[00:00:10]
>> Well come that soon the book launched in concert performing music opus that pipe that sort of off wonder we're really happy that you've decided to join us today my name is Catherine Nancy and I'm the public programming library and well for their I do I'd like to pass the days of out on to my colleague and library and Charlie Bennett Miller everybody I am delighted to be introducing Professor Phil the last winter he is part of the faculty at Georgia Tech in the school of literature media and communicated where he has taught courses in drama performance studies rock music film acting and radio and I still have my beat up copy of the theater and it's double from one of his performances classes from I won't tell you how long ago 1st or last winter's area research is performance and it relates to music media Knology and arts is a scholar of performance and performer himself having acted on station until his website I suggest that you check out his i.m.d.b. entry and I suggest that also we're delighted to have him presenting with us accelerating his most recent publication in concert reforming musical persona from the University of Michigan press which delves into the way that musicians perform both their music and themselves.

[00:01:38]
That might not be exactly the right summary of it but we have Professor us later here to really tell him to go and I'm delighted to say that this is the 2nd time I'm hearing him talk about his book because he was on Lost in the sex research library rock n roll radio show most recent episode which you can check out after this episode.

[00:01:59]
I will be president of we taking some notes and will be ready to help you all get your questions to him after the presentation so without further ado Professor Slater the screen is yours. Thank you and thanks to everybody Catherine Charlie everybody at the Georgia Tech library who helped make this possible.

[00:02:24]
So this book is part of a larger research project that goes back close to 20 years at this point and really came from my interest in bringing together 2 of the things that I'm most passionate about one of them being music primarily as a fan and the other being performance as both a fan and a performer and what I discovered in terms of my academic life is that people who are interested in theatre and performance studies we're talking about musicians as performers and on the other side musicologists and people like that weren't really doing so either and so my goal in all of this was to kind of create a dialogue through edge people on both sides those interested in performance and those interested in music could could find a common common ground on which to discuss musicians as performance.

[00:03:22]
And for me the 1st question that really drives this all thing is if musicians high performers which clearly they are then what kind of performers are they and this is where the concept of musical persona that's at the heart of this book I was from. We probably don't usually think of musicians as engaged in characterization the way we think of actors but I would also say that it's probably a mistake to just assume that when we see a musician perform we are simply seeing them being themselves performing music so for example the musicologist Peter Johnson describes the difference between the classical pianist Alfred Brendel as identities onstage in Austin he says the unassuming figure of Alfred Brendel is transformed into the magisterial pianist as his fingers touch the he's but the man returns as he quietly acknowledges the applause I'd like to show you just a little bit of Alfred Brendel.

[00:06:03]
For. Where he just sits still with his hands still over the keys and that's the moment of transition that's where he's moving out of his role as what Johnson called magisterial Fiennes and reassume his role as Alfred Brendel the human being who Johnson describes as unassuming as opposed to magisterial Johnson compares the musician to an actor but he doesn't suggest a brand else persona is to be thought of as a fictional role such as an actor would play the magisterial pianist that he is when he's playing is just as much a real person as the unassuming man that years when he's not playing both their identities Brendel assumes under different circumstances.

[00:07:31]
I use the term musical persona to describe the identity Brandow performs onstage and I also argue that all musicians were dressed as persona in one way or another Michael Jackson dramatize this idea and the process of persona construction and routine he would perform frequently in concert before launching into the song Billie Jean and I would like to share that with you now.

[00:08:13]
Thank our. Going and. Going and. Going. Gotta spend a little time watching Michael Jackson dance so in this routine Jackson dressed in a Billy White t. shirt athletic pants I think captures walks onstage sometimes meandering leads on the ice purposefully carrying it all the least after placing the police on a high stool he opens it and started removing items from it beginning with a sequined black shirt which he puts on followed by a single sequin like glove which he wriggles on to his hand finally he removes from the valise a black Fred Astaire style Fedora you just Abram dusted off walks around with it but doesn't put it on his head until he is walked across the stage to a microphone on a stand in a single spotlight the moment when he puts his hand on his head breaks the pose that begins the Billie Jean choreography is the moment when his transformation from Michael Jackson the human being into Michael Jackson the musical persona is complete and the concert could begin so what I love about this is that Michael Jackson shows you the construction of his musical persona you know you demonstrate he does it in front of you and he comes on stage.

