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 mesto na kom sam, kao mladić, po prvi put izveo muziku koju sam napisao. To je nesumnjivo bila prostorija sa prilično dobrim zvukom. Sa svim tim nejednakim zidovima i glupostima svuda, zapravo je prilično dobro zvučalo. Ovo je pesma koja je tamo snimljena. (muzika) Ovo nisu "Talking Heads" bar ne na slici. (Muzika: "A Clean Break (Let's Work) od "Talking Heads") Dakle priroda sobe je omogućavala da se reči razumeju. Tekstovi pesama su prilično dobro mogli da se razumeju. Zvučni sistem je bio donekle pristojan. Nije bilo mnogo odjeka u prostoriji. Tako da su i ritmovi mogli biti prilično netaknuti, prilično koncizni. Druga mesta širom zemlje imala su slične prostorije. Ovo je "Tootsie's Orchid Lounge" u Nešvilu. Muzika je na neki način drugačija, ali u strukturi i formi prilično ista. Ponašanje posetilaca prilično je isto, takođe. Bendovi u "Tootsie's" ili u "CBGB-u" morali su da sviraju dovoljno glasno - zvuk je trebalo da bude dovoljno glasan da nadjača ljude koji padaju, viču i rade sve 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 sam svirao na drugim mestima koja su mnogo lepša. Svirao sam ovde u "Dizni Holu" i u "Karnegi Holu" i takvim mestima. Veoma je uzbudljivo. Ali takođe sam primetio da muzika koju sam napisao, ili koju sam pisao u to vreme, uopšte ne zvuči dobro u nekim od tih sala. Išlo nam je, ali nekada te sale nisu bile baš pogodne za muziku koju sam stvarao ili stvorio. Tako sam se upitao: Da li pišem stvari za određene prostore? Da li mi je u glavi mesto događaja, dok pišem? Da li je to neki model za kreativnost? Da li svi stvaramo imajući mesto događaja, kontekst, u glavi?
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. (Muzika: "Wenlenga" / Različiti autori) Većina popularne muzike koju danas znamo dobrim svojim delom ima korene u Zapadnoj Africi. A muzika tamo, rekao bih, ti instrumenti, ti složeni ritmovi, kako se svira, okruženje, kontekst, sve je savršeno. Sve funkcioniše savršeno. Muzika savršeno odgovara tom okruženju. Nema velike prostorije da stvara odjekivanje i da se ritmovi pomešaju. Instrumenti su dovoljno glasni da se čuju i bez pojačavanja, itd itd. To nije slučajno. Savršeno je za dati kontekst. A bio bi haos u ovakvom kontekstu. Ovo je gotska katedrala. (Muzika: "Spem In Alium", od Tomasa Talisa) Ovakva muzika je savršena u gotskoj katedrali. Ne menja se ključ. Note su duge. Skoro uopšte nema ritma. Prostorija laska muzici. Ustvari je poboljšava. Za ovu prostoriju je Bah napisao neku svoju muziku. Ovo je orgulja. Nije tako velika kao gotska katedrala pa je mogao da piše malo složenije stvari. On može, veoma inovativno, da promeni ključ a da ne dođe do ogromne disonance. (Muzika: "Fantasia On Jesu, Mein Freunde", Johan S. Bah)
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 u kakvim je Mocart pisao. Mislim da smo sad u 1770., tu negde. Manje su, ima još manje odjeka, tako da može da piše veoma kitnjastu i složenu muziku - koja funkcioniše. (Muzika: Sonata u F Duru", KV!13, Volfgang A. Mocart) Savršeno odgovara prostoriji. Ovo je "La Scala." Iz otprilike istog vremena. Mislim da je sagrađena oko 1776. Kada su sagrađene, ljudi u publici su se u ovakvim operskim salama nadvikivali. Jeli su, pili i vikali ljudima na sceni, baš kao što rade u "CBGB-u" i takvim mestima. Ako bi im se dopala arija, vikali bi i predlagali da se izvede ponovo, u nastavku, ne na kraju predstave, nego odmah. (smeh) Pa, to je bilo iskustvo opere. Ovo je opera koju je Vagner izgradio za sebe. Prostorija i nije toliko velika. Manja je od ove. Ali, Vagner je uneo nešto novo. Želeo je veći orkestar. Želeo je nešto bombastičnije. Tako je povećao prostor za orkestar da bi mogao da u njega ubaci više dubljih instrumenata. (Muzika: "Loengrin / Preludijum za treći čin", Rihard Vagner)
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.
