Music as an Ecosytem Service

Future Music Festival 2013 (Courtesy Eva Rinaldi)

It recently struck me that music, like water, is arguably the product of an ecosystem, –another complex but demonstrable asset that economists have trouble pinning value to with any accuracy.

“An ecosystem is a community of living organisms (plants, animals and microbes) in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil), interacting as a system." (Wikipedia)

So how then is the one like the other?

Music and Ecosystems both: 

• Provide services that are public goods;
• Are affected by externalities;
• Possess property rights that are often not clearly defined.  

Additionally, “Ecosystem services are often public goods, with the beneficial outcomes, for the natural environment or people, that result from ecosystem functions. Some examples of ecosystem services are support of the food chain, harvesting of animals or plants, and the provision of clean water or scenic views.”*

The problem with both music and public goods is also that, “although people value them, no one person has an incentive to pay to maintain the good.  Thus, collective action is required in order to produce the most beneficial quantity.”*

Despite the complexity assigning value, however, value can nevertheless be determined and costs imposed, "...in various ways, on those who are responsible for consumption of those services...  Economists measure the value of ecosystem services to people by estimating the amount people are willing to pay to preserve or enhance the services.”*

So, instead of asking what the market will bear, perhaps, like ecosystems, it may not be necessary for music to be bought and sold in markets in order to measure its value in dollars, but rather we might assign costs to society based on a fair valuation of the services to society.

What the formula for that is, however, I leave to others to consider.

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*Source: Ecosystem Valuation

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes (Turn and face the Hard Drive)

A few decades ago, it was a common childhood aspiration to grow up to be a platinum selling rock star who practiced neurosurgery (The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension); but in this day in age, it seems more young people would rather flip that model and be a neuroscientist with 93 million downloads.

Music has not been a catalyst for social change since the sixties, or for lifestyle choices since the collapse of grunge. In the meantime the ascent of Internet distribution has reduced the costs of production, distribution and access, so of course it has less value than it did thirty years ago.

We don't want or need a songwriter with a rap or protest song to start a revolution with, we have Twitter for that now.

Most of the time, we just want something we can listen to in our ear buds at the gym, or at work, or while in Starbucks drinking a No Foam Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte.

We no longer perceive songwriters as shamans or mediums capable of summoning a song that can transform a society, and those who continue to adopt that role feel oddly out of sync with contemporary culture. Nor is the song the thing now; it is now more likely simply the soundtrack for the thing; and if it doesn't suit us, we'll switch it out for one of the other billion economically worthless if still emotionally charged tunes in our pocket.

If you accept that premise, then the disruption we’ve experienced in recent years doesn't necessarily or only originate from the competition between a pay model vs a free model, but rather perhaps from the incumbents resistance to the notion that music has been re-assigned from its old position of valuable resource to a new position of complimentary service.

Just like water, when the logistical issues of a given region regarding supply, sanitation and distribution networks are suddenly resolved.

Consider at one time in the ancient world freshwater was difficult to come by, and therefore its value was commensurate with its scarcity. Then along come the plumbers, they lay down the pipes and suddenly everyone has access to water. Naturally, the cost of freshwater declines exponentially, and now, go to any restaurant in the world, sit down for a meal, and your waiter will bring a nice, tall, ice cold glass of freshwater for 'free'.

Well, the Internet is such a pipe.

There's money in the pipes, to be sure, if not the content.

That is to say, music like water is nice on the side, even necessary for life, but should by no means be mistaken for the main meal.

And this not to say that the creators of music shouldn’t be compensated; after all, even complimentary water isn’t free. It’s free to you, the customer at a restaurant, but someone pays for its collection and processing somewhere along the line. It may also be cheap, but plumbers are still expensive.

Ironic, though, at the exact same moment in history when the world is parched for content,  artists are asked to run the tap and give it away for nothing.

Perhaps we should ask not whether music has value; of course it does. Music possesses immeasurable social value, and as such, contributes to much human happiness.

But so does sex, and that's also 'free'.

Either way, we might re-consider both how we pay for music and how much we pay for music. It may be that we no longer buy it directly, but that it is provided, like water,  as a compliment to another purchase for another  item, service or device that provides access to music; this band courtesy of that brand or benefactor, and would you like fries with that?

In the past the LP, the cassette and then the compact disc served as containers for music, and few mourned the passing of cardboard and plastic once they got used to carrying a thousand tunes in their pocket.

