Know Your Music: Tempo Rubato as a Persuasive Technique

Posted on May 4, 2010 by

When you lay on a couch and listen to Chopin, you’re bound to notice something very specific. One of the things that makes a Chopin piano piece is the lingering resonance and/or the quick succession of certain notes or phrases. There’s a technical term for that. It’s called “tempo rubato.” (If you’re burning to hear an example, try Martha Argerich’s performance of Nocturne No. 16 in E Flat, Op 55, No. 2.)

I would suggest (and I do) that tempo rubato is a rhetorical technique within the form of musical performance. It is a style meant to express improvisation and feeling. . . pathos. By speeding up, we are hurried through the piece and by slowing down we are forced to contemplate that musical phrase. Like any good romantic period piece, it emotes and manipulates. Tempo rubato manipulates its audiences into feeling differently than if the piece were kept in strict time.

I know, I know–you may be asking yourself why this is important. Why does it matter what it’s called as long as it’s effective, right? Well, I guess I’m kind of a music geek (I did minor in it), but the effect that music has on our current society is undeniable. Don’t you think?

How many musicians have benefited from Apple commercials using their songs (The Ting Tings, Yael Naim, CSS, Prototypes, etc.) or car/alcohol/sports commercials (Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Young Dubliners, etc):

(Which, I am a fan of Spread Your Love by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. It’s definitely a driving-in-your-car-feeling-bad-ass song.)

Music is used to add to other persuasive forms/arguments/compositions, yes. It’s used in movies, tv, commercials, grocery stores, department stores, etc., etc., but music also has its own persuasive techniques within itself. I once learned in some music class which I can’t pin down that what most people were drawn to most of the time was the use contrast and repetition. That’s why songs on the Top 40 lists follow the same basic format: Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Chorus.

This is where tempo rubato comes in. This technique is used to offer that contrast which maintains a person’s interest while repeating a phrase that we’ve already heard. It draws us in because there is familiarity and keeps us there because there are slight changes. It persuades us to keep listening.

National Poetry Month

Posted on April 3, 2010 by

"Creepy Magnetic Poetry (Healing Words)" by MousyBoyWithGlasses', flickr

It’s April and that means poetry. Since 1996 April has been recognized as the National Poetry Month in the US. You see, here at Harlot, we believe that the production of frabjous rhetoric is just as important as the analysis of that rhetoric. So, that’s where the creative writing spectrum comes in and, right now, poetry. In honor of NPM, I would like to challenge y’all.

1. I’m going to challenge your conception of what and where poetry comes from by sharing this link from io9.com with you. The article, “Poet Encodes His Masterwork In Bacterial DNA,” explains one writer’s attempt to form a real, actually-makes-some-sense poem from nucleotides, and proteins, and other things I haven’t studied in years. Super-duper cool!

2. Harlot is about creating and being aware of our own rhetoric just a much as it’s an analysis of others’ rhetoric, and with that in mind, I challenge you to write me a poem. Write whatever you like–subject matter is not for me to decide–and address it to Kaitlin at harlot.osu@gmail.com. I’ll draw you a pretty picture or write a note back. This is just for fun and for me to read all y’all’s frabjous poetry skills, so I don’t want to hear any excuses about feelings of inadequacy and self-consciousness. This is an opportunity to practice, create, and exercise your own persuasive rhetoric. (Of course, the more unique the tactic of creation, the more creative response you’ll get. 🙂

Can you rise to the challenge?

Leading me on?

Posted on March 25, 2010 by

Before I condemn the BBC for severe lack of tact, I thought it best to run it past you all first to see if I’m way off base. Check out the picture chosen to accompany an article on the US military changing it policy on “don’t ask don’t tell.”

Are we being lead to believe that these two military men are holding hands? My guess is that their arms simply appear aligned from the perspective of camera; cropping out the hands at the bottom helps cement this view.

