I'm a big fan of poetry, off the top of my head some of ones who's poetry I enjoy the most are; Dante Alighieri, Edgar Allen Poe, Octavio Paz, T.S. Eliot, Matsuo Basho, Robert Frost, Federico Garcia Lorca, William Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, Nazim Hikmet, Charles Bukowski, William Blake, Dylan Thomas, Homer, Li Po.
Thoughts about Violence and Pain plauge the conscious
there isn't any change or thought of precaution
Only the music and instincts function
Feel the warm grip, the thoughtless demented thoughts drip
With a smile in his face he potrays no remorse
He came to the intersection and chose none of the roads
As I'm here, subjected to his actions with no chance to stop this
Tomorrow scapegoats will be brought to the forefront rather than the thoughtless
That's a poem I wrote, I could stay here and write a long post about this poem, discussing it and what not but I'd rather not. It has a concept, if you read it carefuly it's actually pretty easy to grasp. I wrote it from the prespective of something that you could say has a big impact on the outcome of some cases that sometimes are used as examples when discussing the influence of music on the human consciousness. I hope that some of the people that read it (even if it isn't many) get what the poem is about, if you don't then I will gladly expand on it and break it down.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Uh-oh it happened again it was actually a few weeks ago and I don't know who has paid attention to this story but I have for a while. I've been tracking this story because I feel it's the perfect example to bring up and to present concerning this blog. Here in America we might have seen it various times, they're are highly covered by the media but after a while when it gets boring or there's isn't anymore shock value to it they move on. It's about a school shooting that happened it Tuusula, Finland one of the first of it's kind in that country.
The school shooter Pekka-Eric Auvine shot and killed nine people including himself in his High School. The reason I bring this up is that once again like always some people are putting music under fire after this terrible crime. Before commiting the massacre Auvine has posted several videos on Youtube hinting about him going through with the shooting. Many of those videos showed him firing handguns, various videos showing or involving death. Before actually going to school and openening fire Auvine created a new alias called sturmgeit 89 (meaning storm spirit in German) posted a video named Jokela High School Massacre, were it is accompined by Industrial Rock Band KMFDM's song "Stray Bullet." The High School is shown then dissapears, in the background appears a picture of the school shooter in a red screen pointing a gun at the screen. The song by KMFDM had also been used by Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were they quoted some of their lyrics. Now once again KMFDM has come under critisizim for having their music once again connected to a violent crime.
Besides KMFDM another band STURMGEIST from Germany has also been blamed for what occured because they shared the same name that the school shooter decided to use to post his video before the shooting. Frontman of STURMGEIST, Cornelius von Jackhelln has responded to these allegations saying "Understandably, journalists keep calling me, eager to prove a link between my band and the massacre. However, as an artist, I can neither control the actions of my fans nor be held responsible for them." This statement right here might be the voice of every other artist in the world, their job is to write and perform music not to be looking over each of their fans to see if they're about to go out and do something of this caliber. Jackhelln would go on to say "Knowing the boundary between fiction and reality was always a prerequisite for dealing with dark matters in music, literature, film and video games. It seems obvious that the Tuusula murderer was ignorant about this boundary."
If that doesn't open some eyes and some minds that maybe what these artists are doing aren't what's causing all of these terrible events, then we might as well keep our eyes blind and our minds locked.
The school shooter Pekka-Eric Auvine shot and killed nine people including himself in his High School. The reason I bring this up is that once again like always some people are putting music under fire after this terrible crime. Before commiting the massacre Auvine has posted several videos on Youtube hinting about him going through with the shooting. Many of those videos showed him firing handguns, various videos showing or involving death. Before actually going to school and openening fire Auvine created a new alias called sturmgeit 89 (meaning storm spirit in German) posted a video named Jokela High School Massacre, were it is accompined by Industrial Rock Band KMFDM's song "Stray Bullet." The High School is shown then dissapears, in the background appears a picture of the school shooter in a red screen pointing a gun at the screen. The song by KMFDM had also been used by Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were they quoted some of their lyrics. Now once again KMFDM has come under critisizim for having their music once again connected to a violent crime.
Besides KMFDM another band STURMGEIST from Germany has also been blamed for what occured because they shared the same name that the school shooter decided to use to post his video before the shooting. Frontman of STURMGEIST, Cornelius von Jackhelln has responded to these allegations saying "Understandably, journalists keep calling me, eager to prove a link between my band and the massacre. However, as an artist, I can neither control the actions of my fans nor be held responsible for them." This statement right here might be the voice of every other artist in the world, their job is to write and perform music not to be looking over each of their fans to see if they're about to go out and do something of this caliber. Jackhelln would go on to say "Knowing the boundary between fiction and reality was always a prerequisite for dealing with dark matters in music, literature, film and video games. It seems obvious that the Tuusula murderer was ignorant about this boundary."