The mixtapes of my own childhood represented not simply a playlist, but a painstakingly conceived piece of personal multimedia. Maybe portable screens and drives –or whatever sub dermal embedded doodad they think up in the future– will render all such packaging obsolete, and where we once relied on packaging to provide context, digital wireless media floating in the ether or implanted in our bones will suffice.

Of course, it's already happened, but there are still some people of all ages that push back, deny, ignore or otherwise resist the tectonic technological shift that all but shakes the ground beneath our feet (–he said dropping a piece of vinyl on the deck).

Crisis Management and the Emotionally Intelligent Producer

Image Courtesy David Castagneto

In the 20th Century we respected producers who got things done by any means necessary. In recent years, the increasing influence of digital processes have promoted the ascent of project managers into what were once conceived as creative processes.

I submit that while there is much we can learn from classic project management, that media production is its own discipline. That said, traditional methods of production are in many cased outdated.  It is evident that we require is some combination of skill sets I think of as Production Management.

Unlike project management (within the context of a production company or a post production house), ongoing operations and project development are quite often combined activities. We can not therefore manage staff with the same expectation we manage free agents commissioned to deliver within a given set of constraints. Not that we diminish our obligation of excellence to our clients, but that we develop a professional means by which to combine ongoing organizational analysis, long term strategy and team building with the execution of often overlapping projects and services, where a single person is often assigned to any or all in current production.

Naturally, this requires a new kind of media producer than from days past. Our new media producer must first and foremost exhibit a professional degree of competency across several disciplines. Contrast this with the traditional model whereby a producer might simply be a rainmaker, a relationship builder (external), or a project manager of sorts. Our new paradigm requires that producers who lead production and post production companies, and who direct the execution of multiple, overlapping projects also exhibit leadership qualities –that is, qualities and qualifications.

Some producers thrive on anarchy being excellent at crisis management; it may even be a source of pride. Fortunately, this kind of behavior, though it is still rampant, is also increasingly regarded as anachronistic.

Seasoned professionals understand that every project involves some uncertainty, but not all uncertainty is indicative of a crisis. So, if the EP at a given shop frames every project as a crisis, it's quite likely that this is someone who creates crises because this specific psychological context is one of the few things that motivates them, or because they need others to perceive them as a kind of professional hero. It is a bit like the arsonist who furtively starts a fire only so they can then publicly put it out.

Of course, producers aren't the only ones guilty of manufacturing crises.

Equally toxic to employee moral is the dissonant lead creative who assumes his or her knowledge of Autodesk or Avid software comes with people skills, or who procrastinates all day and then finds him or herself buttressed against a hard deadline which now requires additional human resources to complete on time and budget.

"But I work better under pressure," he or she says.

Perhaps they do, but what does that say about that person's regard for every other member of the organization? That there may be a person that has no qualms sending an entire organization into disarray, not because a project requires an immediate pivot, but simply in order to suit their individual needs should be considered irresponsible and impermissible. Unfortunately, and all to often, such behavior is exhibited not by one's immediate colleagues but by the organization's founders or leading talents.

Some crises are legitimate, of course, and nearly all productions come with timelines that require urgent execution to meet delivery expectations. Indeed, sometimes an agency or production company arrives with a project that they have already framed as a crisis.  Your job, then, like a smoke jumper into a forest fire, is not to perpetuate the situation but to minimize further loss and alleviate it with expert judgement and solid  technical solutions.

In practical terms, this should manifest itself as a seasoned ability to assess options, tradeoffs and impact, for any given decision one might make to avoid or manage any given issue. It should not result in unmanageable frustration, blame casting or denial by a person in or who hopes to hold a leadership position.

Afterwards, however,  one might then review the elements that led up to the crisis and make modifications to those observable inefficient processes, practices or persons that are in one's direct authority to revise, change or influence.

Otherwise, routine activities needn't be framed as crises, but rather as commonplace business problems which one can generally resolve via the protocols developed by the organizations constantly adaptive strategy:

• Is the goal realistic? 
• Is progress measurable? 
• Are resources available? 
• Is there time to execute? 

Yes?

Then the dream is achievable.

But do you also possess the necessary skill set to gather and direct a collaborative team to that end? Is your capacity for team building equal to your capacity for strategic thinking? Or does your authority simply come from your job title? And does everyone on the project understand how information should be directed and distributed to the rest of the team?