[00:11:11]
You know very different guys he doesn't even move like the way he walks he doesn't even move like Michael Jackson right and then he sort of transforms himself into Michael Jackson through the elements of costume and a progressive change in how he holds himself and how he moves until by the time he's in the spotlight puts the hat on his head he's fully transformed into Michael Jackson the musical persona I have identified 3 layers of performance in which musicians engage the real person that is the performer as a human being the performance persona the version of the performance we see on stage and I've given you 2 examples of that Alf Brendel and Michael Jackson and the character in the clip I just played we see Michael Jackson transform himself from his identity as Michael Jackson the human being into Michael Jackson the persona once he starts singing Billie Jean he also becomes a character who is speaking through the song's lyrics are these 3 layers musical persona is the most important one because it's the interface between the performer and the audience the 1st out of the also identity that musicians generally perform whenever they are publicly visible onstage or ostrich for example the Beatles performed their identities as charming boyish and mischievous in press conferences and interviews as much as they did in their concerts.

[00:12:44]
Admittedly the line between persona and character is not always clear Ziggy Stardust was both a character and some of they would go a songs and the persona he assumed while performing those and other songs creating complexity in ambiguity is also true that the line between real person and the musical persona is not always clear so the line between persona and character is not always clear and the line between real person and persona is not always clear especially in a musical context such as the singer songwriter's honor of the 1970 s. as exemplified by James Taylor and Joni Mitchell Where there is a desire to believe that the person we see on stage is identical with the artist as a private person and that the songs are in some measure autobiographical or confessional all this notwithstanding the vocabulary a real person musical persona and so on character provides a way of describing and analyzing multiple elements of perform music all identities and their injury lation ships in both clear cut and more ambiguous cases.

[00:13:46]
Now one of the key points for me is that musical persona has a direct relationship to musical genre I mean it's of I mean this this much is obvious right rock musicians simply do not look or act like classical musicians who do not look or act like jazz musicians and so on and even with Engineer as there are distinctions so psychedelic rockers do not look and act like glam rock or who do not look at act like punk rockers etc musical genres and subs are as defined the most basic and important sets of conventions and expectations within which music musicians and their audiences function Joris can and do overlap and musicians draw on genres of that their own in their performances for example **** Jagger who of course is a rocker is said to have derived much of his movement style from Tina Turner so ours Jara conventions change over time and never have the force of absolute rules nevertheless they are crucially important to performers in constructing their performance personae to audiences interpret ing and responding to them and to both in creating and maintaining a sense of musical identity and community self I argue that at any point in time there is a normative persona for a given musical genre that serves of the point of reference for the musicians who perform in that genre which can be different from the normative persona for the same genre at a different point in time for example in the 1920 s. the archetype of her son a on which most country music performers based their individual persona was the hillbilly in fact country music was called hillbilly music at this time and the slide is of an early group called the hillbillies.

[00:15:32]
Between 135140 the model for the country music persona transformed gradually from the hillbilly to the cowboy due in large part to Gene Autry's popularity as a singing cowboy in Hollywood films an image taken up by country artists ready to move away from the hillbilly image the something more dignified and respectable the existence of a normative persona does not mean that all musicians necessarily have to adhere to it they may choose to adopt it or resist a critique or challenge it or change it to their own performances as did Roy Acuff a key figure in country music in the 1930 s. and forty's when he refused to portray a cowboy saying there is nothing cowboy about me to illustrate further what I mean by a normative persona we can look at the singer songwriter's honor I mentioned a moment ago as Ken Tucker describes it quote the music produced by such artists as James Taylor Joni Mitchell and Carole King.

