I went back to the Etobicoke School of the Arts (school from Fall practicum) tonight to watch the mid-winter talent show, especially hoping to hear the jazz clarinetist I had been treated to at the December Holiday Festival Concert. Didn't see him. However, I did bump into someone else.
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Learning to Disappoint
There is nothing quite so heart wrenching Than to tell ninth-grade child, With admiration in her eyes, The truth.
As she asks, "Mr. Laroche! Will you come back And teach at our school next year?!" To know that it can't be And won't be.
But to tell her, And her giggly little friends, "That's not very likely." "And the year after?" To give the same answer, Grimacing.
"And the year after?" Feeling one's guilt Seeking to replace her next Disappointment.
Clinging to the truth, Yet whispering, "Maybe." Knowing that You've made a difference, Knowing that A difference You can no longer make.
To continue my mini-series of musical analysis of political advertising, I turn my attention today to the work of the NDP. Two NDP ads targeted to Québec are particularly interesting. For the record, I don't plan to do the Liberals' ads because, well, they are musically boring and not particularly interesting, musically and analytically. They are also musically boring, if I hadn't mentioned that yet. Anyhow, onwards to the first NDP ad of the day:
This ad caused somewhat of a stir a few weeks ago. The music of the ad can be broken down into three main sections, each associated with a unique visual picture on screen.
The first lasts about 4 seconds and is basically just reverberating soft metal-on-metal chime one hears at the beginning while the voter's ballot is on screen. There's admittedly not much interesting here on the surface, as anyone who has spent an hour playing around with Audacity could create a similarly charming opening.
The second portion is much more interesting. At 16 seconds in length, it makes up the bulk of the ad, and is by far the most interesting musical selection. We'll come back to this one shortly.
The third section consists of the last 9 seconds of the ad. Basically, you have Jack Layton on screen, and a nice little electric guitar melody to go along with it. There are a few interesting points to be made regarding the motifs and scoring of this section.
However, as mentioned, the most interesting section of this ad must be the middle part. First of all, if one were to detach the score from the ad and remove the added sound effects - soldiers marching, electric guitars snapping (remember this for later) - one is basically left with a series of pulsating brass notes. The first interesting point to note about this section of the work therefore is its tempo, which you can determine from the pulsating notes. The tempo is about M.M. 80, if you assume that the pulsations are eighth notes. With a bit of detective work, a few observations can be made from this piece of information.
Most of the detective work that goes on relies on one other fundamental piece of information that is related to tempo, that of metric organization. For example, are we talking about a piece in 4/4 here, or 3/4 or 7/4, or does it just not have a regular metric organization? The last of these options is immediately appealing. After all, it's tough to pick any downbeat in the pulsating trumpets and trombones. But if we make a number of assumptions based on what is heard, a clearer picture of what's going on can emerge. First, before the pulsation of eighths start, the first chord heard from the brass ensemble is actually a quarter note. For lack of any other easily identifiable starting point, let's call this the downbeat of Measure 1. If you beat along steadily in 4/4 at the designated tempo from this, you find that, on the downbeat of Measure 4 (~15.5 seconds) also happens to coincide with the next longer chord. Follow this along, and the visual explosion happens on the downbeat of Measure 6.
The reason I note this is, despite all the mayhem going on in the music and its seeming lack of organization, there actually does appear to be a thread of continuity in the music. I'm not entirely sure if a brass ensemble was commissioned to do a recording of this section or if the music was taken from a recording, but based on its style, I see no real reason why such meticulous metric organization would be required. If this is actually a recorded work from somewhere in the contemporary classical catalogue, then the main suspects like Luciano Berio and Edgar Varèse usually make a point of not having much of an identifiable rhythmic structure. They change up the "downbeat" by making every measure a different length; for example, you might have a measure of 3/8 follow by one of 2/4 and then another of 5/8. In this case, you usually stop hearing the downbeat of every measure as a downbeat, and you usually just identify the chords on those beats as being particularly accented within an overall ametric work.
But that's not what is going on here. The pulsations are fairly regular. Which leads us to the second possibility: if performers were hired to record this, a regular metric structure makes it relatively easier to record the work in as little time as possible. That's true, but then again, most professional musicians should be able to follow 16 seconds of shifting-meter music without too much trouble (I mean, chances are they're quite used to this idea anyway.). The larger question here is, if the NDP wishes to represent chaos under Harper as the ad is implying, why not extend this to the musical parameters of the ad too? Why not shift tempos? Why not put in sudden accents that unexpectedly jolt the audience instead of lulling them into an intriguing (relative) sense of musical security with a regular pulse?
The use of the phrase "sense of musical security" to label one of the ad's effects may appear a bit odd at first. After all, this is clearly contemporary classical music; most Canadians don't tend to list this genre as what they listen to when they want to relax on Friday night. But taking a look at its harmonic aspects, it's revealed that this really isn't all that radical. The chord that you hear pulsating throughout is a F-sharp major chord in second inversion: C#-F#-A#-C#. There is also one small addition: a D natural squeezed between the initial C# and F#. The top three notes are held, the bottom two are the ones you hear pulsating. In commonplace harmony, one scale where you can find all of these elements, D-F#-A#-C#, is in the key of B minor. More specifically, this is the chord of III^(7,+5) in second inversion. For those who didn't get that, it just means that this is the chord of III with an added note on top. Here's the thing: while on the surface one might ask when in tarnations one would ever hear such a chord, there's actually a very good explanation. The chord of III tends to be harmony's misunderstood black sheep, it's true, and consequently does not get much airtime. However, within the context of jazz harmony, this combination of notes is commonly understood as part of the Lydian #5 chord. While not an essential part of every phrase's daily breakfast, it does creep up now and again in most jazz music. It's hardly the outside chord one might expect in this scenario; if anything, people actually do hear it when they listen to music on Friday night.
Now wait a second here, some of you are thinking. III^(7,+5) is only particularly poignant in jazz because A) it doesn't happen often and B) there's usually significant context in a piece of music to position it as the black sheep of minor scale harmonies. It's true; while I'm not quite comfortable calling this chord the III^(7,+5) chord despite its technical construction because any relevant context is absent. But this is what's all the more interesting about it: this chord is its own context. It's the only chord you hear in the entire piece. True, at some point the trombones drop from C# to A# (with a few sliding just below A# to give an small "out of tune" effect), but that's still fundamentally the same chord. My point is the following: while at first the chord may seem slightly jolting initially, the fact that it is constructed from relatively common materials, that is to say, a sustained major chord, and that there is no additional context actually works against the shock and awe and chaos the ad is trying to portray. The chord doesn't want to be resolved towards another, potentially more horrifying harmonic destination; it simply exists and asserts itself, over and over again. When I talk about the sense of musical security, this is what I refer to, the idea that, even if the chord is dissonant, without any relative push or pull to contextualize it, the dissonance quickly normalizes itself within the ear. And that, in an attack ad, is a problem, if you are working towards building a more climactic effect. I would suggest that this actually reduces the impact that the soldiers, tanks and explosions in our streets could have had at the end. Going to successive degrees of greater dissonance would be much more helpful here, as opposed to maintaining one more dissonant chord, would have been the way to go here, despite having a great starting idea.