Do you anticipate, execute, monitor and manage every project so that commissions are inhibited from spinning out of control? Between the initiation of a project and its execution, do you take time to plan a specific outcome, or do you just jump in? When deadlines loom are you generally still calm, courteous and collected, pragmatic and empathetic? Are your able to re-evaluate priorities, inspire colleagues and collaborators, and still competently balance constraints? Are you cool under pressure because despite the ticking clock, you're comfortably covered by human resources with the necessary technical and creative skill sets?

Do you understand that important milestones of Concept, Develop, Execute and Finish (CDEF) are fueled by Strategy, linked by Communication and managed with both Purpose and Empathy?

I submit that an emotionally intelligent leader will act quickly and purposefully, but will not act independently of the organization he or she serves. Likewise, I have found that the most effective company owners and partnerships do not treat the organizations they founded as an extension of themselves, but as independent organisms of which they are part, and which therefore require the appropriate care and management one needs for any organic entity. In other words, your child is not you.

A common tactic employed by incompetent producers is to intimidate, manipulate or otherwise threaten the key creative and technical talent necessary to the execution of a project. Projects get done, but at what long term cost? More than likely the organization sustains itself by purging itself of legitimately disgruntled employees but otherwise remains a dysfunctional black hole perpetually in danger of collapsing in on the Executive Producer, Managing Director or Creative Director.

Alternately, one might first instead take the tact of questioning feasibility of a given task with others who might be identified as important internal stakeholders, with whom you might build rapport and solicit support, and then together set specific, measurable and realistic goals. Remember, in a healthy company, tactics support organizational strategy, not the founder's personal whims. You can certainly abuse staffers and colleagues, but at what cost and impact to the long term viability of the organization?

Many lead creatives and producers do not fully frame the organization they founded as including staff. It may certainly be that all a creative organization  requires is the ability for the lead to deliver to the client's satisfaction on time, and every time. But limited to this framework, an opportunity for the organization to learn from others is missed or ignored as inconsequential.

By aligning tactics with strategy, employees who pull an all-nighter will more deeply appreciate the necessity of their contribution, and those that have to cancel prior plans may feel better about trading one night of their life to assume an active role in a the effort to produce a collective success.

If you're not a partner, perhaps realize, too, about both yourself and the person or persons that you work for, that no one is perfect, that no one can know or be good at everything, and everyone makes mistakes, says the wrong thing at the wrong time, to err is to be human, blah blah blah –okay, you got it, but now go take a class and figure out how to better communicate with and manage other people.

With any luck and a bit of tact, you'll be able to train your boss into being better at his or her job, too.

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Articles in this series:

Professionalism and the Post Production Paradigm
Crisis Management and the Emotionally Intelligent Producer
The Problem with Post

The Problem with Post

Beautiful But Deadly

Great creative, a shelf of awards, a stream of clients – Gee, what could possibly be wrong with this picture?

The fact is that when you're riding a rocket fueled by creative success or innovation, it's easy to miss, ignore or deny mistakes until the whole thing blows up under your ass.

In this regard, organizational accomplishments and industry recognition can actually produce a dangerous mindset if either is leveraged to conceal individual shortcomings at the leadership level.

One reason this attitude might prevail in the post production community is that principal stakeholders in such organizations are often promoted to a leadership position by first demonstrating excellent creative judgement in an artistic role, without exhibiting an equivalent aptitude for management. Compound this with the all too common reality that even top tier companies do not always make the effort to train such producers or creative directors with the management tools that they need to be effective leaders of those organizations.

Unfortunately, the Cannes Gold for pushing pixels, slicing video or sampling sound, does not automatically make one a capable leader of people. While clients may still come for star talent, the internal culture suffers until everyone, including those in charge, wake up each morning dreading work.

Or as is also commonly the case, organizations may deploy business strategists or office administrators  to leadership roles where they may not fully understand the creative and technical processes required to properly execute a media project. The result is a lot of 'why isn't it done' or 'get it done' directed by someone who doesn't actually know how or want to know how to get it done.

This is not to suggest that flame artists acquire an MBA in order to lead a post shop, or that agency producers who lack proficiency in design take an art class. It does indicate, however, that once promoted from design or project coordination roles to one that involves talent management, that one then simply ask themselves the following questions, and then commit to resolving those answers on an ongoing basis:

• "How will I learn to be an effective manager and communicator?"  
• "How can I become an inspirational leader of this community?"
• "What measure can I use to know if I'm actually doing my job well?"