So why this picture? Why are we being lead to associate this policy change with open-hand holding amongst military personnel? How does this picture help frame the article’s message and how we interpret the policy itself?

Right now I’m more than a bit disgusted with such a maneuver, which seems beneath such a respectable organization like the BBC. This is something we might expect from FOX, but c’mon–the BBC?!

Super bowl backlash

Posted on February 12, 2010 by Kate

We all know this year’s Superbowl commercials displayed a less-than-shocking theme of masculinity under attack by women/harpies–and men’s resulting desperate need to bolster it through muscle cars and micro-televisions:

Does anyone else find it kind of heartening that even the ad-men think that such versions of gender roles are making their “last stand” — and acknowledging implicitly that they’ll fall like General Custer? (Of course, they’re probably relying on another problematic subtext: it’s just a battle lost, not the war. Though that might be giving them too much credit for self-consciousness.)

It’s been great fun to have the rampant sexism in advertising called out in the mainstream media (Slate, the Times, even USA Today— especially in light of studies suggesting how unsuccessful these ads were. And I’m ready to enjoy the potential for wittier and far cheaper responses:

I dig certain parts of this: “I will make $.75 for every dollar you make doing the same job…I will catch you staring at my breasts but pretend not to notice…” In some ways, I can see that it’s pointing out how the assumptions behind these duties are equally ridiculous. Those accepted by the men in the Dodge commercial are, for the most part, basic measures of maturity (“I will shave… I will be at work… I will sit through meetings”) undertaken not as a man but as reluctant partner (“I will take your calls”?!). But the spoof’s duties suggest that what women do for the sake of their men is not about basic hygiene, but self-subjugation: “I will diet, Botox, and wax–everything… I will allow you to cheat on me with younger women”?! Hmmm. If this spoof is looking to encourage identification among women, then depending on such assumed “duties” is disconcerting. And if it’s trying to challenge the sexism of the original, isn’t falling back on superficial standards counterproductive?

I’m not sure. I’m happy to see some talk-back to those ads, and can only hope we see more discussion as a result.

In the meantime, I leave you with SNL’s hilarious take on the powers of a Dodge to recuperate the male ego:

Re: Are Poets Bad Motherfuckers?

Posted on January 27, 2010 by

That’s what Olena Kalytiak Davis asked when she blogged for the Poetry Foundation last September. So, are poets bad motherfuckers? Are they different from anybody else? Call me an optimist, but I think we all have our “poetry.” We all have our thing that we are intrinsically interested and invested in. And by that definition, rhetoricians are bad motherfuckers too. We’re all bad motherfuckers. As long as we invest ourselves in exploring the things that truly interest us, hell, geek out on those things, then we are some bad motherfuckers.

But poetry specifically. Let’s talk about that. Olena (oh yes, I’m going with the first name [attribute it to being a bad motherf______–my mother doesn’t like it when I say that word]) asks in her post, “are we living our lives differently? better? or are we just making stupid poetry ‘moves’?.”

Is it not those “stupid poetry moves” that contain the persuasiveness of poetry? James Longenbach writes in his book, The Resistance To Poetry:

[T]he marginality of poetry is in many ways the source of its power, a power contingent on poetry’s capacity to resist itself more strenuously than it is resisted by the culture at large.

Throughout this entire book, Longenbach emphasizes that the audience of poetry interacts with that particular genre because we find enjoyment in the challenge. Yes, poetry can be difficult, but, to quote Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own, “the hard is what makes it great.” (Heck yeah, I just dropped an eighteen year old movie reference on you.)

So, aren’t those poetry moves absolutely pertinent to poetry? If poets stopped choosing to persuade their audience in the way that they do, then, at that moment, wouldn’t they stop being bad motherfuckers?