[00:16:30]
Was intimate confessional and personal music with precise that my autobiographical lyrics and moderate amplification and quote the normative persona for this genre at this time reveal the connection between the singer songwriter and the 2nd wave urban folk mood music movement that had preceded by a decade as represented in the early 1960 s. by figures such as Joan Baez and Bob Bell the b.b.c. television programme in concert recently present a live studio performances by singer songwriters in the early 1970 s. providing good material for wishes of Elvis sense of the genres normative persona in keeping with the intimate and personal aspect of the music the program was produced in a club like setting with a relatively small seated audience that remained very quiet and intently focused on the performers applauding at the end of songs at the start of well known numbers to express recognition based on observations made from watching concert performances by James Taylor the Leon Bill weathers Gordon Lightfoot Joni Mitchell and Carole King on this same b.b.c. programme I offer the following generalizations concerning the normative persona in the singer songwriter's are in terms of appearance the singer songwriter is informally but neatly addressed a bit more toward the preppy side than the hippie side even Neil Young wears a brown sports jacket on the program perhaps coincidentally both Joni Mitchell and Carole can wear feminine pink floor length dresses for the most part the singer songwriter appears as a single seated figure playing an acoustic instrument Gordon Lightfoot and Joey Mitchell both actually stand up with their place of their partial exception.

[00:18:10]
What other musicians are present sometimes playing electric instruments as is the case for Carole King Gordon Lightfoot and Bill Withers they remain discretely to the side even in semi darkness to keep the focus on the individual figure sharing his or her personal thoughts in no way are we invited to perceive the figures gather on stage as musical groups or bands they are clearly presented as solo artists with backup singers songwriters generally modest and self-effacing in manner it's a jar a characterized by low theatricality in performance most of these performers play their songs while looking down with closed eyes which will occasionally cut past a sidelong glance at her audience they barely move although Carole King was a bit more ardent at her performance style than the others does bounce on her piano bench they tend to lean into their vocal microphones as if whispering in a listener's ear Taylor does not look at his audience even when they are applauding him though he does face them when speaking between songs the style the tone of stage talk in the singer songwriter genre is conversational and friendly the talk itself consist largely of what ethnomusicologist John Beal calls song formulations designed to guide the listeners understanding of the songs to statements about their meanings and the circumstances of their composition of all these musicians were certainly not compelled to perform in a certain way a remarkable unity of presentation emerges from looking at enough such performances to be able to identify a normative persona for this genre.

[00:19:45]
Even though I emphasize the normative dimensions of persona in relation to daughter I'm not suggesting that musical personae are necessarily rigid or static though they can be there is a continuum from types of musical performance in which the musicians personify strongly mandated because they are built into the conventions of a particular genre those Symphony players are members of marching bands would be examples the types in which musicians have a great deal of freedom to construct their persona this is a little cartoon that appeared in The New York Times a number of years ago that sort of shows you the rules governing the appearance of classical musicians which are different for the regular season the summer season in the park matinee performances and evening performances so this is a case in which the musicians have no freedom in terms of their presentation at least visual presentation.

[00:20:41]
I'll course you know everything about rock or something like that the musicians have much greater freedom but in no case is the musician in a position to construct a persona entirely autonomously persona always negotiated between musicians and their audiences within the constraints of genre. Performers in any genre music may find for example that audiences expect them to continue to do some version of what they seemingly have always done when and how quickly a performance persona may evolve if at all and in what directions are subject to delicate negotiations with the audience this calculation can result in anything from a temporary setback to the end of a performing career though the performers only alternative often is to freeze a popular persona in the hope of retaining the loyalty of its original audience this can also come about unintentionally So for example some people have said that control over David Bowie's persona Ziggy Stardust persona was subsumed by the audience and the market he became so identified with Ziggy Stardust they became a prisoner of the image he himself had created.

[00:21:48]
But some musical performers find ways of letting their persona change successfully over time compare the Beatles in 1963 when they were essentially a very talented boy band with the Beatles in 1968 this is actually 67 when they were recognized as countercultural avatars I mentioned earlier as I mentioned earlier during the era of Beatle mania in the mid 1960 s. the Beatles had a collective identity of a cheerful user friendly slightly irreverent boy that each Beatle had his own individual persona but all of their persona had to harmonize with this group aspect by $967.00 however the Beatles group or sun had morphed into that of a psychedelic rock band plugged into the counter cultural ethos of the time at both moments each individual Beatles persona was articulated to the group whereas in the might not mean 1960 s. bands dubbed Paul McCartney the cute Beatle John Lennon the smart Beatle George Harrison the quiet Beatle and Ringo Starr the funny b. all their individual identities shifted in relations to the relation to the group's overall persona in Richard Avedon canonical portrait photographs of 167 originally published in Look magazine in the United States and other magazines in the United Kingdom and Europe then disseminated widely as posters Ringo is shown with a dove in his hand suggesting his commitment to the peace and love dimension of the caricature a persona he maintains to this day while John Lennon is presented with spirals for eyes perhaps indicating his engagement with psychedelia and the drug culture Paul appears as a flower child in pastel blues surrounded by blooms and the portrait of George emphasizes his mysticism.