The third portion of the ad is a nice contrast to all that modern stuff we've been listening to in the past 16 seconds. It clearly establishes the idea that Harper is bad, and that whatever you're about to see is good. First, the tempo of this new tune is slightly faster than what you heard in the pulsating eighths before, creating the impression of a drive towards the end. The music seems to be more upbeat, and definitely offers more clarity of movement than the somewhat convoluted second section. But really, the most interesting point here concerns instrumentation.
As many of you can surely identify, after a prolonged brass fanfare, we now get treated to some electric guitar for the end of the work. First, I can't help but wonder if there's some kind of subliminal messaging going on here. As you might recall, at the 9 second mark of the ad, we see an electric guitar being broken as a sign of Harper's alleged crusade against the arts. Later, we hear electric guitar as part of the positive messaging for the NDP. I have no idea whether that's coincidental or intended on the part of the NDP, but I would not be surprised either way. Even if people know nothing about music, most tend to know what an electric guitar looks like and sounds like, as opposed to, say, a bassoon. So this kind of messaging might actually work if it was intended to work this way.
The second point about instrumentation is that there are actually multiple electric guitars being used. Yes, there's the first one we hear, which keeps articulating various combinations of the notes E-B-E'-D# (note: an apostrophe next to a note designates this note at the octave above; therefore, E and E' are same type of sound, but E' is one octave higher). But then there's also the slightly more reverberant one at the end that accentuates the melodic notes E and B when the first guitar plays E-F#-B in the dying seconds of the ad. It seems to bring extra attention to the fact that NDP is on the screen, whilst doing so quite subtly and colouring a very pleasant interval, the perfect fifth E-B. In other words, it's painting a rather paradisal picture of life under an NDP government, and does so quite effectively.
There's one last point that I wish to make about this ad. With the exception one tone heard twice in the final section of the work (D#), the entire pitch aggregate of the entire ad - sections one, two and three - actually fits very nicely within the mould of a B minor scale. The notes from the brass chords have already been discussed, but most notes - E, B and F# - from the second guitar portion actually fit the mould. While I suspect the starting pitches for the third section were chosen simply because E, B and F# are an easy trio to perform mid-range on a guitar, I can't help but wonder what the overall effect of having an aggregate of pitches that can all fall into one common scale. It's admittedly somewhat of a stretch, but if we understand the E-B interaction in the third section as being the chord of IV in B (major/minor), the D# and F# as the chord of I in B major, one can actually argue that the entire harmonic structure is consistent around the tone B as follows: III(7,+5) - IV - I - IV - V. What does this mean? It means that the weird chord from earlier on actually fits into the harmonic context of the musical score as one would expect it to within the rules of common-practice, functional harmony.
Whoa.So much for all-out attack.
Let's move on to today's second specimen. I promise this one will be shorter, as I wish only to focus on the melodic and harmonic aspects of the music.
I love this ad, just because I really like the play on the word bloc/bloque. I'm surprised others havn't used it before, it seems like an obvious avenue to attaque the Bloc. In any case, the musical score here can also be divided into three parts. The first part and third parts are identical to the ones in the previous ad. The second portion features the piano melody and accompaniment and later sound effects, timpani and a choir of fallen angels. As mentioned, the second portion is again the electric guitar "NDP-rocks-but-not-too-hard" theme featured at the end of the previous ad, on the same notes and everything (i.e., still patterns of E-B-E'-D#). The second part is decidedly the most interesting consider.
This ad opens on a C-sharp minor chord in root inversion, articulated in quarter notes in a 3/4 metric structure. And then this persists, over and over again, up until the final dramatic chord at the 20 second mark. Basically, you have the classic minor "sad" chord being articulated over and over again. I can't help but think that there must be an implied message here that suggests that the Bloc is and has been playing the same sorry tune for ever and ever without getting results.
Then, one gets a small melody folded into the mix: B-B', A-A', G#-G#'. The C-sharp minor chord continues to harmonically support each note. In this particular context, the movement from B to A to G# actually provides an interesting analysis into how to create greater dissonance from lesser dissonance. When one hears the B, it is heard as somewhat dissonant against the C-sharp minor chord that has been continuously re-iterated, but not so much as that it is intolerable. Every just sounds sadder because of the B. One could analyze this to be the chord of I^7 (technically, i^7) of C# minor and one would not be incorrect, but I tend to just prefer to separate the harmonic and melodic streams entirely in this case. One might also conceive of it as an overlap between the chords of C# minor and E major, which has some interesting implications for later on. Next, one has C-sharp minor against an A - one could hear this as the chord of A^#7, but because the C-sharp minor chord is so ingrained as the reference point by now, it is instead hear as a more harshly dissonant version of the first chord. Finally, A resolves to G#, which is part of the chord, and therefore highly consonant within the relative context of the musical phrase. This relative consonance also serves to accentuate the A's particular dissonance within the overall context.
The addition of other sounds after the G#-G#' melodic portion are also intriguing. One hears low drums, timpani to be precise, playing C#-G# slightly out of tune for a haunting effect as the sinking economy is mentioned. When it settles, some evil-sounding choir reaffirms the C-sharp minor chord, making it that much more frightening than it was with only solo piano; the downwards pitch slide at the end just adds to the gloom and doom of it all. I think another message is implied here through the music: all the Bloc does is create discord in Parliament (B-B'-A-A'), but even when it doesn't, the results are sad-making (G#-G#' + timpani and choir). I actually find this ad to be quite effective because the music amplifies the main message of the ad so well.
The last thing I want to point to in this ad is the fact that the tonal centres between the second section and the third section are actually narrowly related. In this particular case, if you interpret the E-B-E'-D# of the guitar in the third portion as the chords of I and V in the key of E major. The chord of C-sharp minor is actually the chord of VI within the context of E major. The chord of C-sharp minor actually has an E in it. The E acts as a natural transition point between the "sad" C-sharp minor chords and the "implied-to-be-happy" E major chords - and while you can't actually know whether they are E major chords because the third of the chord is absent, the fact that G#, which would normally fill this role in an E major chord, was articulated over and over again in the previous section means you likely havn't forgotten about it in your inner ear. After all, you might have heard a combination of C-sharp minor and E major chords together in the opening of the ad when you heard a C-sharp minor chord plus melody note B.
In short: it seems the NDP is trying the classic trick of using related major/minor scales to denote happy/sad ideas. Those familiar with basic music theory will know the how's and why's of the relationship between C-sharp minor and E major. Using the tonic note as a pivot point between your negative and positive ideas appears to be a winning solution in this particular ad, likely because the music has reflected simplicity in its organization of musical ideas. Hence, the most simple transition from "sad" to "happy" also appears to be quite effective, without being so much jarring.
