User talk:Eld2y

The collaborative concert between the Kelzmer ensemble and Socalled, the Canadian Rapper, didn’t disappoint. It turned out to be an eclectic mix of traditional Jewish music and modern day hip-hop and rap. The Kelzmer group played several traditional Jewish songs and was backed up by Socalled on the accordion. Socalled played and sang several traditional songs on the piano and then returned to the rest of the group to perform some of his original songs made up of a mix of traditional Yiddish melodies with hip-hop and funk beats in the background. Instead of singing traditional Yiddish lyrics however, Socalled rapped overtop the melody and beat creating a truly unique performance, blending two genres that would likely never be mentioned in the same sentence. In my opinion, the truly exceptional part of the concert was not the rapping or the Kelzmer ensemble but Socalled’s live use of a sampler. In order to add a hip hop beat to the background of the Yiddish melody Socalled used an electronic sampler which had various funk and hip-hop beats/sounds recorded on it and then mixed these live to create the background rhythm and ultimately a dynamic performance experience. Speaking as a DJ with a good understanding of how difficult it is to perform live with a Hardware sampler, I can express a true appreciation and gratitude for Socalled’s mixing skills and say that he was truly exceptional. His ability to mix and match individual sounds to create an engaging beat on the fly was phenomenal, and something that I would imagine was overlooked by many of the audience members. Much of the techniques and sounds that Socalled used can be compared to many of the historical technosonic techniques and sounds we have encountered throughout technosonic history. The majority of Socalled’s performance, largely reliant on sampled sounds ,dates back to the origins of sampling in the 1950’s when it was pioneered by Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry in a studio in France, clipping tapes and pasting them together to form new musical pieces. Socalled took this to the modern level sampling from various records, a technique highly in tune with the concepts and methods used by John Oswald to create his album “Plunderphonics” which used entirely sampled voice and sound from previously recorded albums. With regards to the performance and production process I found the concert and Socalled’s techniques to be analogous to those of the Luk Thung music in Thailand, which merged relatively unrelated sounds to create a unique genre. Specifically the Artist Poopmpuang Duangjun merged country music and lyrics with a heavy beat and strings in the background, much like Socalled merged Hip hop and funk with the traditional Yiddish melodies. Socalled also used the technique of incorporating the audience into the performance much as the MICE ensemble has done in many of its previous performances such as “Money Mice.” Socalled Mic-ed the audience and got them to sing “na,na,nanananana…” at different intervals throughout the song making the audience an integral part of the piece. Overall the concert was an engaging and enjoyable technosonic experience. It successfully blended classical music sounds with a fresh new feel of hip hop and funk which kept the concert engaging and exciting. The live technique of beat sampling on top of the Yiddish melodies worked far better than I could have ever expected. It added an energizing modern feel to what most others would consider an otherwise relatively bland and limited music style. On top of this, the seemingly random yet highly entertaining lyrics rapped by Socalled over the melody and beat added another dimension to the performance that kept it vibrant and interesting. Socalled and the Klezmer ensemble achieved a new level of musical composition and diversity that was a fun and refreshing experience, one I would highly recommend to anyone.