[00:23:32]
A parallel development in another musical realm might be the career of John Coltrane who emerged as a highly respected hard working post pop tenor saxophonist in the 1950 s. but later transformed himself into a spiritual seeker exploring the psyche and the cosmos through demanding dissonant music in both of his case and that of the Beatles the changes of persona were dramatic yet there was an audience prepared to accept the performers and each guy's I would also say the thing about these 2 cases that the transformation went much more smoothly for the Beatles than for John Coltrane because the music that he was making in this in this latter phase was so difficult and so dissonant that a lot of the people and critics who had it mired in previous to that were very displeased the Beach Boys By contrast it's have to descend transformation as the Beatles from teen heartthrob to countercultural evidences but were able to achieve credibility within the counter culture in the 2nd half of the 1960 s. It wasn't until the early 1970 s. that the Beach Boys achieved credibility with the hippie audience they did this by using the strategy of authenticity by association in 171 the Beach Boys shared a bill with the Grateful Dead at the Fillmore East in New York City and the 2 groups performed together on stage there after the Beach Boys would mention their association with the dead to their audiences whenever possible finally giving them an intimate with an audience they had cultivated unsuccessfully for a number of years.

[00:25:05]
In the book I explore many other dimensions of musical persona and genre contacts that include rock jazz laptop and electronic music blues and country I discuss the importance of visual information to musical experience particularly musicians gestures and facial expressions questions that arise when musicians perform in more than one genre the audience is role in creating musical personae instrumentalist relationships their instruments and many other things I present case studies and examples of musicians ranging from Miles Davis either been Darrius rock or Glenn Gould and Jefferson Airplane to Laurie Anderson b.b. King Lady Gaga and the even OS at this point I'd like to end this formal presentation in favor of dialogue with you thank you thank you very much Professor.

[00:26:05]
I have a bunch of questions for you but I'd like to remind the audience 1st you negotiate if you have a bar in you or your interfaces are putting in questions I'll be the meeting or some of those questions but I would love to see stuff that you all want to talk about.

[00:26:24]
So Professor the 1st question. It is about the audience and authenticity there seems to be an almost a warning to us as audience members for musical acts to not believe in authenticity as just a single force or to understand that we are influencing the musicians and the musicians are telling us what they want to tell us any talk about authenticity and maybe how you were idea of it changed as you move through research for the book.

[00:26:57]
Well yeah I mean often especially in popular music although certainly not exclusively because there are lots of discussions around authenticity in classical music also which are a bit little bit different I think in tone and the ones in popular music but certainly in popular music authenticity is a huge topic.

[00:27:16]
My basic tape is that going back again to my offices undrawn are a context that what matters is the way in which authenticity what counts as authentic within any given genre context right and the idea that audiences will will buy into a persona as authentic. If enough of the conventions for authenticity are preserved even if it's clear that something you know authentic in a different sense is going on so for example in the book I talk about Keith Urban right now traditionally authentic country music identity means that you are American that you're from the South from a working class background and so on but we all know that there are many country musicians including some very famous ones who don't have that kind of background right and Keith Urban is a good example of that since he's originally from New Zealand and grew up in Australia but of course you know as a country music artist he assumes all the trappings you know where the cowboy hat cetera and when he sings The sings an American accent so he sounds like country singer and American accent was sort of southern flank to it.

[00:28:37]
And so you know what's interesting about that is that his his willingness to do that to to observe the conventions of country music authenticity makes him authentic in the eyes of his audience that yes he gets the audience to buy into that. And so I think I think for me that's what authenticity is it's ultimately an agreement between the audience and the performer that if you present yourself in certain ways you know we will we will buy that we will accept that as an authentic persona within this context and of course what counts as authentic from one general context to another is very different.