(For those of you who are left asking how the third portion could be part of B major/minor in the first ad, but E major in the second, it's all a question of context; when you don't have all 7 notes of the scale given to you, you kind of have to interpret the key/tonal centre based on contextual information that is provided. The context in the first suggests one should interpret it as part of B, the second, as part of E; independent on any context, I would probably also interpret it as being in E, but in all of the above cases I'm still left guessing, since the critical difference between the E and B scales, that is, whether A or A# is used, is conspicuously absent in the music.)
The only problem with this ad, like the Conservatives' ad from a few weeks ago, is its ending: E - F#+D# - B is I to V. How classically imperfect.
It should come as no surprise to most readers of this blog that I enjoy exploring the complex world of music theory. It should also come as no surprise that I follow national politics with considerable interest.
This is one of those rare occasions where politics and musical analysis meet. Given a brief exploration of cyberspace has yielded no results for the particular topic I'm about to explore, I thought I'd jump into the fray and do it myself.
Context: As might be expected of all good Albertan Reds, I'm a regular reader of Calgary Grit's blog about politics. One of his recent things has been to critique all new ads put out there by the major political parties during this election. That's all well and good, but he mostly only addresses the visual aspects of those commercials; the audio aspects are generally not touched upon. Which means that, for the most part, of all of that specially commissioned music that serves to heighten the drama of attack ads or paint everybody's favorite sweater-vest wearing dad that just happens to be Prime Minister does not get acknowledged or scrutinized.
The topic in and of itself of how much music can affect the message of these advertisements is one worth asking. Are there particular musical forms that work better to reinforce messages in an ad, by, say, having a recurring three- or four-note theme heard every time a "positive" idea is mentioned? Is rounded binary form best for 30-second adds? What if you don't resolve that seventh in an attack ad, does it add extra drama? To what extent do political parties try to brand themselves with a subtle yet ever-present musical identity? If it works for McDonald's ("Have you had your break today?" - can you hear the jingle yet?), can it work for political parties?
I unfortunately can't answer all of those questions, and apparently, nor can Wikipedia or JStor. But, in the spirit of getting started on finding the answers to those questions, I can critique and analyze the ads already going around. I will try to make the critiques accessible for the musical layman, but there are a few more advanced notions that I wish to point out in a few places that will unfortunately require some understanding of functional harmony. In any case, let's get started, as one of the parties might say.
Today, as the first entry in the series, we start with the first ad to be blanketed all over the Canadian airwaves when the election was called two weeks ago.
Oh, isn't that nice and sweet of him. Stevie can play the piano, just like Grandpa at Christmas. How warm and fuzzy of him.
However, if you listen to the music in this ad very closely, there are a few interesting points. Structurally, this soundtrack is easy to break down into sections. You have a segment that lasts 4 measures, and then it repeats itself starting at around the 14 second mark, then you move the closing little segment that starts at about the 27 second mark. In short, you have an A section (A here refers to a section name, not the note A), a repeat of the A section with a modified ending (commonly written as A'), and then a B section to close out the piece. Therefore, we can summarize the structure of the soundtrack of this ad as being in AA'B form, with the first A lasting 14 seconds, A' lasting 13 seconds, and B being incredibly short and lasting only 3 seconds.
The mathematically astute people reading this will immediately notice the first small problem here, and the musical consequences are common enough that most trained musicians will put their finger on the problem right away when listening. In short, while it's the exact same musical length (ie, 4 measures), A' is played slightly faster than A. The the shift to the faster playing speed, called tempo, is very subtle, coming just between A and A'. For the musically astute, try tapping a steady beat; after the 14 second mark, if you're absolutely steady, you'll notice that downbeats don't quite correspond to the downbeats in the music, as if you were behind. It's not like it's the biggest musical crime of all time, though in common musical parlance, changes in speed are frowned upon without a good artistic reason. I think there is a reason why whoever put this ad together is doing this, and I'll come back to it later. For now, it's just important to remember that Stevie the piano player is rushing towards the B section.
In terms of composition (the specifics of how a piece is written), it's worth noting that the composer chose a very boring key in which to play his piece, that of C major; I can't help but think that it might be subliminal messaging about how the Conservatives, also represented by the letter C, want Canadians to give them a majority government, but aren't willing to say so openly. Longtime readers will recall how I previously railed against C major (and C minor, for the record), and I see no reason to recant those views in light of the current situation.
However, the use of C major goes a bit deeper than that. If you listen carefully, the first six notes of the piece, played on a piano, are repeated over and over again with various embellishments for the first 27 seconds of the ad. What are those notes? E-G-C-G-G-E, or in common musical parlance, a C major chord (commonly written as C-E-G, but you can scramble the order and it's still a C major chord). Over and over again. What's curious is that, this C major chord persists in the melody as the bass note changes every measure (which is every three seconds or so) from C-B-A-F (then repeats); as you might have noticed, B, A and F aren't notes that are part of a C major chord. Yet, they appear in direct clash with notes that are only part of a C major chord heard in the melody (over and over again). In other words, C major insists on moving ahead unchallenged regardless of what other notes around it are implying should be done. Sounds familiar.
It's also worth noting that, as far as my ears can tell, in the entire musical score, be it melody, accompaniment or other voices, nowhere are the notes A-B-C sounded in that order. Danny Williams is going to be disappointed.
The choices in instrumentation, that is, the selection of what instruments are used to play music and how the instruments are distributed within the music (encompassing questions like "should the violin play the melody and the piano play the accompaniment, or should we get a tuba to play the melody instead?"), also raise interesting questions. First of all, while the piano heard in the forefront during the A and A' sections is clearly a real and even-tempered piano played by a competent pianist, I have some real doubts about the sonic authenticity of the strings and oboe heard in those same sections. I'm 90% confident that they're actually high-quality MIDI's. I point this out only because, once we finally arrive at the B concluding section, the strings there are most definitely very real, which begs an interesting question - why would you use fake strings in the first 27 seconds of your ad, but then have real strings in the last 3 seconds? There seems to be little cost-benefit of doing it that way; if you're going to arrange for musicians to record a piece of music, it makes little sense to get them to record your 3-second snippet, but not the rest of the ad.
That's of course making one fundamental assumption, one that is likely not true. That assumption is that we're talking about one piece of music that was all written by the same guy (or gal). The B section is so radically different - musically, harmonically, in terms of the sound of the sound (hear that slightly prolonged low resonance when the strings in the B section finally come in?) - that I'm inclined to believe that the B section is an entirely different piece of music that also happens to start/continue on a C major chord, and it's just "pasted" onto the end of A and A'. I propose that, whatever unknown piece the B section comes from, that music was licensed for use in this ad (or maybe even not, given one might be able to justify the use of a 3-second clip music under copyright exemptions), and isn't part of the composition used in AA'. I have a number of contentions to support this idea.