Buffy the Twilight Slayer

Posted on January 3, 2010 by Kate

I’m still working on that digital media syllabus, so… playing around on YouTube. (Work is hard.) And there I stumbled upon this little gem from artist-activist Jonathan McIntosh:

It made me so happy, for a couple of reasons:

As a longtime Buffy fan (not to mention feminist), I can’t get on board with the Twilight phenomenon. Last year a student of mine wrote a rhetorical analysis of the first novel. She choose the text because although she really enjoyed the books, she felt kind of uncomfortable about the idealized relationship between Edward and Bella. And rightfully so: Her astute analysis finally led her to the conclusion that Edward fits the Harvard psychological profile of an abusiver stalker, and that Meyer’s version of love and abstinence disempowers her predominantly young, female fan base. (For more, see Christine Seifert’s “Bite Me (or Don’t)” or Anita Sarkeesian’s “The Real Reason Guys Should Hate Twilight,” among innumerable others.) This remix does a great job, I think, of humorously highlighting just those problems–and the comparative awesomeness of Buffy.

From another angle, I can’t wait to use more of McIntosh’s work in the classroom. The digital media course, which I’m centering around narrative genre(s), has me thinking a lot about fair use, remix, and how everyday composers can engage in public conversations about the texts that affect them and their culture. And this sleek, smart, and legal film works to demonstrate how effective and fun such rhetorical narratives can be.

For more from McIntosh about this remix, see his guest blog post on WIMN’s Voices. And definitely check out his other works at Rebellious Pixels.

Transparency in photography

Posted on December 3, 2009 by Kate

There’s a fascinating piece in the NY Times today — “Point, Shoot, Retouch and Label?” by Steven Erlanger –about French politician Valerie Boyer’s draft of a law requiring advertisements to carry a label if they contain images that have been digitally retouched. This is not a new discussion; publishing associations in the UK and elsewhere have talked about voluntary reform. Check out the consistently smart coverage in Jezebel. But it may be the first to push a law.

The article focuses on the issue of women’s body images and the dangers of falsified ideals, documenting various approaches to this debate, from hopes that “such a label might sensitize people to the fakery involved in most of the advertising images with which they’re bludgeoned” to the threat that “such a law would destroy photographic art.”

In this vein, a fashion photographer is quoted pointing out that all photography is a representation of reality through a lens that excludes as well as captures. Very smart and valid… but is this the generally accepted view that fashion magazine readers share? Based on a sample of my self, friends, students, sister, cousins…. No. However naively, most women still “buy” these false images.

An editor at Marie Claire declares the labels unnecessary because “Our readers are not idiots … Of course they’re all retouched.” You’ve got to almost admire her bravado, and the move to convince her readers with a magazine that so clearly respects their intelligence… I guess I’m an idiot, then, since despite my rhetorical training, I’d still love to be informed.

Check out Marie Claire’s edited editors:

Photoshop Disasters: Marie Claire

At least, in the meantime, we have such wonderful sources as Jezebel and Photoshop Disasters and Photoshop of Horrors, and of course fun on YouTube:

CANDYGRAM at your door!

Posted on November 10, 2009 by

If you’re in the Columbus area and looking to exercise your literary rhetorical mind, check out CANDYGRAM. The first issue kicks off with a release party Saturday, November 14th at Skylab and includes work from Harlot‘s own reviewer, Dave Gibbs. [Insert apology for the flagrant bragging of the Harlot Consortium. But seriously, they’re pure awesomeness.]

For more info (you know, addresses etc) the press release is listed below. Enjoy this tasty treat!

—————————————————————————-

For Immediate Release:

Skylab Gallery is proud to present new work from Columbus based
visual, performance and sound artist Dan Olsen!

Opening on Saturday November 14th and running through the 30th, the
new show is entitled “New Age Dang Brains / Slow Hall Slow Oats /
Bummer Healing” and includes 30+ drawings, videos, sounds and
installation. Olsen’s work is complex, psychedelic and seems to come
directly from his melding stream of consciousness. This show deals
with “shallowness, purposelessness, meaninglessness and spiritual
depletion” and will run the gamut of Olsen’s work. The opening
includes a live performance.