[00:29:18]
So you know the kind of very low key presentation that's necessary in the context of the singer songwriter's are that I was talking about is totally different from what counts as up and there within the lab rock. Jar about which I wrote an earlier book. Where everything is very theatrical very overstated very over the top right so.

[00:29:42]
A glam rock persona would not count as authentic in the context of singer songwriter and the singer songwriter burst out o. a knockout as authentic in the context. And so the so it's all what what what counts as authentic is is contractual rights context specific and it also made does have to do with a transaction between the performer and how they choose to present themselves within that got the x. and the audience.

[00:30:11]
I see them getting some questions or. Even a bar follow before we get to those. Normative it's all about their shyness or normative personae. Are those are those conceptual or are they very superficial you were talking about you know sort of the movements. The singer songwriters were engaged in you know looking down.

[00:30:37]
But it just it doesn't become more about. Your particular musicians version of a larger concepts or is it very much in their sort of actions an outfit on the day performance not entirely sure I understand the distinction. I can try again do you feel like the normative qualities of the musical person Ace can they be reduced to or are sort of.

[00:31:10]
Concepts 2nd be sort of explained separate from the musicians or is it very much about how the audience is seen in each individual musician at the moment of their performance well I guess given that choice I would say the latter right that it that the persona always arises from the interaction between the performer and the audience I mean I think if I understand what you're asking correctly which I may not be.

[00:31:44]
You know there's sort of an interesting question as to how a normative persona comes into being right I mean how it is that there's such great consistency in presentation across the members of his r. And I you know I think that's a that's a complicated question it also goes back to the other equally complicated question of how musical genres come it's right.

[00:32:08]
And I think that's the kind of question that in some ways has to be addressed on a case by case basis because I mean for example while studying glam rock for instance glam rock isn't a lot of ways a very you know organic or r. I mean it was basically created by 2 people.

[00:32:27]
David Bowie and Marc ball of T.-Rex in the very early 1970 s. in England. And then you know it kind of snowballed from there I mean the good news is that it's quite easy to construct a narrative of how glad I came into being. But at the same time it's not as if there was some you know musical community or other kind of community from which it gave rise it really was the work of these 2 people who are seeking an alternative coming out of the late 1960 s. to psychedelia and psychedelic rock and try to move things in a different direction and so they somewhat in tandem started to experiment certain ways and then that snowballed over the course of the 1st half of the 1970 s. to other artists who kind of you know took up aspects of this and etc So that's a case where the.

[00:33:21]
Daughter itself and the kind of persona associated with it and to a certain extent in glam rock the genre is really defined by those personae more than anything else. That's a case where you know it's it's as I said sort of you know organic it's really the in the specific invention of a couple of people whereas I don't think probably the singer.

[00:33:43]
Songwriter drama involved in anything like that way I think it would be a much more out of sort of a community of like minded musicians who had one foot in the folk movement or folk music of an earlier time but Sarah so I I really not sure that that kind of question can be answered as a generalization I think you probably really need to look at the tickler cases and see how these evolutions play out.

[00:34:10]
I think as a much more thoughtful answer my question was appreciate. Let's go inside the human a the audience you know. Do you see having a persona that can be carried through our performance career as something that can give the art longevity. Well yes and no. I mean again it does kind of does kind of depend on the case right there Ok let's talk about the Beatles if the Beatles had maintained the same group and individual personae you know that they enacted in from 163 through 66 if they had kept doing that after 66 their career would not have been black would not have lasted they would not have had longevity right because those personae were fine for the early sixty's they were sort of in touch with certain aspects of anglo american culture of not just a global culture but you know after 166 or around 166 that really ceased to be the case I mean there is this kind of irony in the Beatles career that in 1066 when they were still doing concerts they were still presenting themselves and playing the kind of music that they had been playing in 1064 and 5 Meanwhile the records they were making were moving in totally different musical directions you know much more experimental so there was this really sharp distinction between what they were doing in the studio as musicians in terms of you know innovating new new sounds and ideas and what they were doing onstage which was still what they had been doing on stage in 1962 or 3 essentially right but in terms of persona if they had insisted on maintaining those early sixty's persona into persona into the late sixty's that now that that would that would have that would have been their demise because those persona and that idea of what a group is was simply not in touch with the cultural changes that had occurred in the 2nd half and I think sixty's right so yeah that would be an example where maintaining that original persona would not have been a good strategy in terms of career longevity whereas you know for other are some other artists I probably as Bruce Springsteen is probably a good example.

