Week 14: Music Cognition, Math, and Battlestar Galactica

The reading for this week, The Cognition of Basic Musical Structures, was a bit mind-boggling.  The topic seems interesting, but by this point in the semester my brain is quite fried and “cognition” is lacking.   I’m not a musician, so the ideas mentioned in the introduction were abstract to me.  However, thanks to this class, I am much more adept at recognizing the important concepts in the field of music research (totally comprehending them is another story!).  From what I gleaned, this text focuses on the relationships between music cognition and music theory.  The author states his concise research question as: how do we extract basic kinds of musical information from music as we hear it?

 As silly as this sounds, the more I read, the more I began to think about a aprticular TV show that incorporated music cognition: Battlestar Galactica.  If it wasn’t for this class, I may not even give a second thought to these concepts represented in TV shows.  But now it seems relevant and interesting.  The music theory/music cognition idea I am referring to is applying numbers to music notes.  I’m not even sure if there is a proper definition of this concept.  I remember Dr. Simon speaking about it in the first class.  It sounded interesting, but I did not really comprehend it.

 However, the sci-fi show Battlestar Galactica recently had its huge finale.  After 4 seasons the show is over.  I must admit, in my short TV-viewing life, this is one of the most brilliant and engaging TV shows I have ever watched. I didn’t just “watch” it, I was engrossed with it.  Without getting too involved, here’s a very brief summary of the show.  In a distant universe, humans live on several planets known as the 12 colonies.  Humans have been at war with a cyber/robotic race known as Cylons.  The Cylons soon wipe out all the planets, the entire human race, with the exception of a few ships in space carrying human crew, including the Battlestar Galactica ship.  These survivors flee into space, continue to war with the Cylons, and some interesting relationships form between the two.  Ulitmately, both the humans and Cylons are in search of refuge, the fables “Earth” where they can start life again.

In the last episodes the huge questions are:  Where is Earth and how do we find it?  This is where music and math comes into play.  In season 3 and 4, supposed human members of the Galactica crew figure out that they are actually Cylons because they all start to suddenly hear the same song, All Along the Watchtower.  This song has a somewhat culling ability, it unites these 5 crew members, reveals their true identities, and soon sparks memories from their Cylon pasts.  They are now known as the Final Five.

Eventually, the song All Along the Watchtower plays another important role.  Hera, a Cylon/Human child, hands Lt. Kara Thrace “Starbuck” a drawing which looks simply like a bunch of dots on paper and Starbuck perceives as a drawing of stars.  Later on, Starbuck deals with depression by playing the piano at a bar with a new friend.  As she tried to remember a song her father taught her in childhood, she starts to write down notes.  Then she realizes that the musical notes match the dots on the paper that Hera drew for her. As her and her friend reconstruct the song, it becomes apparent that it is the same song that united the Final Five, and they hear her play it.

It is now evident that this song, All Along the Watchtower, plays a significant role in the plot.  In the final episodes, Starbuck figures that by applying numbers to the basic melody of the song it reveal the coordinates that will “jump” the ship somewhere.  She figures this out just as the Cylons are about to blow the ship to pieces.  They jump coordinates take them to Earth and that is how the humans finally find their refuge – Earth 150,00 years ago! (For detail about the process of applying numbers to musical notes – he used the 12-tone method - see this link to Battletar Galactica’s composer Bear McCreary’s blog entry about it)

 Applying numbers to musical notes may be a clichéd plot device. The interesting part is why is this important to the plotline?  The musical score of Battlestar Galactica alone is diverse and innovative, featuring a blend of ethnic/world music that reminds us of the connectedness between ancient, earthly sounds, our histories, and the present.  Yet, I am intrigued by how the show used music to awaken the cognitive abilities of characters: it brought the Final 5 together and revealed to Starbuck the coordinates to Earth.  There is something about the structure of music that has a vital connection to our brain, as we have learned in readings in this class.  In Battlestar Galactica, music almost possesses a power attributable to the divine.  (I know the rest of this will sound crazy!)  But, Starbuck ends up being revealed as an angel whose purpose was to help deliver the survivors to Earth.  Unknowingly, she and the Final Five were all tapped into the same song “All Along the Watchtower.”  