For many creative boutiques, sales and happy clients are the only scorecard that matters, –and bonuses, commissions and inflated job titles are accepted as proof of professional excellence. But the fact of the matter is that one can possess a pretty amazing sales record,  capably push projects through sound and editorial suites, earn accolades and awards, service and sustain a very happy group of clients, and yet still be a flaky boss fully responsible for cultivating an angry and dysfunctional organization.

Armed with only the maxim of Concept-Develop-Execute-Finish, many serve long careers without ever understanding that this framework maximizes media production and creative performance to an exponential degree only when it's also fueled by Strategy, linked by Communication, and directed with both Purpose and Empathy. The latter two are fundamental to creating a strong cohesive culture, and when combined with great work, they are what truly creates for a sustainable business.

In Primal Leadership: The Hidden Driver of Great Performance, by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, the authors argue that:

 “A cranky and ruthless boss creates a toxic organization filled with negative underachievers who ignore opportunities; (whereas) an inspirational, inclusive leader spawns acolytes for whom any challenge is surmountable.”
 
So, is that the dirty little secret about the post production industry? Cranky bosses?

It would be more accurate to suggest that outdated management practices and behaviors are the issue here, compounded by the fact that an amalgam of talents might consider other staff members replaceable. This is typically exemplified when a member of one part of the organization begins to consider members of another part of the organization wholly replaceable, and then treat his or her colleagues as chess pieces rather than professionals.

Short term, things get done; long term, the faces change, because no one can stand working with a person they don't like for very long. Eventually, the last person who remains standing will complain to an empty room that the world lacks good, talented or committed people. But are good people hard to find because they don't exist, or are they difficult to hire because they don't want to work with you?

By way of example, one owner of a multimillion dollar production company once told me, his award winning staff notwithstanding: “I am the only person in this company that matters; everyone else is expendable.”

Similarly, the Executive Producer for another highly successful shop once revealed that her philosophy, regarding full-time employees, was to “hire them until you fire them” and “use them till you lose them.”  

Wouldn't it be much more rewarding, I thought, if instead of creating an autocracy botched together by coercion and hazing, that both these post pro principals focused on building great companies?

So, what exactly does make a great post production company?

Is it the work? Is it the foosball table in the lobby? Or the beer and bagels in the kitchen?

Those things alone will not guarantee a happy and productive staff.  More important is cohesive culture where everyone feels validated, valued and no one comes to work expecting that the politics will distract from the pixels.

And why is that important? Because happy staffers become evangelists for your company; bitter employees do not, and if they don't leave, you will be forced to fire them before they become a drain on resources, thereby incurring additional costs for the organization as you attempt to fill the void for which you are fundamentally responsible. Each subsequent employee then becomes a temporary patch, only meant to last until the next break or breach in what will eventually become, if it isn't already, a very leaky vessel with little confidence in its crew of every reaching its destination with all of its original members aboard.

Certainly, these outliers aside, there are also many, many positive examples to be found throughout the industry.

In the meantime,  it continues to be an open secret in Adland that the problem with many post production companies is the inadequate value held for emotional intelligence or modern leadership abilities by many primary stakeholders of many such companies. Creative, it seems all too often, is often mistaken as a free pass for social and professional incompetency, and one can very easily become a professional artist without exhibiting an ounce of empathy.

However, while this may be  sufficient for the proverbial artist painting landscapes in the countryside, it describes high risk behavior when expressed by the lead designer of a modern organization who hopes to continue attracting and managing multiple projects with diverse in-house teams at an elite level in the media industry.

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Articles in this series:

Professionalism and the Post Production Paradigm
Crisis Management and the Emotionally Intelligent Producer
The Problem with Post

Zeitgeist Explained

20th Century → 21st Century
Industrial Age → Information Age
Book → Interface
Actify → Gamify 
Album → Playlist
Alone → Connected
Analog → Digital
Art → Design
Artist → Curator
Audience → User
Authentic → Adobe
Assumption → Data
Big → Nimble
Boomer → Millennial
Broadcast → Dialogue
CIA → NSA
Cliques → Tribes
Collaborate → Crowdsource
Collage → Mashup
Compose → Sample
Construct → Disrupt
Cryptic → Encrypted
Customer  →  Client
Creative → Optimized
Daydream → Touch Screen
Desk → Cloud