Okej. Ovo je "Karnegi Hol." Očigledno je nešto ovako postalo popularno. Sale su se povećale. "Karnegi Hol" je kao sajam. Veća je od nekih drugih simfonijskih sala. I mnogo je akustičnija od "La Scale". Otprilike u isto vreme, prema Aleksu Rosu koji piše za "New Yorker", ovo pravilo je stupilo na snagu, publika je morala da bude tiha, nema više jela, pića i vikanja na scenu, ili međusobnog tračarenja dok traje koncert. Morali su da budu veoma tihi. Dakle te dve stvari u kombinaciji značile su da je drugačija muzika najbolje funkcionisala u ovakvim salama. To je značilo da može biti užasno dinamično, što nije postojalo u nekim od ovih ranijih vrsta muzike. Mogli su se čuti tiši delovi koji bi bili ugušeni svim tračarenjem i vikanjem. Ali zbog akustike u tim prostorijama kao što je "Karnegi Hol", muzika je morala možda da bude manje ritmična i sa više tekstura. (Muzika: Simfonija br 8 u Es Duru", Gustav Maler) Ovo je Maler. Izgleda kao Bob Dilan, ali je Maler. To je Bobova poslednja ploča, da.
(Laughter)
(smeh)
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 muzika, stiže u isto vreme. Ovo je džez orkestar. Prema Skotu Džoplinu, orkestri su svirali na rečnim brodovima i u klubovima. Opet, bučno je. Sviraju za plesače. Postoje određeni delovi pesama - pesme su imale određene delove koji su se mnogo dopadali igračima. I oni bi rekli, "Sviraj ponovo taj deo". Pa, koliko samo puta možete da odsvirate isti deo iznova i iznova za igrače. Tako su bendovi počeli da improvizuju nove melodije. I rođen je novi muzički oblik. (Muzika: "Royal Garden Blues", W.C. Handy/ Ethel Waters) Ove se uglavnom sviraju u malim prostorijama. Ljudi igraju, viču i piju. Znači da muzika mora da bude dovoljno glasna da nadjača sve to. Ista stvar važi za - to je na početku veka - za svu popularnu muziku dvadesetog veka, bilo da je u pitanju rok, latino ili šta god. Ne menja se mnogo.
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.
Menja se otprilike za trećinu u dvadesetom veku, kada je ovo postalo jedno od glavnih mesta događaja za muziku. Ovo je jedan od načina na koji je muzika dospela tamo. Mikrofoni su omogućili pevačima, naročito, i muzičarima i kompozitorima da potpuno promene vrstu muzike koju su komponovali. Do tada, mnogo muzike na radiju je bilo uživo, ali pevači kao Frenk Sinatra su mogli da koriste mikrofon i da rade stvari koje nikada ne bi mogli bez mikrofona. Drugi pevači posle njega su otišli još dalje. (Muzika: "My Funny Valentine", Čet Bejker) Ovo je Čet Bejker. I ovakva stvar bi bila nemoguća bez mikrofona. Takođe bi bila nemoguća bez snimljene muzike. I peva vam direktno u uvo. Šapuće vam na uvo. Efekat je prosto električan. Kao da lik sedi pored vas i šapuće vam ko zna šta na uvo.
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.
Dakle do tada se muzika razdelila. Postoji živa muzika i snimljena muzika. I one više ne moraju da budu potpuno iste. Postoje i mesta kao ova, diskoteke, i postoje džuboksovi u barovima gde vam orkestar čak nije ni potreban. Uopšte nije neophodno da postoje muzičari koji sviraju uživo. A zvučni uređaji su dobri. Ljudi su počeli da prave muziku posebno za diskoteke i za te zvučne sisteme. I kao i u džezu, plesačima su se neki delovi dopadali više nego drugi. Tako bi rani hip-hop momci ponavljali određene sekvence. (Muzika: "Rapper's Delight", The Sugarhill Gang) MC (master of ceremony) bi improvizovao tekst na isti način na koji su džez muzičari improvizovali melodije. I jedna nova forma muzike je rođena.
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.
Živi nastupi, kada su imali najviše uspeha, završili su na mestima koja su verovatno, akustički, najgora mesta na svetu, sportski stadioni, košarkaške i hokejaške arene. Muzičari koji su tamo svirali davali su sve od sebe. Komponovali su ono što se sada zove arena rok, a to su balade srednje brzine. (Muzika: "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", U2) Dali su sve od sebe, s obzirom da su pisali za ova mesta. Tempo je srednji. Zvuči ogromno. To je više socijalna nego muzička situacija. I u nekim slučajevima, muzika koju su komponovali za ovo mesto zvuči savršeno.
