8Sided Blog

the scene celebrates itself

The Limits of Experimentation

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The absence of a significant musical trend or cultural movement so far in the 21st century: I’ve attributed this to a lack of territorial isolation in that movements (artistic and cultural) would spring out of ‘scenes’ that existed locally but not globally. Now that we have constant connectivity, this separateness is rare, and thus so are movement shifts.

There may also be an element of technology involved, and not just in the advances of global connectivity. Technological progress has created musical trends and genres; think of the increasing number of audio multi-tracks and how that begat Sgt. Pepper’s or Pet Sounds. Or of the fuzz guitar creating psychedelia, the drum machine and sequencer creating electronic dance music, etc.

We can look to film as a guide. There’s a dramatic difference in movies produced in the ’70s versus those in the ’60s and in movies shot in the ’60s compared to those in the ’50s. Many people, especially the young, in the ’70s, would have a hard time watching ’50s movies as they seem old-fashioned. The shift in style and look is pronounced. There are aesthetic differences, too — subjects that were taboo at one time became commonplace decades later, for example — but often, technological developments that influenced the culture inspired these changes.

Think of Jean-Luc Godard and the jump cut. An editing technique that was so radical at the time of Breathless is commonplace in film and TV (and YouTube) now. Godard made it revolutionary because cinema, as a developing art form, still had areas left to explore. As time moves forward, the technology of the medium is no longer one of limitation. 

Another example is the brilliant Russian Ark, an ambitious 2002 film created in a single long camera shot. Digital filmmaking was new, and the hard drive space available to the cinematographer dictated the ‘single shot’ running time of Russian Ark. Compare this to Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, meant to look as if it is a long, single-shot movie, but throughout, there are several sneaky cuts. The length of a roll of film limited Hitchcock as he had no access to hard drives, but this did not make Rope any less radical in its era. Now, the single-shot film is commonplace — a technique used and overused by modern filmmakers with an almost unlimited amount of digital storage space at their disposal.

Limitations of a medium breed experimentation as the artists push and explore what is possible. With limits removed, this experimentation takes other forms.

Decoding a Pocket Symphony

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Posted by the Polyphonic YouTube channel, this video essay illustrates all the remarkable things that happen in the three minutes and thirty-nine seconds that comprise The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.” It is remarkable when the details get laid out: the convention-defying sections of the song, the ingenious chord combinations, the metamorphosing moods and transitions, even how the deceptively simple lyrics reveal a deeper meaning. “Good Vibrations” is indeed a “pocket symphony.”

 

Wikipedia:

The making of “Good Vibrations” was unprecedented for any kind of recording, with a total production cost estimated between $50,000 and $75,000 (equivalent to $370,000 and $550,000 in 2016). Building upon the multi-layered approach he had formulated with Pet Sounds, Wilson recorded the song in different sections at four Hollywood studios from February to September 1966, resulting in a cut-up mosaic of several musical episodes marked by disjunctive key and modal shifts. It contained previously untried mixes of instruments, including jaw harp and Electro-Theremin, and it was the first pop hit to have a cello playing juddering rhythms.

Its title derived from Wilson’s fascination with cosmic vibrations, after his mother once told him as a child that dogs sometimes bark at people in response to their “bad vibrations”. He used the concept to suggest extrasensory perception, while Love’s lyrics were inspired by the Flower Power movement that was then burgeoning in Southern California.


The instrument that steals the show in “Good Vibrations” is more often than not mistakenly referred to as a theremin. Kudos to Polyphonic for initially calling the instrument on the recording by its actual name: the Electro-Theremin. He gets it wrong the second time around, though.

From an article about this instrument via NPR:

… in the 1950s, trombonist Paul Tanner and an amateur inventor named Bob Whitsell made an instrument that made sounds similar to Leon Theremin’s creation, but made it a lot simpler for non-experts to hit specific notes and control the volume.

Tanner’s instrument — like the theremin — was used in science fiction films and a very popular television show from the early 1960s called My Favorite Martian. Tanner featured it on his 1958 album, Music for Heavenly Bodies. The few people who bought The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds when it came out in May of 1966 would have heard Tanner’s instrument on the song “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times.” But in the autumn of that year, every American teenager heard that weird sci-fi sound on every AM pop radio station, when Paul Tanner performed his Electro-Theremin with The Beach Boys on “Good Vibrations.”


One more observation: near the end of the video I found myself thinking, “Wow, Brian Wilson did look exactly like Paul Dano.” Then I realized that was Paul Dano. Sneaky.