First of all, there is once again a tempo change, this time between A' and B. Tap it out. It's close, but not exact. Not only that though, but you actually get robbed of an entire beat between A' and B. AA' is in 4/4 time, B is also in 4/4 time, except that the last measure of A' is suddenly in 3/4 time. Oops. Of course, none of this proves anything, but in combination with other factors, it does tend to suggest a certain shift has occured, as these features are not musically "natural" or "normal."
Second, there is the harmonic structure of the work. Sections A and A' systematically avoid using the chord of V (G major) until the two last beats of A'; uncharacteristically, the transition between A and A' is actually the chord of ii (D minor) in first inversion (F as the bottom note). Musicians understand that most pieces written in C major make liberal use of the chord of G major (the chord of V). Therefore, avoiding the use of a G major chord (V) in a piece in C major is a stylistically distinct feature of sections A and A'. However, in the B section, the chord of V (G major) is the second chord you hear, right after C major. As a theorist, in combination with the other factors listed below, this fundamental inconsistency of style indicates an important shift to the harmonic approach. In this case, I actually think we're dealing with two entirely different composers because the shift is so sudden and the traits so musically distinct.
Third, the melodic structures of the melodies in A and B are also radically different. The former focuses on wide leaps between notes, usually emphasizing downward movements on the downbeats, whilst in the latter, the leaps are smaller, and directed upwards. Now, this in itself is nothing special - any composition student could use these devices to contrast two different ideas in two different sections. The main difference between the melodic structures lies in their rhythmic characters. The melody in the A section emphasizes dotted rhythms and beat subdivisions; the melody in the B section is very rhythmic and regular, falling only on the beats. Taken independently, there would be a case of saying that all this is mere coincidence caused by normal musical variation. However, taken as a whole, especially in light of the other harmonic aspects discussed earlier, I believe these are probable grounds to state that a stylistic shift beyond what might be normally expected between two contrasting ideas. Because it constitutes a fundamental stylistic shift, it again suggests between composers for the two ideas.
The fourth reason I suspect that the soundtrack from this ad is nothing more than an intricately planned bastardization regards aspects of instrumentation. An astute musical observer would noticed the conspicuous absence of the piano in the B section soundtrack. This in itself is somewhat odd - why does the prominent instrument from the first 27 seconds of the ad disappear very suddenly in the B section? Also, as mentioned earlier, the strings and oboe from sections A and A' sound fake (though "good" fake, in that it's not plainly obvious to tell that they could be, you have to really stretch the ear and pay specific attention.).
Given this, I advance the following theory: AA' originally did not have any strings and oboe in the background. Realistically, if AA' were to stand alone, those instruments would be entirely dispensable, as they serve no real purpose; they just double what the piano is doing in different ranges. The only reason they were introduced into AA' was that, later, in assembling the ads, those in charge realized that there was a musical jolt resulting from a soundtrack having only solo piano to one featuring a full string orchestra. In other words, the whole of the soundtrack lacked musical continuity, especially at a critical point in the ad. Because Conservative strategists (or their advertisers) obviously want Canadians to focus on the messages of the ads, as opposed to a weird musical moment near the end (though they still manage to screw everybody up with that odd 3/4 measure), so additional instruments that make the entire soundtrack of the ad gel are edited in later. This is in turn explains why we have fake strings in the first part - you can't go back and re-record the piano part with new string players, but you can subtly set the piano part to a MIDI soudtrack, and ensure the balance is right so that you are always prominently featuring the piano.
Remember the slightly prolonged low resonance at 27 second mark, between A' and B? I propose the reason that happens is so that there is an extra moment where the fake strings and real strings play together, so that the transition is (relatively) seemless - if anything, you're likely focusing on the 3/4 blip instead of the comparative timbres of MIDI and real strings.
So at the end of all this analysis, what does it any of it actually mean? At the beginning of this analysis, I asked to what extent political parties might try to brand themselves with a subtle yet ever-present musical identity. According to this particular ad, I think the Conservatives are definitely going for this idea. In AA', you have a jingle that gets repeated over and over - "Harper's Theme," if you will. In B, you get an entirely different musical idea, the "Conservative Party theme," if you would. It's clear that the party is trying to tie specific musical ideas to certain political ideas; these musical ideas serve to reinforce along another dimension (aural instead of visual) the fatherly notion of Harper being projected on screen. Who's to say whether it actually works in establishing a positive feel with voters who are tempted to like Harper but dislike the Conservative brand, but the fact that the Conservatives are trying this seems to at least be worth the effort.
In the end though, while the relationship between politics and music might be interesting, I can't help but notice that the final cadence of the musical score is one that reflects the overall feel I get from this soundtrack: an interesting concept, but ultimately, imperfect (I - V) with unresolved issues (like a leading tone as your last melody note...) worthy of more consideration.
Donc, la grosse nouvelle qui est sortie dans la communauté francophone dernièrement, c’est évidemment tout ce qui se passe avec la cause Caron, notamment le fait que le jugement a été livré. Pour emprunter l’expression de Radio-Canada, tout le monde en parle. Justement, moi aussi, je crois qu’il y a beaucoup de choses à dire au sujet de la cause Caron, mais ce que qui importe davantage, ce sont les choses que qu'il faut dire vis-à-vis la réaction que vit la communauté francophone en ce moment.
En fin de compte, on y voit un verdict qui serait, dit-on, favorable à la communauté francophone. Le juge Wendon trouve que la déclaration de 1869 était à caractère constitutionnel, et qu’elle est encore valide aujourd’hui. Malgré le fait que j’ai lu le jugement, je n’ai pas grand chose à dire à son sujet; je ne connais pas assez de façon approfondie le droit pour y livrer une critique qui m’y serait satisfaisante. Je dirai seulement que j’ai été surpris de voir à quel point l’établissement des faits historiques pour confirmer la présence et l’utilisation commune du français dans l’Ouest furent des enjeux importants pour le procès. Je m’attendais beaucoup plus à voir de l’analyse portée sur la justification historique ET contemporaine pour la décision que la proclamation de Décembre 1869 était et serait toujours à caractère constitutionnel; par comparaison au reste, cette portion me semblait relativement courte, malgré le fait que c’est probablement la justification la plus importante à donner dans tout le document. Étant donné son manque de développement (relatif), je crois d’ailleurs que c’est sur ce point que le gouvernement de l’Alberta jouera lorsqu’il déposera son appel.
Non, pour moi, ce qu’il y a d’intéressant et d’inquiétant dans l’histoire de la cause Caron, ce sont les réverbérations qu’on a vu passer dans la communauté francophone. En particulier, la cause Caron semble avoir pris une vie en soi-même, certes adjointe à la réalité francophone de l’Alberta, mais en même temps suffisamment détachée d’elle aussi.
Je m’explique. Parlons d’abord de ce que nous dit notre porte-parole provincial pour les affaires francophones, notre chère ACFA. Je crois que, sans le savoir, l’ACFA semble avoir perdu vue du point de contact entre la cause Caron et la réalité du fait français en Alberta. Sur quelle base affirme-je cela? Bien, regardons attentivement les messages, tant ouverts que sous-entendus, qui sont paradés par l’ACFA lors de ses conférences de presse et contenus dans ses communiqués.