[00:36:25]
Have performed a very consistent kind of persona you know the moment that he. Started to become famous and he's maintained it ever since and it is a key element to his longevity as ours though again I'm sorry you keep saying this but it's kind of case by case you know.

[00:36:42]
We have another question which talks about Motown artists. In the book are sick she screams who were always clearly presenting a black respectability persona. What do you think of this genre of performance that so clearly connects his social status pressures etc. I'm not what do I think of it well I mean what I think is that actually I appreciate the question because what I think is sort of related to what I was just saying that you know the development or evolution of musical persona does not occur in a vacuum.

[00:37:24]
It occurs in the context of larger social pressures and larger social movements. I actually have a chart in the book which is one of the my sort of earliest sketching was of what I was trying to figure out in which the musical performance has frames around that right and the outermost frame is that frame of the social of what's going on in the larger world of which the musical performance is a part and to which it always inevitably has a relationship.

[00:38:00]
So you know I don't have I'm not going to say that I think what happened in Motown was good or bad or whatever but I would say that you know the sort of aspirational persona that those are is presented you know wasn't was not happening in a vacuum right it was it was related in a particular way to larger social issues of the time and a particular perspective on those issues.

[00:38:28]
Unfortunately do not really talk about Motown the book I'm sorry to say all right. The question I'm interested in challenging your transgressor performers and the personae they use to confront the audience. Most in rock music but certainly jazz musicians have a history of presenting incredibly challenging discordant music as you mentioned John Coltrane.

[00:38:52]
Change become a phenomenon of the transgressive or is really just aggressive musical person and they're back to the audience. The effect on the audience Well yeah that's interesting and actually I would say probably 2 different things contrasting rock and jazz in this case but I've actually been doing some some looking into the Jazz phenomena that you describe which is this kind of overt antagonism on the part of resistance particularly like stage Charlie Mingus.

[00:39:29]
I mean he's the he's the best example of that and then there's another you know not so much antagonism as in difference so for example Bill Evans the pianist if you watch performances by the Bill Evans Trio I mean all 3 of them they act as if basically as if the audience isn't isn't present at all they don't acknowledge the audience in any way I mean at the at the end of a piece when the audience applause Bill Evans will sort of turn his head about this much.

[00:39:59]
And that's it that's the degree of acknowledgement of audience that he will provide and Miles Davis was sort of maybe somewhere in between the 2 in terms of indifference and aggression. There is research I not my research but I've been reading it that basically associates that particular form regression with a deep distrust of the audience.

[00:40:24]
And a feeling that the audience fundamentally does not understand what we as artists are trying to. And that's the relationship to audience that's constructed through that I don't think it's necessarily the same in Iraq though because I think that I don't think it's necessarily the case that very aggressive rock musicians I'm sorry you know Alice Cooper comes to mind who is somewhere I have written about.

[00:40:50]
I b C's sort of a starting point for a lot of other things. But. I don't think that he necessarily are artists to engage in that kind of aggression necessarily are doing so in the belief that. Their audience fundamentally doesn't understand what they're trying to do right it may be an act just the opposite and likewise on the audience side you know you know to me a lot of what I'm talking about has to do as I said with a kind of a kind of buy in right so it sort of well of course.

[00:41:27]
Can't talk about Scooter like this anymore because he's too old but you know if you want to see how Hooper 970 and he didn't spit at you you know or Johnny Rotten right I mean if they suddenly were nice and engaging you'd be very disappointed as a fan or as an audience member because that's that's the persona that's what you expect to see when you see that that that performer so I think there are potentially 2 different things going on you know one in which sort of opposites really want in which the aggressive performance.

[00:41:59]
Up to a certain point I mean I think that's a difference we aggressively in transgress right I mean aggressive may be expected of a certain kind of reform or certain performers but if if if things go far enough then it becomes transgressive although exactly where that line is crossed is a little hard to say.