Explanation → Medication
Expert → Consensus
Factory → Open Office
Family → Friends
Field → Console
Fix → Hack
Governance→ Politics
GRIT → STEM
Guru → Ninja
Hard Rock → Soft Synth
Hardware → Software
Harvard → Stanford
Hippodrome → Headphone
In Tune → Autotune
Institution → Network
Isolated → Affiliated
Inventor → Innovator
Job → Gig
Launch → Release
License → Acquire 
Linear → Agile
Long Form → Long Tail
Loyalty → Like
Maintain → Sustain
Make → Develop
March → Tweet
Method → Palette
Mr. → @
Musician → DJ
Mythology → Technology
National → Global
NATO → SINO
News → Trend
Observation → Conversation
Office → Café
Offshore → Locavore
Organize → Self Organize
Outside → Inside
Own → License
Paper → Pixel
Papyrus → Scroll
Plan → Prototype
Play → Prepare
Poetry → Code
Popular → Viral
Portable → Wearable
Post Office → Post Comment
Private → Promoted
Procreate → Recreate
Producer → Facilitator
Product → Process
Professional → Amateur
Proprietary →Transparent
Performance → Performant
Public Domain → Open Source
Publish→ Post
Quote → Retweet
Rules → Heuristics

Sage → Wiki
Salary → Fee
Sell → Share
Sell Out → Opt In
Share → Adopt
Solution → Option
Stable → Mobile
Store → Site
Story → Message
Suburb → City
System → Matrix
Talent → Brand
Talk → Text
TV → Phone
Theme → Meme
Third Word → Third Place
Tool → App
Tune In → Log On
Turn On → Chill Out
Unify → Occupy
Update → Iterate
Watch → Record
Word → Glyph
Zeitgeist → Swarm

Sound of the Year: 2013 – The Tap-Tap Tapping of Internet Surveillance

Image Courtesy Alberto Racatumba

In May 2013, an infrastructure analyst by the name of Edward Snowden, working for US defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, arranged to meet with documentary filmmaker and journalist, Laura Poitras and Guardian commentator Glenn Greenwald.

The meeting took place in Snowden's Hong Kong hotel room after he had fled the United States with a trove of classified information which revealed a 'systematic surveillance of innocent citizens', and which he was now about to reveal to the international press for public scrutiny and judgement.

What ever the final legal opinion of his actions, or one's own opinion of Snowden (traitor, idiot, whistleblower), he expressed his intentions as well meaning:

“It’s important to send a message to government that people will not be intimidated.”(The Washington Post)

On June 7th, after an initial examination and two days after the initial published report of Snowden’s leaks, major outlets reported that “the NSA is accessing the systems of US internet giants including Google and Facebook, and collecting data under a previously undisclosed surveillance programme called Prism. The programme allows officials to collect material including emails, live chats and search histories." (BBC)

Additional NSA documents leaked by Snowden indicated that the NSA had also extended its  practice of casting a wide digital net on both the leaders and citizens of several allied nations.

The sweep inlcuded 70 million digital communications in France, in just one 30-day period alone, between Dec. 2012 and Jan. 2013; and it also revealed that the agency had tapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone for a decade. Naturally, she and other leaders across the globe expressed outrage.

Certainly, both wire and web tapping have long proved a valid and acceptable means to protect the populace from criminal endeavor. However, the legal interception of electronic communications has typically required a warrant and is usually limited to those communications that meet a stringent standard of relevance to a specific case.

In the United States, in order to obtain a warrant, the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] court typically requests the production of records "pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets."

Snowden has since been granted asylum in Russia, although his residence in that country is limited to a year. Meanwhile back in the United States, mention of the erstwhile Booz Allen cyber spy continues to ignite heated discussion, as he is defended as a whistleblower by his supporters, and called a traitor by others.

How this story finishes is anyone's guess at this point.

Either way, as a result of Mr. Snowden’s explosive revelations and the ensuing international clamor they caused, the the 2013 Critical Noise Sound of the Year is awarded to the Tap-Tap Tapping of Internet Surveillance.

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HOW THE SOUND OF THE YEAR IS SELECTED:

The Critical Noise Sound of the Year goes to that sound source, event, entity, happening or concept which so effectively produces wide response and reaction, whether intentional or not, such that it stirs collective emotion, inspires discussion, incites action, or otherwise lends itself to cultural analysis and resonates across the globe.

Prior Sound of the Year winners include Pussy Riot (2012), The Cry for Freedom (2011), The Vuvuzela (2010) and Auto-Tune (2009)

From Media to Management

Image Courtesy liladepo

The hardest lesson I had to learn in my professional development from producer to Executive Producer is that:

Neither sales nor doing is leadership; Communication informed by empathy and purpose is leadership.