À croire l’ACFA, la grande victoire de la cause Caron, c’est que ca oblige les “autres,” c’est-à-dire les gouvernements, les tribunaux, et ainsi de suite, de “reconnaître la légitimité du fait français en Alberta,” nous dit le communiqué de presse de l’ACFA. Jean Johnson, dans le Edmonton Journal du 3 juillet 2008, affirme que la "decision is a recognition of the francophone community, that they were [sic] here to found Western Canada". Le premier problème avec ces déclarations, c’est qu’elles passent carrément à côté de l’objectif central de la cause Caron. On peut bien se poser la question, à voir de telles déclarations, si on est allé en cour pour faire valoir nos droits, ou pour plutôt faire certifier une interprétation de l’histoire de l’ouest canadien par un juge.
Pire encore, par contre, ces déclarations semblent être fondées sur l’idée que la francophonie albertaine ait ipso facto besoin de reconnaissance externe avant d’être légitime. J’avance la notion que ce serait extrêmement grave que notre communauté pense de cette façon, qu’elle croit que sa propre légitimité culturelle dépendrait de si oui ou non le gouvernement albertain serait prêt à aussi la reconnaître. En suggérant que c’est avant tout la reconnaissance des cours qui entraîne la légitimité, soit elle politique, culturelle ou sociologique, ce que Monsieur Johnson est en train de nous dire, c’est que, sans cette appui, le peuple francophone est en manque de légitimité. Heureusement, au contraire, ce n’est point le cas. Comme l’avoue Jean Johnson dans le Journal, les francophones vivent en Alberta depuis 130 ans sans cette reconnaissance; je pose donc la question, agit-elle comme pré-requit pour le soutien ou même l’expansion du français en Alberta? Si on est là depuis 130 ans, et qu’on est encore plus forts et nombreux qu’on l’a jamais été par le passé, j’ai comme l’impression que la réponse est un non solide; de toute évidence, si cette reconnaissance était si cruciale pour la vie des francoalbertains, et qu’on en était privé pendant quatre, voire cinq ou six générations, elle ne doit pas être autant cruciale que l’affirme Jean Johnson. J’en conclu que ce n’est donc pas cette reconnaissance ou légitimité en soi qui a le potentiel d’apporter le plus grand impact sur nos communautés. Par contre, le plus triste de tout çe chari-bari de Jean Johnson, comme vous réalisez sans doute, c’est que quand on parle de l’importance de la reconnaissance pour la communauté francoalbertaine, on met implicitement de côté l’objectif central que notre communauté se donne. On transforme la question et mission fondamentale de notre communauté, soit « Comment peut-on assurer que les gens soient capables de vivre pleinement en français? » pour qu’elle devienne plutôt « Est-ce que la communauté a une bonne estime de soi? ». Vraiment, qu’est-ce qui est plus important ici? Mais qu’est-ce qu’on privilégie quand on parle avant tout de l’importance de la reconnaissance, et ça, la reconnaissance par des partis extérieurs? Suis-je le seul à trouver cela extrêmement nuisible et endommageant pour notre communauté que notre première réaction à une victoire lors de la cause Caron, c’est que ça exige aux autres qu’ils nous reconnaissent?
Mais donc, que faire, si la reconnaissance, ce n’est pas assez? J’avance que c’est plutôt ce qu’on fera de cette reconnaissance qui sera important pour déterminer notre cheminement culturel et social.
Se battre pour la reconnaissance au nom de la reconnaissance, je ne trouve ça guère plus rigoureux en termes de visionnement qu’un séparatiste québécois qui veut la souveraineté juste pour être souverain, sans distinguer dans son choix le processus et la raison d’être, ce pourquoi le plus fondamental de toute question politique. J’ose espérer que la reconnaissance sera pour nous une partie du processus par lequel on atteindra nos objectifs, et non pas l’objectif en soi. Ce qui importe vraiment dans toute cette histoire, ce n’est pas la reconnaissance externe de ce qu’on sait est vrai, mais plutôt l’offre éventuelle des services essentiels qui y sera rattachée pour nous permettre de vivre plus pleinement en français. De plus, ce qu’on devrait célébrer dans cette affaire, ce n'est pas la reconnaissance qu'on a supposément acquis à la fin du procès, c’est plutôt le fait qu’on a pu avoir un procès de 89 jours en français, avec un jugement en français, et la promesse que ce précédent permettra à d’autres de pouvoir accéder à la justice en français lorsque ce besoin existe. La pire gaffe à commettre serait de se parader comme champions avec notre reconnaissance primée sur notre plus beau carrosse métaphorique, sans savoir quoi faire de cette reconnaissance, à part organiser d’autres défilés pour la promener et la « faire valoir », comme un entraîneur et son bichon frisé gagnant lors d’une série de concours de dressage de chiens.
C’est drôle que personne ne parle des retombées concrètes du procès; le tout semble se jouer purement dans la symbolique de termes vaguement définis mais chèrement retenus (qu'est-ce que c'est au juste, la reconnaissance?). Certains diront sûrement que si les retombées concrètes n’ont pas encore été formulées, c’est parce que le procès vient de se terminer, il nous faut maintenant penser à ce qu’on veut comme retombées. Et voilà de nouveau l’erreur. En ne sachant guère ce qu’on désire obtenir en termes de droits et services, nous sommes toujours en mode “réactif”, n’étant jamais progressifs et identifiant nos besoins à l’avance, mais en attendant plutôt (de nouveau) l’approbation d’une cour avant de décider de nos résultats désirés. De toute évidence, nos besoins peuvent bien être pris avec le sérieux qu’ils reçoivent par les gouvernements locaux si c’est seulement après une victoire qu’on décide ce qu’on veut. Ca donne l’impression que les besoins se créent après une victoire juridique, et non que les besoins justifient, entre autre, la nécessité d’une victoire juridique, comme c’était autrefois le cas dans les années 1980. Quand les parents des années 1980 ont gagné devant les tribunaux pour avoir des écoles en français, ils ne parlaient pas du fait cette victoire agissait en tant que reconnaissance du fait français, on parlait du fait que Maurice-Lavallée était pour ouvrir ses portes bientôt, et que des enfants pourraient alors y être éduqués en français.
La différence entre ce qu’on a vu à ce moment et aujourd’hui ne pourrait guère être plus claire et distincte.