[00:42:20]
But at least it's just in terms of talking about aggression that in the case of Iraq aggressive rock musicians I think that's kind of expected of them right now sort of that sort of the norm in a sense for particular subject or as a rock whereas in jazz it does seem to be fairly solid evidence that the musicians felt just felt.

[00:42:42]
That the you know the audience was coming to see them for the wrong reasons it was the wrong audience they didn't really trust and they didn't really think they knew it what was going on. Which is a whole different situation. I find it very interesting that idea of the sort of expected aggression leading up to a line that then becomes transcription freshens or some are going to go see.

[00:43:06]
Who's dead but when he's performing so much c.g.i. if he did not. Bro his own feces at the crowd and an attack and was you know this sort of horrific day here that was. The expectation broken. David Yeah with the Jesus which would often get naked leaders in the crowd and that was sort of expected and so the line of transgressions kind of moves around based on the persona based on sort of the the actions that have preceded those performances as well as a variation of Delano that might have a little bit.

[00:43:52]
But the question from the audience what are your thoughts about the at home performances and they are sewn up or performer personae and performers we have seen since last March Well I mean I've seen some of that I can't say that I've fully immersed myself in it I do think that I think what's you know on the one hand any any kind of performance whether it's at home or on a stage whether it's you know on a You Tube or you know live with an audience present I mean any of those kinds of situations provides a good opportunity for the presentation a persona you know I presumably for the most part musicians are simply going to try to do things that are fairly consistent sort of as we've been so what we've been talking about with what their audiences expect from that said I do think that.

[00:44:47]
They add home performance at least in some cases not all I mean at home means a lot of different things on these things so I've seen a bunch of these things that were at home but were done in the musician's home studio practice ground or by Quitman or microphones you know etc which is still really a professional context.

[00:45:09]
On the other hand is wonderful video I know it's still around of Steve Winwood and his cottage somewhere banging away an upright piano with his back to the camera which gives you much more of a sense of I'm I'm getting a glimpse into this person's real life we're getting a glimpse of you know what I call the real person in my mind 3 part division of the performer I think to a large extent that I don't want to be a loser a bit staged as an inevitable.

[00:45:40]
But I do think that at least potentially. We may be allowed to feel we may come to feel that we're now we're getting more of a glimpse of the person behind the persona than than in most cars in most concert situations most performers situation again I wouldn't be I wouldn't be want to say that that's what's really happening but it may have sort of an affectation that I think that goes hand in hand with the use of some some performers have made of social media also which has kind of the same effect of giving us the sense that we can get closer to those people who are communicate with them more directly than in the past through social media and certain people like Lady Gaga for example have been very masterful in their use of social media as a way of engaging their audience again I'm I'm not sure that we're really getting closer to the real person but it may it may produce the feeling that.

[00:46:41]
You're making me think of. The rise of the you to the musical star people who have never been dating for recovery performing shoestring and they were sort of separate from the music industry and now the music industry is starting to attach to You Tube performance or using what has been built already this idea that you can perform and how you know with the background like this and it is still.

[00:47:10]
Useful authentic for vibrant performance. Yeah yeah if the if you thought of that please go. Well I talked about a little bit about some that in one chapter in the book I mean it's it's you know from it's not not completely up to date but I mean for a while Justin Bieber was sort of the poster boy for the right because he was a You Tube artist before he became the you know the phenomenon that we know today but what interested me about it was precisely that.

[00:47:42]
It did require the gatekeepers a mechanism of the existing music industry to get him past being a You Tube are as to being you know a kind of megastar right he wasn't going to get the whole way simply by showing up on You Tube so so yeah I think there is a way in which I mean obviously people can have sort of a successful career of sorts just performing on You Tube That seems to be the case but in terms of kind of advancing past that it seems as if the traditional mechanisms of the music industry are still required so in that sense You Tube becomes you know talent development area.

[00:48:28]
So from the audience. Opera singers in the book I do not. Do you want to. Talk more about why you left opera or is it was there a distinction between musical theater and performers who were performing for such Well I mean yes because for me. Well for me musical theater and opera are essentially moral **** ish no dramatic forms in which the singers are portraying characters now of course it's true and I do mention this very very briefly in the book it is true that you know particularly famous opera singers.