I'm thankful that I was able to take this class and delve more deeply into music theory and informatics.  I'm passionate about music and now I feel like I have some creed expressing my opinions.  I know this final entry was a little off-the-wall, but sometimes this is what I think critically about!  And having the tendencies of a librarian, I want to research and find answers.  I never theorize this deeply about a TV show, especially analyzing music and plot themes.  I remember in the show Lost, numbers were applied to music. A musician, Charlie, had to enter a code to stop a jamming transmission.  The code happened to be associated with the musical notes for the song “Good Vibrations.”  But the music/math/cognition concepts are far deeper in Battlestar Galactica.  Musical ideas are woven into the score and the music becomes a theme in this show.  This left me wondering, why did the producers choose this song and how would these characters know a song written by Bob Dylan hundreds of thousands of years in the future?

 So I investigated online and found a few things:

• First, Producer Ron Moore choose the song because he thought it was fascinating, especially the lyrics.  He wanted use “music as a trigger” in the show. http://www.monstersandcritics.com/smallscreen/features/article_1452201.php
  
•  Excerpt below from an interview with Producer Ron Moore: http://www.tvguide.com/news/battlestar-galacticas-ron-1004256.aspx

Basically, Moore compares music as a part of the fabric of the universe.  It always there, transcending time, and connected to a greater consciousness so that it can inspire across the ages.

TVGuide.com: Can you explain the idea behind using "All Along the Watchtower" as a sort of unconscious constant for both Cylons and humans?


Moore: I was always fascinated by the idea that music is this thing that musicians catch out of the air, from the ether. They just pluck it out of nowhere and you hear it and it's beautiful and moving, and it touches us in a way that we can't even understand. Well, where does it come from? It feels like it lives somehow in the collective unconscious or it's a constant in the universe. So, here's a song that transcends the eons and that was around and was somehow divinely inspired or has some connection to the greater energy of the universe. It existed tens of thousands of years ago, and through time people somehow heard it, plucked it out of the air and shared it with the people around them. That happed with Anders, to Kara and it happened to Bob Dylan!

 

•  Excerpts from an interview with Battlestar composer, Bear McCreary:

F: In an interview with TV Guide, Ron mentioned something about “All Along the Watchtower” as being “plucked out of nowhere,” can you explain more about that?

Bear McCreary: Ha, no I can’t. I mean I can’t speak for Ron, but it was always my interpretation that there are cosmic forces at work, that you can call whatever you want, and that they interact with life and the universe in very subtle ways to guide events. And so Gaius Baltar sees Number Six and other people hear this music. I do like the idea that the music itself isn’t as important as the idea it represents. All of the different versions of “All Along the Watchtower” are different, there really isn’t a concrete musical thread linking them together. But they are representative of an idea that there are some cosmic forces that reach down and touch certain people across time and across space. Does that make any sense?

JF: It does. How else do you think the music was used to further the plot?

BM: This ridiculous concept that I just tried to explain to you is interesting because in television, you don’t have this kind of time to explain it. What we’ve done is created a way to communicate this idea through music … We used music to announce that there’s a new philosophical layer that we’re adding to this series. I’ve been very excited to be involved in that way.

 

• Battlestar composer, Bear McCreary’s blog & interesting article:  http://www.bearmccreary.com/blog/?p=1760#more-1760

• Extensive wiki about Battlestar music: http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Music_of_Battlestar_Galactica_(RDM)
  

Temperley, D.  (2001).  Cognition of basic musical structures.  Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Week 13: Culture Jamming

Our lives are definitely ruled by charts, ratings, and rankings.  This concept is pervasive in American culture, especially regarding information: books, movies, music, magazines, websites.  There are books that rate books, and magazines (Consumer Reports) solely devoted to rating all sorts of items.  Consumer culture seems ruled by these rankings, yet who determines them?  It seems that in a large part, these ranking and charts are built by capitalistic, market-driven motives.  On the other hand, open source social media allows users to participate in the ranking/rating process, maybe leveling a bit of the bias inherent in these structures. 

Yet, as Hakanen (1998) reminds us in his article, Counting down to Number One, “Rankings structure our ways of thinking about comparisons, contrasts and order.”  And this often oversimplifies the true content and those who consume and create it.  “Something is lost when beauty, truth, freedom, art, etc. are ordered in such a way” (Hakanen, 1998, p. 97).

 Hakanen stresses that “knowing the chart” is equivalent to being “in” on pop culture and belonging to the consumer culture. He also mentions how technology has blurred the boundaries of relationships between distinct products/music.  As products and information become more homogenous and technology allows us the freedom of choice globally … that when local becomes smaller, more personal.  According to his theories, the niche markets of music don’t seem to fit in chart, but now there are probably charts for niche markets too!  The internet, and Web 2.0 tools have expanded the world of charts and rankings. 