If that doesn't open some eyes and some minds that maybe what these artists are doing aren't what's causing all of these terrible events, then we might as well keep our eyes blind and our minds locked.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Came to The Fork In The Middle Of The Road And Went.....?
Throughout this blog I have firmly stood by my thoughs of my subject and while there have been somethings revealed and sought out by me there are still many other people out there claiming different thoughts and with the knowledge to back it up. Whether it's how music is postitive or negative on our minds, emotions, actions and sense of right and wrong there are debatable arguments out there that have legitimate points for both sides. I have wanted to read these opinions because no matter how hard your standing up for your thoughts there are still things out there that might shed a new prespective on things you thought you already knew.
Don Robertson a songwriter and composer posted in his website dovesong.com his thoughts about the positive effects of music on people. "A happy song might appear to make an angry person angrier, yet it is not the music itself that is creating the anger; rather it is the positive effect of the music. The angry person does not want to accept the song’s happy feeling: it points out his already existing anger, and makes that anger come to the surface." Now if we analyze that comment and put it in context into how it might affect a person and stimulate their thoughts than that is indeed true. If the Actual song is not affecting him rather than he is affecting himself than how would that imply to negative music. If the song is negative would the person accept it and became even angrier to the point of actually carrying out these angry thoughts on a whim, like so many people claim. If a song that has a good positive message is helping someone tame that anger and helps them become calm and happy but the person is wants to maintain his angry attitude than that's on them, not the music.
Now the negative effects apparently should be much more easier to decipher a person listens to a negative song and takes the song to heart and decideds to do something negative caused by the music, right? Alfred Ubiora on nigeriaworld.com says: "Those musicians that churn out vile lyrics as well as their recording companies should begin to understand that to whom much is given, much is expected. While no one is calling for regulation of free speech or legislation of morality, they must understand that as role models, albeit reluctant ones, they have a social responsibility to watch what they say, wear and do." Granted that is also a great point that affects this topic. If many of the people being affected by this so called "negative" music are looking up to these artists as role models and taking every word they say to heart or even to the point that what these artists affects them in a severe way than why shouldn't the artists be responsible. First of all it's not an artists fault if a kid decides to shoot up a person or break into a house because they listened to their music, if someone actually does something like that than they have other things going on other than music affecting their actions.
In the end there's always to sides to every story even if you think you've heard them all than be on the lookout for the third. It's not easy to come to the fork in the middle of the road and choose one road or the other the same goes for this topic but it's up to everybody to research and find out the most they can before coming to conclusions, no matter where one stands with this topic it's easy to say it's thought provoking nonetheless.
Don Robertson a songwriter and composer posted in his website dovesong.com his thoughts about the positive effects of music on people. "A happy song might appear to make an angry person angrier, yet it is not the music itself that is creating the anger; rather it is the positive effect of the music. The angry person does not want to accept the song’s happy feeling: it points out his already existing anger, and makes that anger come to the surface." Now if we analyze that comment and put it in context into how it might affect a person and stimulate their thoughts than that is indeed true. If the Actual song is not affecting him rather than he is affecting himself than how would that imply to negative music. If the song is negative would the person accept it and became even angrier to the point of actually carrying out these angry thoughts on a whim, like so many people claim. If a song that has a good positive message is helping someone tame that anger and helps them become calm and happy but the person is wants to maintain his angry attitude than that's on them, not the music.
Now the negative effects apparently should be much more easier to decipher a person listens to a negative song and takes the song to heart and decideds to do something negative caused by the music, right? Alfred Ubiora on nigeriaworld.com says: "Those musicians that churn out vile lyrics as well as their recording companies should begin to understand that to whom much is given, much is expected. While no one is calling for regulation of free speech or legislation of morality, they must understand that as role models, albeit reluctant ones, they have a social responsibility to watch what they say, wear and do." Granted that is also a great point that affects this topic. If many of the people being affected by this so called "negative" music are looking up to these artists as role models and taking every word they say to heart or even to the point that what these artists affects them in a severe way than why shouldn't the artists be responsible. First of all it's not an artists fault if a kid decides to shoot up a person or break into a house because they listened to their music, if someone actually does something like that than they have other things going on other than music affecting their actions.
In the end there's always to sides to every story even if you think you've heard them all than be on the lookout for the third. It's not easy to come to the fork in the middle of the road and choose one road or the other the same goes for this topic but it's up to everybody to research and find out the most they can before coming to conclusions, no matter where one stands with this topic it's easy to say it's thought provoking nonetheless.
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