C’est bien beau de faire notre politique dans les tribunaux une fois de temps en temps quand on a et un objectif et une raison de croire que le système juridique peut nous aider, pour qu’ensuite on soit assurés du fait que notre but collectif soit clair, que nos désirs politiques se fassent valoir. Mais il ne faudrait pas juste s’y présenter pour jouer l’avocat du diable, en espérant que quelque chose, n’importe quoi, qui retomberait de l’affaire et qui nous aiderait ferait donc valoir du jeu sa chandelle. Jusqu’à maintenant, les seuls deux effets concrets dont on est certain, c’est que Gilles Caron gardera $54 de plus dans ses poches, et qu’il y a beaucoup d’anglophones qui sont en beau maudit contre nous, à comprendre le nombre de “gentils” appels l’ACFA a reçu suite à une interview que Jean Johnson a passée avec une station de radio anglaise cet après-midi. Et pensons-y, nous, jusqu’à maintenant, on ne fait que parler de symbolique, y’a pas un seul dollar de dépensé encore en concrétisation, et c’est ça la réaction qu’on voit. On a peut-être eu gain de cause, mais sommes-nous pour autant sortis gagnants? Pour l’instant, j’en doute.
Donc, que veut réellement dire la cause Caron pour nous aujourd’hui? Qu’est-ce qui va s’accomplir à partir d’elle? Quel effet est-ce que TOI, tu veux que ça ait dans ta vie, la cause Caron? Moi, je n’ai pas encore su répondre à toutes ces questions, c’est d’ailleurs pourquoi ma “joie” vis-à-vis la victoire a été plutôt nuancée. Maintenant j’espère que vous comprenez pourquoi.
As many of you might know, CBC.ca is my main news source for what's happening in Canada and around the world. A story was recently posted about military families using Facebook to communicate. One particular passage struck me as odd:
Samie Marchand-Whittle, whose husband is in the Canadian Forces, has closed public access to the Facebook page she maintains for military families.
"It's scary to know that they could find out personal information about our families, our children, where we live," said the Edmonton mother of two. "It is really scary."
Am I the only one who is perplexed by the phrasing of all this?? If Samie really is scared about... well, whatever she's scared about, the CBC sure isn't helping by putting half of what she's afraid the Taliban or whoever are going to find out right there in the open.
Je sais que ca fait quelque temps que je n’ai pas contribué d’article à la blogosphère. Je dis cela parce que, pour que je me force de le faire, c’est qu’il doit bien y avoir quelque chose qui m’intrigue ou qui m’agace au point de vouloir prendre quelques heures afin d’organiser mes idées à l’écrit. Heureusement pour mes lecteurs, le journaliste Graeme Hamilton a justement réussi à m’agacer, et pas à peu près. J’apprends aujourd’hui que, le 9 Novembre dernier, M. Hamilton a publié un article dans le National Post portant sur des réclamations par des groupes de promotion du français au Québec sur l’utilisation grammaticalement incorrecte du français par la compagnie Nintendo dans certains jeux vidéo récents, notamment The Legend of Zelda : Phantom Hourglass et Super Mario Galaxy. Les groupes réclament un usage parfait du français écrit dans ces jeux vidéo; malheureusement, ce que ces gens ne semblent pas réaliser, c’est que dans le contexte d’une oeuvre artistique, les principes de l’orthographe et de la grammaire française peuvent raisonnablement être oubliés dans le bon contexte pour acheminer des idées davantage importantes que l’orthographe elle-même.
Résumons premièrement « la crise » telle que décrite par l’Office québécois de la langue française et l’Impératif francais: des expressions d’un français dit « cassé » seraient utilisés dans les jeux vidéo mentionnés. Pour ces organismes, ceci constitut un problème parce que l’utilisation du français « cassé » serait une insulte à la langue française et au peuple Québécois. Voyons ce que Gérald Paquette, de l’OQLF, nous dit :
“We are telling the industry, we think you should use standard French rather than slang. We hope this is not a trend that all the little fellows that we see in Super Mario speak slang... We prefer that they speak a standard Quebec French. This is another point that insults Quebecers.... We've been for the last 20 years in the process of having French markedly predominant in the commercial signage... La malle is an expression that reflected the overall dominance of English in our commercial lives. At that time French speakers heard about mail, mail, mail and converted it into French as malle.”
Je vais plutôt avancer la théorie qu’un français cassé dans une oeuvre artistique n’insulte aucunement les Québécois, et qu’il ne pose aucun problème linguistique pour la société québécoise. Je n’oserai guère me lancer dans toute la question morphologique du français québécois, surtout parce que je crois que certaines autres personnes seraient bien plus capables d’en parler de façon compétente, mais je crois qu’il y a plusieurs arguments à avancer de ce côté aussi. Je dirai simplement pour ma part que le français cassé n’a pas été inventé par Nintendo.
Parlons premièrement de l’utilisation du français cassé dans les jeux vidéo mentionnés. À lire l’article, on aurait presque l’impression que les deux jeux présentent une surabondance d’exemples de français techniquement incorrect. C’est loin de la vérité. Afin de comprendre le contexte dans lequels ces imperfections seraient présentés, il est d’abord important de songer au fait que les mêmes jeux en anglais présentent également, et délibéramment, des imperfections grammaticales. Il faudrait donc rationaliser pourquoi les créateurs de jeux vidéo choisiraient, même en anglais, de ne pas respecter les conventions linguistiques.
Premièrement, il faut comprendre que les jeux vidéo d’aujourd’hui ne sont pas les créations de 1985. Depuis ce temps, la technologie a évolué, au point de pouvoir permettre que des histoires soient présentées par l’entremise d’un jeu vidéo. Dans ce sens, les jeux vidéo contemporains ne sont guère différents d’un film ou d’un roman: on y présente une histoire, soit pour divertir, ou pour livrer une critique sociale ou tout autre message. Comme dans un film ou dans une pièce de théâtre, on reconnaît des personnages qui ont leurs attraits individuels qui les définissent comme personnages dans le contexte fictif. Généralement, certaines caractéristiques les différencient les uns des autres; ceci s’aligne également avec la croyance sociale actuelle que l’individualité, c’est-à-dire l’ipséité de chacun, est quelque chose que l’on devrait valoriser. Et c’est vrai aussi, on valorise le fait que certaines personnes sont meilleurs cuisiniers que d’autres, que certaines sont moins grossières, ou tout autre paramètre inclut par les mots « qualité » ou « défaut ».
En anglais, Mario est bien connu pour sa façon de se présenter qui elle-même est grammaticalement incorrect. « Its-a-me, Mario! » dit-il si souvent, empruntant un accent qui suggérerait des origines linguistiques italiennes. Que fait-on d’un personnage, disons un marin, qui demanderait « Whatcha want? » plutôt que l’expression plus juste « what do you want? » La réponse ici indique exactement pourquoi, une fois traduits, ces mêmes jeux vidéos pourraient présenter, à l’occasion, un français cassé.