But maybe you don't even want to be a leader; delegation can feel like an awkward at first, while others are simply uncomfortable giving up control.

Or maybe all you ever wanted was to be a professional artist, a working composer or film editor, but along with acquiring professional success, you also acquired a staff. Suddenly, you've got mouths to feed and you spend less time making cool stuff, and more time running a company.

Nevertheless, for whatever reason, you may not want to accept the responsibility that comes with your job title.

One Executive Producer confessed to me that she didn't want to do sales. "But that's your job," I said. I wasn't being arrogant or pompous; I was simply stating a fact and the sooner she accepted that, the sooner she would reap the benefit gained by assimilating to her actual role, not the role she had in her head.

The fact is, the moment your job changes from artist to strategist, and you go from coordinating tasks to managing projects, then you're a leader. Whether you want to be a leader is irrelevant; if you have people under your charge, then the only thing that matters at this point is whether you're going to be an effective leader or an incompetent leader.

If you're any good at your job, then one day it will stop being just about Crayola crayons, or Adobe Creative Suite, or Autodesk, or ProTools, Davinci Resolve or whatever you count among your creative tools. You'll still have tools in your belt, but you'll also have people in the truck, so to speak. You'll gain a few more responsibilities, and with them will come the obligation to actually learn new management skills. In no particular order:

• Leadership is now your job.
• Communication is now your job. 
• Community Building is now your job
• Empathy is now your job.
• Strategy is now your job.
• Purpose is now your job.

Do what you other people before you have done to do to figure it out: read books, find a mentor, take a class if you have to, but don't permit yourself to turn into an obstinate jerk just because when you came up through the ranks, you worked for an obstinate jerk, and now you think, well, that's just the way you do it in our industry.

Here's a tip: an overwhelming number of psychological investigations and research into human learning suggests that the use of positive reinforcement in changing behavior is almost always more effective than using punishment. And you don't have to take my word for it, go ahead and Google it.

–And then, Good Luck!

Music Production Techniques That Apply to Real Life

• Balance your levels.
• You need a hook.
• Timing is Everything.
• Roll off all unnecessary frequencies.
• Don't get stuck in a loop.
• Remove noise between important moments.
• If you crank up the volume there's no place to go.
• If input rises above threshold, reduce level.
• Regularly Boost, Sweep and Cut.
• Cut the offending frequency and tighten up your Q. 
• Mix with Multiple Speakers
• Three properties essential to both sound waves and making waves: Amplitude, Frequency and Phase 

Pussy Riot: Hooliganism or Heroism

Image: EPA/KERIM OKTEN

Has any popular artist or band in the new millennium mattered any more than Pussy Riot?

From the beginning, the members of Pussy Riot risked subverting their political message with same flashmob tactics and theatricalized sexuality that they employed to gain attention in the first place.

That group members freely combine Realpolitik and Porn within and beyond the conceptual limits of the Pussy Riot project  also suggests the band is not simply an act, but a lifestyle bent on disrupting culture by lobbing incendiary cognitive dissonance devices directly into the public consciousness.

For one, their balaclavas resemble as much bondage hoods as ski masks; for another, one group member has been reported as being an orgy participant; and yet another alleged member of the collective, participating in a non-Pussy performance piece, if we can call it that, stuffed a frozen chicken into her vagina.

The imaginary mental picture I hold of that performance resembles Caesar van Everdingen's 'Woman Playing a Cittern' made over by Andy Warhol and presented by the Symbionese Liberation Army Puppet Theater Company: at turns funny, repulsive, beautiful, titillating, shocking and despicable.

Of course, some decent folk will resist the notion that a woman with a frozen chicken in her vagina is capable of serious intellectual energy, even if at the same time they ably accept a government whose members are also full of something, and yet also still capable of determining serious matters. After all, somebody is buying dildos in Washington, D.C. and Westminster.

One might reasonably argue that porn is never an appropriate tool for the feminists' arsenal, however, the chicken action is not without precedent. For many, 'How to Snatch a Chicken' is fairly reminisce of a another classic and similarly foodcentric act of defiance: 'The Return of the Chocolate-smeared Woman', by American performance artist, Karen Finely.

In this 1994 piece, that artist smeared her naked body with chocolate with the intention that the act be considered a rebuttal against the U.S. Government's legal threat to impose restrictions on grants for 'indecent art', and specifically her own work (National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley).  And as with Pussy Riot's defense against the Russian government, Ms. Finely also lost her case.

