ali se dinamika ne mijenja baš puno.
So I asked myself: Okay, is this a model for creation, this adaptation that we do? And does it happen anywhere else? Well, according to David Attenborough and some other people, birds do it too -- that the birds in the canopy, where the foliage is dense, their calls tend to be high-pitched, short and repetitive. And the birds on the floor tend to have lower pitched calls, so that they don't get distorted when they bounce off the forest floor. And birds like this Savannah sparrow, they tend to have a buzzing (Sound clip: Savannah sparrow song) type call. And it turns out that a sound like this is the most energy efficient and practical way to transmit their call across the fields and savannahs. Other birds, like this tanager, have adapted within the same species. The tananger on the East Coast of the United States, where the forests are a little denser, has one kind of call, and the tananger on the other side, on the west (Sound clip: Scarlet tanager song) has a different kind of call. (Sound clip: Scarlet tanager song) So birds do it too.
Upitao sam se: Ok, je li to model za kreativnost, adaptacija kroz koju prolazimo? I događa li se negdje drugdje? Prema Davidu Attenboroughu i nekim drugim ljudima i ptice to rade -- ptice među krošnjama, gdje je lišće gusto, glasaju se uglavnom visoko, kratko i ponavljajući se. A ptice na podu imaju nižu visinu tonova kako se oni ne bi iskrivili dok se odbijaju od šumskog poda. Ptice poput vrapca iz Savanne imaju glasanje (Zvučni isječak: pjesma savanaškog vrapca) nalik na zujanje. Ispada da je takav tip zvuka energetski najučinkovitiji i najpraktičniji način da prenesu svoj glas preko polja i savana. Druge ptice, poput ove tangare su se prilagodile unutar iste vrste. Tangara na istočnoj obali SAD-a, gdje su šume malo gušće, ima jedan način glasanja, a tangara na drugoj strani, na zapadu ( Zvučni isječak: pjesma grimizne tangare) ima drugačiji način glasanja. ( Zvučni isječak: pjesma grimizne tangare) Dakle, i ptice to rade.
And I thought: Well, if this is a model for creation, if we make music, primarily the form at least, to fit these contexts, and if we make art to fit gallery walls or museum walls, and if we write software to fit existing operating systems, is that how it works? Yeah. I think it's evolutionary. It's adaptive. But the pleasure and the passion and the joy is still there. This is a reverse view of things from the kind of traditional Romantic view. The Romantic view is that first comes the passion and then the outpouring of emotion, and then somehow it gets shaped into something. And I'm saying, well, the passion's still there, but the vessel that it's going to be injected into and poured into, that is instinctively and intuitively created first. We already know where that passion is going. But this conflict of views is kind of interesting.
Pomislio sam: Ako je ovo model za stvaranje, ako radimo glazbu, primarno formu ako ništa drugo, da se uklapa u te kontekste i ako radimo umjetnost koja se uklapa na zidove galerija ili muzeja, ako pišemo software koji se uklapaju u postojeće operacijske sustave, je li to način na koji sve funkcionira? Da. Mislim da je to evolucionalno. To je prilagođavajuće. Ali užitak i strast su još uvijek ondje. Ovo je način pogleda na stvari suprotan onom tradicionalnom romantičnom pogledu. Pogled romantizma je taj da prvo dolazi strast i nakon toga odljev emocija, i tek nakon toga se to nekako oblikuje u nešto. Ja govorim, strast je još uvijek tu, ali spremnik u koji će ona biti ubačena i izlivena, to je nešto što je instinktivno i intuitivno stvoreno prvo. Mi već znamo gdje ta strast ide. Ali taj konflikt pogleda je na neki način zanimljiv.
The writer, Thomas Frank, says that this might be a kind of explanation why some voters vote against their best interests, that voters, like a lot of us, assume, that if they hear something that sounds like it's sincere, that it's coming from the gut, that it's passionate, that it's more authentic. And they'll vote for that. So that, if somebody can fake sincerity, if they can fake passion, they stand a better chance of being selected in that way, which seems a little dangerous. I'm saying the two, the passion, the joy, are not mutually exclusive.
Pisac Thomas Frank kaže da bi to moglo biti objašnjenje zašto neki glasači glasaju protiv svojih interesa. Glasači, poput mnogih od nas, pretpostavljaju da ako čuju nešto što zvuči iskreno, da je to i uvjerljivo, da je strastveno, da je autentičnije. I glasat će za to. Pa bi netko, ako može glumiti iskrenost i strast imao bolje šanse biti izabran na takav način, što se čini malo opasnim. Ja govorim da to dvoje, strast i radost, ne isključuju jedno drugo.
Maybe what the world needs now is for us to realize that we are like the birds. We adapt. We sing. And like the birds, the joy is still there, even though we have changed what we do to fit the context.
Možda je ono što svijet sada treba jest da shvatimo da smo kao ptice. Prilagođavamo se. Pjevamo. I kao i kod ptica, radost je još uvijek tu, čak i ako mijenjamo ono što činimo kako bismo se uklopili u kontekst.
Thank you very much.
Hvala najljepša!
(Applause)
(Pljesak)