Mais qu’est-ce que tout ceci a à faire avec le français cassé dans les jeux vidéo? Les amateurs de jeux vidéo savent depuis longtemps que Nintendo tient comme principe de conception de jeux vidéo le fait que leurs personnages devraient généralement être présentés en tant que « muets, » c’est-à-dire que les personnages n’ont pas une voix doublée pour lire leur texte, mais que c’est plutôt au joueur d’inventer « la voix » des personnages qu’il ou elle rencontrerait. C’est comme si, par exemple, une série populaire de dessins animés choisissait de renvoyer leurs comédiens pour plutôt donner des bulles de texte pour faire « parler » leurs personnages, comme dans une bande dessinée. À cause de ce choix, les créateurs de jeux vidéos chez Nintendo n’ont pas recours à l’intonation vocale d’un personnage pour présenter son caractère, ses habitudes, etc. Ils doivent donc employer d’autres moyens pour communiquer l’essentiel du personnage au joueur, et comme ca adonne, dans quelque cas, le viol des normes linguistiques est parfaitement acceptable pour réaliser cela.
Qu’est-ce que ceci voudrait dire pour le français cassé, dont on se plaint actuellement? C’est simple: les créateurs cherchent à définir un accent, une identité distincte, quoi, pour un personnage en ignorant délibéremment des normes linguistiques. En créant un personnage qui parle de la malle à la place du courrier, le joueur peut mieux contextualiser ce personnage dans l’histoire; peut-être sa déficience linguistique est attribuable au fait qu’elle a grandi dans un milieu économiquement défavorisé ou n’a pas bien réussi à l’école, ou tout autre facteur. Peut-être une épellation incorrect d’un certain mot accentuerait une certaine origine ethnique ou linguistique d’un personnage, car ce personnage « prononcerait » à ce moment ce mot particulier à sa façon. Ne faisons pas d’erreur : les jeux vidéos, comme les romans, sont parfaitement capables de présenter des personnages d’une telle complexité. Prenons également l’autre extrême, où un personnage dans un jeu, disons un professeur d’une académie scientifique, « parlerait » un français excessivement correct, au point où ce serait peu naturel de retrouver quelqu’un qui parlerait (ou même écrirait!) vraiment comme cela dans nos rues; dans ce cas-ci, un tel choix accentuerait les capacités intellectuelles de ce personnage, tel que reconnu par sa structure exceptionnelle et son lexique de choix. Ce qu’on voit dans ce conflit entre Nintendo et les « représentants » de divers bureaux, c’est fondamentalement une question de la langue française qui se frotte contre le langage français, tout en ignorant que le personnage fictif ne possède que très peu d’autres moyens de présenter sa personalité. Dans ce contexte, c’est clairement cette individualité linguistique qui devrait l’emporter sur les normes sociales du français écrit.
Je dirais même que cette opinion est loin d’être une nouvelle proposition pour la société Québécoise. Il existe effectivement beaucoup de littérature classique pour appuyer cette idée. Le meilleur exemple serait sans doute Zone de Marcel Dubé, une pièce de théâtre que chaque étudiant du secondaire étudiant le français (langue première) au Canada entier étudie. Dans cette pièce, Dubé se sert de variations entre le langage de chacun des personnages afin de présenter les nombreuses différences entre Tarzan, Ciboulette, Ti-Cul et les autres; non seulement ca, le type de francais utilisé par un même personnage change de contexte en contexte. De cette façon, le langage de Tarzan devant sa gang est nettement différent du français qu’il présente aux policiers; l’intention de la part de Dubé est de démontrer le conflit interne de Tarzan, entre le chef de contrebandiers et l’homme éduqué. En regardant plus grand, les « eille », « moé » et « j’pense » sont courants à travers toute la pièce, et non, ces mots ne sont pas reconnus par l’Académie française. Zone est grandement considéré comme étant une des oeuvres pionières de la litérature Québécoise, et pourtant, ce que définit avant tout son identité Québécoise est l’utilisation d’un français moins que correct à travers toute la pièce. Tout ceci pour dire que l’usage d’un français incorrect n’est pas de facto un crime contre le français ou les Québécois; au contraire, on s’en sert pour représenter le caractère distinct du français Québecois dans le monde.
En somme, la question centrale est la suivante: est-ce qu’on devrait limiter les possibilités expressives de nos artistes par crainte que leurs actes représentent des viols de la grammaire et de l’orthographe? Absolument non. Il faut reconnaître que dans un contexte artistique, le viol de tels règlements n’est pas une atteinte à la langue, mais plutôt un méchanisme par lequel un/e auteur/e représente son personnage aux lecteurs, ou dans ce cas-ci, aux joueurs, et juge cette modification assez importante qu’on perdrait autrement une idée associée à ce personnage. De plus, si on veut que les jeux vidéos progressent comme médium socialement acceptable pour raconter une histoire, c’est essentiel de leur permettre la même marge de maneouvre que ce qu’on permet dans d’autres cercles d’expression artistique. Quand des officiers d’organismes comme l’OQLF disent à la population qu’ils ne permetteront pas que les jeux vidéos bénéficient de la même marge de manoeuvre artistique qu’un roman, ils rabaissent implicitement et injustement la valeur qu'ont les jeux vidéos pour nous livrer des histoires (et les critiques sociales qui les accompagnent souvent) dans notre société contemporaine. De crier le contraire est de continuer de reléguer les jeux vidéos avec d’autres arts couramment jugés d’avoir aucune valeur sociale positive.
Pour des gens qui se disent défenseurs de la langue française, je dois m’avouer bien déçu d’apprendre que la protection de la langue serait supposément plus important que la défense de la culture linguistique. Le français écrit dit « correct » a sa place dans notre société, ne faisons guère d’erreur sur cela, mais notons également les raisons qui nous pousseraient légitimement à dépasser ses bornes. L'orthographe et la grammaire sont seulement un ensemble de conventions sur comment représenter ses idées à l'écrit; le non-respect intentionnel de ces conventions est en soi-même un choix pour acheminer une idée qui représente quelque chose jugé non-conformiste, rien de plus.
Bref, si nos leaders linguistiques pouvaient eux-mêmes distinguer quand l’une ou l’autre forme de la langue est appropriée, ce serait sans doute plus facile pour le reste de la population d’en faire autant.
So I know I really havn't logged any entries whatsoever in the past four months. Oh well, I suppose nothing interesting has crossed paths with my life on a regular enough basis since then. But today, something did.
It was brought to my attention that a recent edition of eContact, a "quarterly online journal addresses a variety of themes related to electroacoustics," published by the Canadian Electroacoustic Community, featured an article that discussed one of my works. The article in question, a virtual soundwalk featuring prairie composers, was written by David Ogborn, a relatively well-known contributer to the Canadian electroacoustic music scene and recent U of T DMA grad.
Now, while I'm still getting used to the idea of having my work (in this case, Delusions of a Derelict Television, available on the site or in the right sidebar) mentioned, much less mentioned in the same article as Garth Hobden (who I took composition from this past term) and Laurie Radford (who left the U of A two years ago to take up a position at City University of London, UK), I do have to say that the most interesting result of all of this is one of strict artistic parameters. I suppose the implication that somebody I don't know likes my music enough to write about it somewhere is nice, but it's rather what has been written that's most interesting. In any case, Dr. Ogborn, writing about my piece:
One of the guiding threads running through Guillaume Laroche’s Delusions of a Derelict Television (created at the University of Alberta) is a rising and falling pitch theme that hovers delightfully on the edge of the categories ostinato and “ground bass” — too long and too internally varied to be an ostinato but too short and too insistent to be described in terms of theme and variations.