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.
Evo još nekih novih mesta. Jedno od njih je automobil. Odrastao sam uz radio u kolima. Ali to se sad razvilo u sasvim nešto drugo. Sam auto je mesto događaja. (Muzika: "Who U Wit", Lil' John & the East Side Boyz) Muzika koja je, rekao bih, pisana za automobilske zvučne sisteme, savršeno na njima zvuči. To možda nije ono što biste slušali kod kuće, ali savršeno je u kolima - ima veliki spektar frekvencije, znate, dobre basove i visoke, a glas je nekako uglavljen u sredini. Muziku za auto možete deliti sa 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 jedno novo mesto, privatni MP3 uređaj. Pretpostavljam da je ovaj samo za hrišćansku muziku. (smeh) I na neki način je kao "Karnegi Hol", ii kad je publika morala da umukne, jer sada možete čuti svaki i najmanji detalj. Na drugi način, više je kao zapadnoafrička muzika, jer ako muzika u MP3 uređaju postane suviše tiha, pojačate je i u sledećem momentu uši vam probija glasnija deonica. Dakle to baš i ne funkcioniše. Mislim da se pop muzika, uglavnom, koja se piše danas, donekle piše za ovakve uređaje, za ovakvo lično iskustvo gde možete da čujete ekstremne detalje, ali dinamika se ne menja mnogo.
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.
Tako sam se zapitao: Ok, da li je ovo model kreacije, ovo prilagođavanje koje činimo? I da li se to još negde događa? Pa, Dejvid Atenborou i neki drugi kažu da i ptice tako rade. Zov onih ptica u krošnjama, gde je lišće najgušće, mora da bude visok, kratak i da se ponavlja. A ptice na nižim nivoima imaju niži zov, da se ne bi izmenio kada odskaču po šumskom tlu. A ptice kao što je ovaj vrabac iz Savane proizvode zvuk (Zvučni insert: pesma vrapca iz Savane) nalik zujanju. Ispostavlja se da je zvuk kao ovaj najpraktičniji i najmanje energetski zahtevan za prenošenje zova preko polja i savana. Druge ptice, kao tangare, su se prilagodile unutar svoje vrste. Tangare na istočnoj obali Sjedinjenih Država, gde su šume nešto gušće, imaju jednu vrstu zova, a tangare na drugoj strani, na zapadu, (Zvuk: pesma crvene tangare) imaju drugačiju vrstu zova. (Zvuk: pesma crvene 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.
I onda sam pomislio: Pa, ako je ovo model kreacije, ako pravimo muziku doduše prvenstveno njen oblik, da se uklopi u ove kontekste, i ako pravimo umetnost da se uklopi na galerijske i muzejske zidove, i ako pišemo programe da se uklope u postojeće operativne sisteme, da li to tako funkcioniše? Da. Mislim da je to evolucija. Prilagođavanje. Ali zadovoljstvo i strast i uživanje još uvek su tu. Ovo je obrnut pogled na stvari od onog tradicionalnog romantičnog gledanja. Prema romantičnom gledanju, prvo dolazi strast a onda izliv emocija i onda se to nekako uobliči u nešto. A ja kažem, pa, strast je i dalje tu, ali objekat u koji će se ona izliti je instinktivno i intuitivno prvi kreiran. Već znamo kuda ta strast ide. Ali taj sukob gledišta je interesantan.
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, Tomas Frenk, kaže da ovo može biti jedno od objašnjenja zašto neki glasači glasaju protiv svojih najboljih interesa, da glasači, kao mnogi od nas, pretpostavljaju da, ako čuju nešto što zvuči iskreno, što dolazi iz dubine, da je to strastveno, da je autentičnije. I glasaće za to. Znači, ako neko može da folira iskrenost, da folira strast, ima bolje šanse da bude izabran na taj način, što deluje pomalo opasno. Kažem da ta dva, strast i uživanje, nisu međusobno isključivi.
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 svetu sada potrebno da shvatimo da smo kao ptice. Prilagođavamo se. Pevamo. I kao kod ptica, uživanje je i dalje tu, iako smo promenili ono što radimo da bismo se uklopili u kontekst.
Thank you very much.
Mnogo vam hvala.
(Applause)
(aplauz)