 Blogs and social music sites have created a whole new scene of popularity and “charts.”  Now, you can stream the same tunes off of several social music sites (Lala.com, LastFM, Pandora, iMeem, iLike).  Therefore, these networks are also competing for popularity. Listeners decide which community best fits their music needs, which website offers user-friendly tools, or a wider selection of music they seek.  These consumers then forms playlists and communities that define their demographic and music tastes.  Based on this media consumption, advertisers step in and promote appropriate products.  This generates money for the website, which is important because most consumers don’t want to pay!  Consumers of digital music want to get the most music they can for free.  Additionally, musicians who are heavily promoted on these sites usually gain more downloads and streams of their songs.  This shows that they are popular.  But who has control over this?  The consumers, the website, the musician, or the record label?  With consumers not paying for the music, and this becoming the norm, how do we calculate the value of the music/performer?  How do we rank them? Most importantly, in this system, who get compensated for being top ranked?

 A new and progressive website manifesting this idea is elbo.ws.  This site ranks the musicians based on how often they are mentioned in blogs.  Then they go one step further and rank these music blogs on quality and popularity. Which, as Dr. Simon said in the discussion boards, are two different things “it requires discernment to recognize one, complacency to recognize the other.”   As consumers and professionals who choose, suggest, and review media – we needs to be aware of the implications and double standards involved with rankings.  Especially in regards to collection development, We pour over journals and book reviews for items with the best "ratings."  We order items off the bestseller lists because we know the public acknowledges these lists and will request the books.  But most of all, we serve the public's information needs, and usually this involves ordering materials that are considered the most "popular."  

 When I helped to order books, I couldn't avoid ordering the "popular" materials. This is what serves the patron's information needs.   I also realized that a large majority of the materials we ordered were based on reviews from select journals and our own "ranking system" (aka collection development policy).   I often feel like we're overlooking what the independent publishers, new/unknown authors, and local authors have to offer to our collection.  But maybe it's not financially prudent to order these materials for the library if they aren't considered "popular" and won't circulate.

 I was totally impressed with Dr. Scott Simon’s article, Jamming in the Stacks.  I found this article early in the semester while searching the LIS article database about music and libraries.  In my opinion, it is one of the most interesting, and progressive, article I found that synthesizes current issues regarding music, libraries, community, and the promotion of music in the library.   Simon (2008) also comments in his article that libraries often build a music collection based on “hits.”   Yet, they also include folk and local music that, while not entirely mainstream, are preserved for the public thanks to the library and will not “fade from cultural consciousness” (Simon, 2008, p. 40).  Furthermore, having a collection that is also based on “aesthetic, ethnographic, historic, and shared cultural values” supports the stance that libraries are committed to promoting the inherent human rights of free expression and participation in cultural life (Simon, 2008, p. 44).  This releases the capitalistic, market-driven shackles of “top 40” lists and the crumbling record industry.

Maybe it is time to invoke some “culture jamming” in the library. As described in a 1990 New York Times article, culture jamming often involves “exposing the ways in which corporate and political interests use the media as a tool of behavior modification.”  Culture jamming is a movement that strives to raise awareness about how mass media controls us and our environment. An environment of corporate control and information anxiety.  This “movement” has taken many forms of action: subversive, artistic, merry pranksters.  So, as “information science professionals” working in an information-rich environment, where do progressive librarians fit in?  That is the interesting question, especially in regards to the future of music in libraries.  Is culture jamming a human right to freedom of expression?  As democratic institutions of information, should libraries support this movement?

 I’ll close with this passage from the NY Times article:

“Cultural jamming, on its most profound level, is about remaking reality … ‘The dominant culture utilizes media to promulgate the notion of the commodity as the highest form of existence,’ says Stuart Ewen, author of the 1988 book All-Consuming Images: The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture. ‘Cultural jammers draw upon this cacophony of fragmentary media images. At the heart of their reassemblings is the hope that there could be another kind of world, a world where rather than a devaluation of the human in favor of the commodity, there could be an understanding of the commodity in the service of the human.’"

References:

Hakanen, E.  (1998).  Counting down to number one: The evolution of the meaning of popular music.  Popular Music, 17 (1), p. 95-111.

Simon, S.  (2008, Summer).  Jamming in the stacks: Music as a progressive librarian ideal.  Progressive Librarian, 31 (Summer 2008), p. 37-44.

New York Times Article: http://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/23/arts/the-merry-pranksters-and-the-art-of-the-hoax.html

More on Culture Jamming: http://www.markdery.com/archives/books/culture_jamming/