She was, however, was awarded a Ms. magazine Woman of the Year award; and today, Finely  teaches at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

So, it may be that long after their jail sentences fade from the press and public memory, that academic appointments and mainstream professional acceptance await the members of Pussy Riot. And if and when that time comes, it may be your children that they arm with their ideas and ideals, the ideas and ideals necessary to question authority where and when others dare not.

But don't be alarmed, it is, actually, a pro-democracy message that both Finley and Pussy Riot deliver.

Suffice to say that that there are many who though otherwise sympathetic to Pussy Riot's message,  they simply find the group's tactics too offensive or annoying to give their political motivations any thought or credence.

Even among Pussy Riot's activist fans, many misinterpret the group's message. Some project their own politics into the Pussy Riot agenda; others have simply leveraged the Pussy Riot situation and look for their own personal cause. But no wonder why! Pussy Riot's performance at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, and the group member's subsequent persecution presents a successful paradigm to arts activists.

As Nadezhda Tolokonnikova noted at the end of her trial:

"Every day, more people understand that if the system is attacking three young women who performed in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior for thirty seconds with such vehemence, it only means that this system fears the truth, sincerity, and straightforwardness we represent."

She also explained that the lyric, 'Holy shit', was not meant as a blasphemous attack on the church or the religion, but merely represented 'our evaluation of the situation in the country'.

In the band's defense, Amnesty International's Michelle Ringuette framed Pussy Riot's performance as 'a peaceful protest song in a Russian Orthodox Cathedral that lasted less than a minute' .  Even one band member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, described the Cathedral take down as a display of 'innocent creativity'.

Certainly, these statements were presented only at the service of their defense, however, because they greatly undervalue the impact of the group's punk prayer. If 'Mother of God, Drive Putin Out' were merely a peaceful song, the women would have failed in their mission. But they did not fail. By the standards by which dissident art is measured, they succeeded and succeeded wildly.

Not to mention that even when presented as pure entertainment, theater is never innocent. And certainly, no one hijacks a church alter and says or sings "Holy shit, shit, Lord's shit!" who isn’t trying to shock and provoke a strong reaction.

Either way, that Pussy Riot's musical actions in the Cathedral  might be a justified measure against a tyrannical state will certainly be a subject of never ending debate, which means that Pussy Riot's punk prayer will to continue to resonate in the public consciousness for many years to come.

The Audio Mark as a Storytelling Platform

Image by: Craig Cloutier

Music, as we know, comes in many forms. And one person's music is another person's noise.

Readers of this blog know I'm fascinated by microstructures; that is, those forms of noise and aural expression that may not represent complete 'works' as we think of the concept, but which nonetheless capably convey meaning.

THE DESCENDING CADENCE AS CLOSING STATEMENT

For instance, where one single pitch might convey neither music nor meaning, two pitches in a sequence –if they are the right pitches– might serve to conclude a story, a song, or even an event, such as a religious service. The two pitches in question are, of course, IV and I, which we know as a 'descending cadence', and which together package enough signification in one descending step that whenever they are deployed, everyone within earshot receives the exact same message: This is where the story ends.

THE AUDIO MARK AS INDEPENDENT SIGNIFIER

As it happens, it is the identification and contextualization of such nano sized musical expressions that provide the underlying conceptual framework whenever we are commissioned with the construction of an AUDIO MARK (and whether we are conscious of this activity or not).

For this reason, I do not always think of an Audio Mark as a micro musical work itself, but instead as a communication asset composed of sonic elements, especially in regards to non melodic marks. Such composition is often closer to sound design, in my mind, being born of qualitative research, analysis and a methodical construction process rather than simply inspired composition.

The outcome of inspired composition is not always immediately apparent, nor the activity always directed. When making music we may simply want to entertain; and the music may have no reason for being at all, except that we conceived it, either as formalized composition or improvisation. In contrast to this common artistic process, the construction or design of an Audio Mark is always crafted with purpose, and often to a client's detailed specifications. Thus, if the outcome of traditional composition can be said to be our moods set to music, marks represent the attempt to package data into non verbal sound. In other words, we are asking ourselves how sound may be used for signification.

This process is not limited to commercial branding; it has long been used in the creation of scores whose themes and other elements might serve to indicate an actor, an animal, the weather, or something else.