Olsen has exhibited work at Chop Chop Gallery in Columbus, the Toledo
Art Museum, Artscape Festival in Baltimore, ROY G BIV Gallery in
Columbus, Skylab and the Shelf in Columbus, and Van Gallery in
Columbus. His short film, “Homeslice”, was selected in the 2007 San
Francisco Short Film Festival, 2007 Wexner Short Film Showcase, and
published in the Journal of Short Film VOL. 12.

For more information and a beautiful sampling of some of Olsen’s work,
visit his website – www.danzodanzo.com.

The same evening, November 14th –
CenacleHousePublications, Skylab and the Shelf Gallery are also proud
to present the official release of CANDYGRAM! The new literary and
fine art journal showcases over 30 Columbus based writers and artists,
including Eva Ball, John Malta, Micheal O’Shaughnessy
James Payne, John Also Bennett, Mike Wright, and John Stommel. The
night will feature musical performances from Cursillistas
(California), Buckets of Bile (Brooklyn), and a few surprise local
acts in between. Artwork will be on display from those featured in the
journal, as well as a special literary installation. Come out and
support a new forum of writing and art unparalleled in Columbus!

Lantern Article about CANDYGRAM –
http://www.thelantern.com/arts/osu-student-to-publish-literary-journal-1.793542.

For more information about CANDYGRAM, email Shannon Byers at
candygramjournal@gmail.com.

Both Events to begin at 7 PM, running through 1 AM.
There is a $5 Suggested donation for the CANDYGRAM release.

Skylab Gallery and the Shelf are located at

57 East Gay Street in Downtown Columbus, OH.

Visit www.myspace.com/skylabgallery for more information, or become
our fan on Facebook!

iParticpate/iEmulate?

Posted on October 23, 2009 by Kate

I just heard about this project, iParticipate, in which The Entertainment Industry Foundation (some kind of celebrity charity group with all kinds of causes) is promoting volunteering and public service via sitcoms:

This multi-year campaign, called “iParticipate,” hopes to make service a part of who we are as Americans and show what we can achieve when we all pull together.As a centerpiece for this initiative, EIF has enlisted major broadcast networks including, ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC, for an unprecedented, week-long television event beginning Monday, October 19. Tune in to seven days and nights of television and watch how your favorite TV shows and personalities shine a light on the power of community service.

I’d love to see this, and am pretty pissed that I never got that digital converter thing before I canceled the cable this summer. I’d just love to see how they pitch it — and how/whether audiences are going to be invited not just to passively sit and watch other characters volunteer (between commercials), but get off the couch and do so themselves. At least the video pitch seems to be keeping the stakes low: “anything, something, whatever… can change the world.” It’s silly, but I have to admire the effort and wonder at the faith in audience responsivity to such ploys. (Not to be cynical; I’m sure they’re very well-meaning… and the networks are getting some nice promotion along with the ego/ethos-boost.)

These promos and public service announcements seem to fit nicely in conversation with Jessie Blackburn’s smart new piece in Issue 3: “The Irony of YouTube: Politicking Cool”… and remind me why I keep pushing my students to look at how authors construct their audiences, the assumptions made about the appeals that will be most effective to certain demographics. (I have a feeling someones should be offended…) I guess for the sake of volunteer organizations around the country, we can only hope they’re right…. but I’m ambivalent at best.

Has anyone seen these episodes? Rhetorical hi-jinks to report?

Trading iPods

Posted on September 25, 2009 by

To continue on my music-is-a-form-of-communication rant, I recommend you read and/or listen to this short piece by Andre Codrescu.

In this piece, he describes listening to his wife’s ipod after his dies and the world that opens up to him after doing so. I like the potential of this. I like the thought that our choices of what to put on our ipod communicates our lives to other people and that those choices impact their lives as well. Call me idealistic, but I find it a beautiful concept.

Harlot

A revealing look at the arts of persuasion

Category Archives: Arts & Entertainment