Now, here's where this gets interesting. I composed that piece. Never before, previously to reading this, had I listened to my piece in terms of the transformations of that small "rising and falling theme" that comes back. Knowing how I had constructed each part of the work, I listened for higher-order structures and transformations, because I knew they were there. The experience of dealing with an educated listener commenting on my work has put into perspective for me how to listen to, and ultimately, understand my own work differently. It's a difficult sensation to describe, because it's not as if somebody just came in and opened the curtains in a dark room. It's much more like having designed and built a house, then having someone take you on a helicopter tour and seeing your final work from a much different angle, one that you had considered simply a small and relatively mundane cell of a larger being, and have that magnified to represent the entire project. I'm not sure I like that interpretation, because with it the work becomes pretty boring with a minute or so remaining when the timbral variation just starts repeating (as part of a larger timbral structure I designed), but for what it's worth, it certainly is entertaining from that perspective for the first few minutes, and as such, I can see why people would choose to perceive it that way.
But here's the real kicker about the entire thing: what I designed as structural post-minimalism, Ogborn sees as the edge between ostinato and ground bass. It's this kind of thinking that really excites me about musical criticism, about how many different labels you can logically affix to a characteristic, and how context-sensitive each of these terms are. It really makes you realize how specific the study of musical analysis can be, and where the variety of interpretations can come from, depending on one's specific training in regards to musical context.
In the end, maybe the biggest joy of having others talk about your work isn't knowing they've discovered your music, but rather how you can rediscover your own afterwards.
Canadians never cease to amaze me with their ignorance. The more I look at various news sites' comments sections, the more I think there are much more serious issues in our nation than environmental policy or whatever issue is popular at that moment. Things like being able to think.
When did people become so blindly partisan as to forget their own affiliations' misdoings? When did people stop critically evaluating what a politician tells them? My political colours are well-known, but even I would recognize that, for the vast majority of the 13 years the Liberals spent in power, they did not adequately address the Kyoto protocol. However, I would stipulate that there are good reasons that Kyoto and/or climate change was not at the top of the agenda for 13 years. The first is that the Kyoto Protocol was initiated in late 1997, and that Canada didn't ratify it until five years later in December 2002; whether waiting/arguing about the Protocol for five years before ratification was a good thing is certainly debatable, but in any case, the government had no obligation to deal with Kyoto up until that time. The fact is, somehow painting that the Liberals did nothing for 13 years about Kyoto while including the period before Kyoto even existed with hardly anyone noticing blows my mind.
Furthermore, this same "13 years" argument seems to imply that all of today's issues were also issues back in 1993, which is absolute nonsense. Prior to the year 2000, hardly anyone had heard of the issue of global warming; it really only became an issue in Canadian society in the lead-up to the treaty ratification. How does it come about that evaluations of the year 1997 are carried out from the year 2007's terms without alarm bells going off for these active, politically-inclined citizens? If politicians were not addressing this issue in 1997, the Canadian population has only itself to blame for not being as active on it then as it is now; governments, for better or for worse, rarely address "unimportant" (read: little-known) issues of the day, for fear of being perceived as ineffective against the woes of modern society.
But back to the main question: when and how did Canadians become so subservient to the media and/or politicians and/or parties that a healthy dose of critical reflection is now nowhere to be seen, or, when spotted, immediately branded "partisan politics" from another party and immediately dismissed? Perhaps I'm naive, but I tend to think the analysis from the above two paragraphs links political activities (and lack thereof) to the trends of the day in what I would call a non-partisan manner.
I suppose the deeper thing that's troubling me is why political participation in society is even a worthwhile activity if most politically-inclined people can't be bothered to stop and reflect on any message in an honest and critical manner before expressing an opinion.
Question: Where does one go for contemporary analysis of the various relations that gaming music and remix culture holds within society?
Answer: To my recently published website recently published on the Lancaster University servers. I recently published it. Having some traffic would be nice, so check it out. You might even find something you find funny, or particularly remarkable.
Musical psychology just keeps getting more and more interesting every week. Witness today's lesson, where we explored the idea of "musical personality", ie, the traits that musicians tend to display in significantly higher or lower proportions than the general population. Basic methodology includes administering personality tests based on Cattell's Sixteen Personality Factor Model in groups of musicians and "the general population". In short though, compared to the general population in a thorough study by Anthony Kemp, adult musicians are more:
intelligent
introverted
independent
sensitive
anxious
androgynous
If you've ever sought a definition of what it means to be "musical", there it is, from a psychological perspective. So that's cool. I can now make legitimate claims that musicians are smarter than other people; now, it's not that I couldn't make such claims before, it's just that lacked the concrete, peer-reviewed evidence. I generally agree with this list of items if you take musicians as a whole, despite believing that individuals have some departures from this general list (such variation would be normal). The one that kind of gets me is that musicians are more androgynous (ie, we tend to blur male-female traditional stereotypes) is a particularly interesting one to note. Of particular interest in this field is that, given personality testing has determined that women more often seek to control other people's actions than men do in the general population (or, to appease those feminists out there, are possibly more often conscious of the fact that they are attempting to manipulate others), and given that female musicians are considerably less likely to exhibit this behaviour compared to their general population counterparts... then maybe it's safe to say that the aristocrats of the 17th, 18th and early 19th century Europe were on to something when they kept instructing women in the art of music, claiming that women were required to learn such skills because "women just did that". It's interesting to note that, as soon as this tradition dies out in the late 19th century, it doesn't take long for the feminism ball to get rolling... Now, I'm not saying that causation here is beyond a reasonable doubt, but it's certainly a noteworthy correlation to consider; on the practical side, men could potentially have modern applications from this model for common social gain (ie, having more women performing music, of course a very good thing!).
However, as interesting as musicians vs. the general population is, what's even more interesting is subcategories of musicians pitting up against themselves. We've all heard of those stereotypical designations of certain instrumentalists; flautists going to band camp in particular have been given a rough time since American Pie came out. However, wit and jokes is all fun and games, but unfortunately for brass players, scientific fact is harder to root out. Because you see, compared to other musicians, in the same study by Kemp, brass players were found to be statistically significantly less intelligent and less self-sufficient than their keyboard-, string- and woodwind-playing musical comrades, who were respectively found to be more sensitive and more intelligent, more introverted, and more self-sufficient. The best news in all of this though, is the study done of composers vs. performers. Compared to both their performance instruments and musicians in general, composers were found to be signicantly more "musical" in all aspects - ie, more intelligent, introverted, independent, etc.
Why is this good? Because now, as a composer-pianist-musician, I can make legitimate-ish scientific-ish claims of being near the top of the social/musical intelligence ladders. While I'm sure the prospect of me being near the top of the musical ladder will cause some people significant distress, I find I'm quite happy just to sit back and enjoy this innate blessing. Amen.
