MAC Reading Wk1 Creative Commons and Girl Talk

Years of grueling piano practice and lessons under abusive instructors left a nasty taste in mouth. I gained a valuable understanding of how music is read, and I understand how to read it, although not fluently. The artist GirlTalk has made me change the way that I think about music. Because of his story, I believe that with enough practice using the tools on my laptop, I, too, may create bits of musical genius that ebb and flow through the genres that produced the soundtrack of my life.

I first heard GirlTalk when I tuned into a local radio station one Sunday night a couple of years ago. I was delighted to hear Fugazi’s Waiting Room bass line under the lyrics of Rhianna’s Rude Boy. I assumed the DJ was local until recently a friend burned me a copy of his album “All Day”. I quickly recognized the mix that I’d cranked so loudly in the car years before. I searched the Internet to find out more about him and ran across the documentary several months ago. I was amazed

The evolution of copyright into the Remix generation hasn’t effected me horribly, however, I have been paying attention. One of my most favorite discoveries on the Internet before starting my Educational Media Design and Technology Master’s program at Full Sail University was the discovery of a sweet little network of torrent hosts. These sweet little packets of media files located all over the virtual world were available to download for free with ease at my convenience. I no longer had to fear that the government would track my IP address and embarrass me in public and shameful court procedures for having a copy of my friends’ cd’s in my iTunes account. But my computer soon fell victim to a deadly virus that eventually retired my machine.

Creative Commons has created an outlet that offers a more open environment conducive to sharing. Artists have more freedom and agility with their creative practices. I love remembering my teenaged years listening to Black Sabbath, and admittedly, Ludacris almost always makes me nod my head in rhythm as I drive. But listening to GirlTalk’s mash up of “War Pigs and Move Bitch” not only makes my whole body happy, but also seems to make the traffic so much easier to deal with. It’s this ability of taking the classic and evolving it into a new expression that should be protected and respected.