But when our task is branding, then much like a Morse code pattern, our intention not so much to create an entertaining rhythm but to package data in a way that a given audience can and will actually decode the resultant sonic expression And if the message is not so distinct as to be unintelligible, and coded with cultural conventions in mind, then there actually stands a very good chance that it will be received and understood.

THE RINGTONE AS BRANDED ALERT

While music fundamentally suggests mood, I believe that brands –if they are to live in the world as semi or crowd conscious entities– shouldn't be defined or limited by the results of a mood board alone. What kind of actual person only possesses a single mood? Psychopaths and sociopaths. Certainly,  some management teams might be accused as lacking empathy, but when crafting identity assets for a client, one should create assets that might be made to respond in the same manner as healthy human attributes. To put it another way, our moods ebb and our reputation might change, but our identity is generally regarded as stable.

Identity assets should therefore be responsive, and crafted in a way that allows for scale and variation. Easier done in print with size and color; and easy still, if our mark is melodic in nature, but somewhat more difficult if the mark has been produced as an immutable sonic construction, for instance, when designed as a parallel experience and synchronized to a specific moving image. Nevertheless, if we want a mark to carry, then it must possess the capacity to scale infinitely, or at least within a set of parameters that we identify as true to that specific identity.

This is not to suggest that every mark be designed as a musical motif, though the two concepts in their most popular forms share similar characteristics.

But something very different happens when we hear a mark than when we listen to a motif. A strong mark will be perceived as a whole entity and independent of any other asset within the same single framed context.  Motives, on the other hand, while they may express variation, are perceived as dependent on other assets within the same single framework.

Motives, on the other hand, are deployed in such a way as to produce continued delight and interest with every variation. Indeed, we might even define traditional music not as organized sound, as is the convention, but as any construct that employs reiteration and also, the thematic variation of a pattern. Given this definition, the thing might not even be aural, which is why we can look at the sky or the ocean, or  even traffic, and describe it as a musical experience.

Music is essentially patterns at play.

And it's also why we may not always frame an Audio Mark as a musical work. It does use elemental musical sounds in its construction, but it is of singular design and voices so quickly any inherent patterning is either lost or non existent. Repeat it again and again without variation, and while the result will likely demand our attention, it may equally be perceived as annoying if the alerting sound does not signify incoming important information, hence our response to Ringtones.

We can very easily design interesting or pleasing ringtones, but our perception of any ringtone will nevertheless be shaped by the user and those nearby.  We might even forgo the repeating tone, riff or sample and actually trigger a complete work with each incoming call, but it even high fidelity rendition of recording of 'Ode to Joy' by the Berlin Philarmonic might strike another commuter as irritating if the phone's owner continued to receive multiple calls between Dover and Brick Church.

And it may be that the Alert construction is the most effective construct for a Ringtone simply because it frames the subsquent experience as one of information processing.

THE BROADCAST STING AS CONTROLLED DISRUPTION

Melodic audio marks also share some similar characteristics to another form of sonic identity asset, being THE BROADCAST STING. Both Audio Mark and Broadcast Sting serve as a form of conceptual punctuation that sends a single message –again, like Morse code. But unlike Morse code, we do not want to hear either a sting or a mark repeat within a single context. Or if it does repeat, the inherent message of both the sting and mark become diminished by the sense of urgency conveyed by the repetitive aural experience. Alternately, if this is the desired effect, then the message is simply reduced to 'URGENT'.
 
Of course, all four forms of micro musical expression discussed here –The Audio Mark, the Descending Cadence, The Ringtone and The Broadcast Sting– are designed to work like zipped semiotics, which once open, a given marketer's message will be decoded and delivered.

I've participated in the production of several network package music and sound design projects: CNN, ESPN, HBO Zone, MTV, PBS and VH1, to name a few.

Interestingly, The Broadcast Sting is the only expression of the four that is not constructed as an independent statement. Ending on an anticipatory high note, the Sting, while designed to brand a television station, network or cable channel, is also designed as an open ended inconclusive element, which if we compare to sentence structure,

suggests interruption. The Sting thus requires a listener/viewer to wait until later (typically, 'after these messages') before being 'rewarded' with aural or musical closure (finishing the sentence). Indeed, the Sting does not so much announce who he is, as he compel us to wait another moment before closing with a big reveal.

Whatever construction is appropriate to the task, the message is clear: even micro musical structures can be employed in the support of storytelling; and a skilled sonic artisan can capably convey a lot of non verbal information in mere seconds, and sometimes in even just one second.