Convergence of Popular and Classical Music in the Works of the Piano Guys
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects CUNY Graduate Center 9-2020 Mashing through the Conventions: Convergence of Popular and Classical Music in the Works of The Piano Guys Alina Kiryayeva The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4046 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] MASHING THROUGH THE CONVENTIONS: CONVERGENCE OF POPULAR AND CLASSICAL MUSIC IN THE WORKS OF THE PIANO GUYS BY ALINA KIRYAYEVA A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts, The City University of New York 2020 © 2020 ALINA KIRYAYEVA All Rights Reserved ii Mashing through the Conventions: Convergence of Popular and Classical Music in the Works of The Piano Guys by Alina Kiryayeva This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Music in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts. Date David Grubbs Chair of Examining Committee Date Norman Carey Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Mark Spicer, advisor Eliot Bates, first reader Sylvia Kahan, supervisory committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT Mashing through the Conventions: Convergence of Popular and Classical Music in the Works of The Piano Guys by Alina Kiryayeva Advisor: Mark Spicer This dissertation is dedicated to examining the symbiosis between popular music and Western classical music in classical/popular mashups––a new style within the classical crossover genre. The research features the works of The Piano Guys, a contemporary ensemble that combines classical crossover characteristics and the techniques from modern sample-based styles to reconceptualize and reuse classical and popular works. This fusion demonstrates a new approach to presenting multi-genre works, forming a separate musical and cultural niche for this creative practice. This dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter is further divided into two thematic discourses: genre and authorship. The research draws on Eric Drott’s (2013) position that contemporary genre definition is a heterogeneous product of technological and cultural shifts in creation, production and presentation of music. Following Thomas Johnson’s (2018) research on genre in post-millennial popular music, the first part of the chapter traces chronological developments of genre categorizations and attempts to place classical/popular mashups as a separate style within the contemporary genre framework. The second part investigates the transformations and the current state of authorship attributions in popular music and illustrates iv how group creativity and consumer participation prompt multiple authorial distributions in classical/popular mashups. Applying Topic Theory established by Robert Hatten (1985) and Kofi Agawu (1992) and concepts of intertexuality developed by Serge Lacasse (2000, 2018) to the works of The Piano Guys and other musical works of the same style, the second chapter presents a comparative analysis, revealing a multi-layered structure of signification different from the intertextual and topical relationships found in the works of other styles. In the third chapter the detailed exploration of three works by The Piano Guys places these methodological theories in dialogue with formal analysis to draw out a series of quantifiable technical, musical and interpretive characteristics that differentiate “classically originated” mashups from similar practices in other genres. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my advisor, Mark Spicer, who has been a continuous source of support, motivation and inspiration. I am deeply grateful for his generosity in sharing his knowledge and his time, his limitless patience, invaluable advice and professional guidance. I am immensely grateful to Eliot Bates, for his perceptive feedback for revising this dissertation and for his ideas for future research. Additionally, I am very thankful to David Grubbs for his insightful comments and suggestions that helped me shape my research. I am also grateful to Sylvia Kahan for her invaluable professional input to this work. I thank Norman Carey whose support and mentorship during my years at The Graduate Center has made it possible for me to finish this journey. I am deeply indebted to him for his guidance, his understanding and advisement that greatly influenced my professional decisions. I would also like to thank Jackie Martelle for her infinite patience, unwavering kindness and an uncanny ability to give the right advice when I needed it most. Special thanks to my friend and colleague Terry Barber for sharing his extensive knowledge of popular music, for his practical advice and ingenious suggestions. And, finally, I would like to thank my husband Denis Gostev for ideas that inspired the topic of this dissertation, for helping me to clarify my concepts, for continuous encouragement and indefatigable belief that I can do this work. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................. IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... VI TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................. VII LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ........................................................................................................ IX INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1: INHERENT MULTIPLICITY AND AMBIGUITY OF GENRE IN CLASSICAL/POPULAR WORKS ................................................................................................ 9 1. The State of Genre .............................................................................................................. 9 I. Western Art Music in opposition to popular culture ..................................................... 20 II. Crossover ...................................................................................................................... 25 III. Classical crossover ...................................................................................................... 29 IV. The Piano Guys—genre and style .............................................................................. 36 V. The concept of covering ............................................................................................... 45 VI. Mashups—“a kaleidoscope of generic multiplicity” .................................................. 49 VII. Background/foreground redistributions in classical/popular mashups ..................... 51 VIII. Video significance in genre formation and distribution........................................... 54 2. Authorship and Authority in the Works of Configurable Musicians ................................ 61 I. Western classical legacy—a historically stabilized concept ......................................... 62 II. Authorship binaries—evolution and regression ........................................................... 66 III. Artistic validation—classical, popular, and in-between ............................................. 69 IV. Legal perspectives ...................................................................................................... 75 V. Sociopolitical side of authorship .................................................................................. 78 VI. From producers to consumers ..................................................................................... 80 CHAPTER 2: INTERTEXTUAL RELATIONSHIPS IN TPG’S MASHUPS ............................ 82 1. The Troping of Topics ...................................................................................................... 82 I. Applications of topics in classical and popular music ................................................... 82 II. Topics in classical/popular mashups ............................................................................ 86 2. Intertextuality .................................................................................................................... 95 I. Stylistic and strategic intertextuality ............................................................................. 98 II. Polyphonography ....................................................................................................... 101 III. Transphonography .................................................................................................... 106 IV. Transvocalization and transmetrification ................................................................. 111 V. Metatextual relationships ........................................................................................... 114 VI. Audio texts and YouTube audio limitations ............................................................. 116 CHAPTER 3: THREE ANALYSES .......................................................................................... 118 1. “Hello/Lacrimosa” .........................................................................................................