[00:49:16]
Do because I do have persona I mean if you think about the most the best known opera singers you know there's a split particularly image or persona that we do associate with them so I wouldn't say that that doesn't happen and I think that I think that that's probably a phenomenon that's similar to and all of these things are related to one another in terms of performance I'm not saying that they're totally different at all but it's probably more closely related to for example film acting where you know we have as we had this idea I mean fame a lot of famous film actors I always think of you know some like Albert you know in this context have a certain persona or Jack Nicholson right there is an entity called Al that you know it's Jack Nicholson.

[00:50:04]
Which which is always present in their performances and has certain you know identifiable characteristics and has a presence in addition to the characters that they're playing I think opera singers are are sort of similar in that regard. But for me the thing that's interesting about musicians you know in the law in the larger sense I'm not saying opera singers not musicians of course is that.

[00:50:34]
Yes idea persona extends beyond singers and in my argument is that not that all musicians all performing musicians whether they seeing or not portray personae Symphony players in court tatts you know all of these people. Portray a specific musical identity that is meaningful within the context of the particular kind of performance that they're doing.

[00:51:02]
So it's not you know it's not just about singers and what happens then when you thinking about instrumentalist is that element of character which is present you know when someone sings it's whether it's opera musical theater or someone singing on a concert stage isn't present but persona still is and that's where my interest lies in particular I will say one thing this is a very specific that I just want to say one thing that one question that has come to me sort of through thinking about all this which does have to do is singers of all kinds.

[00:51:39]
Really has to do with the phenomenology of singing about which I'm very curious by which I mean essentially you know singers refer to their voices as their instruments which of course makes total sense but I wonder about the relationship of the singer to that instrument is it similar to you know someone who's playing an instrument that's separate from their own body to singers experience their voices as part of themselves or sort of external to themselves or both or what So I think there's some interesting things to think about there but that's a point beyond the question of personas.

[00:52:12]
So we're getting to the end and I have 2 questions just dropped in. My head to ask you to be sure and suspect on the answers to these big questions. First one what about the performance of change meaning musical persona can change their performances over time and performance can significantly significantly change musical persona or do you deal with these aspects in your book so if I get this right do you talk about how the persona in some concert the audience is changed by performances over time.

[00:52:55]
And I know that's actually really interesting question and sort of tracing what I would probably think us are incremental trace of incremental changes. Because of a wholesale trade a persona which I did talk about with respect to the Beatles right early sixty's late I mean that that was not incremental.

[00:53:15]
And so that's one kind of case but yeah that's I hadn't I haven't dealt with that but that's an interesting to kind of look at this over a longer period of time and see how persona doesn't necessarily change radically in that way but may nevertheless change. Yes somehow in concert with the arts Yes that's very interesting I want to thank you that feels like a really deep dive question what you could do a whole book on what happened in Los Angeles from 68 to 75.

[00:53:47]
Or. For a last question you mentioned the normative persona for country music and how many artists assume their personal history for the good of their career. I see it is having a huge effect in hip hop where the normative persona by hell negative effect of the artists initiate on the.

[00:54:10]
I'm not sure I said what is meant by negative effect there if someone has their sort of actual personality which conflicts with the performance sort of larger than life criminal personality or larger than life you know her personality that might diminish their their career well in my mind but that's why I mentioned Keith Urban I mean and would be interesting to try to figure out what the differences are because you know there are many things about Keith Urban and other country artists that if from one point of view would disqualify them to be country ours yet they have managed to negotiate those issues with their audience to the degree that the audience is willing to essentially overlook those things because the artist is willing to perform the appropriate persona I think that has happened in hip hop but it's also not happen hip hop where certain artists you know when people examine their backgrounds or say wait a minute you know.

[00:55:10]
You're not the right kind of person to be doing this and that can be damaging So the question is What does it take for someone who is that doesn't have the appropriate credentials to be performing a given persona to get the audience to buy into it anyway because that does happen but the opposite also happens and so the question is What are the factors that make the difference what does it take to get that audience by and in the face of you know.

[00:55:39]
Discrediting evidence Well this is a great conversation and I really appreciate all the stuff that now I have to go research on my own thank you so much for your time profession thank you thank you thank you to everybody my pleasure I want to bring Katherine back to finish and thank you everyone who is here to listen in to ask questions.

[00:56:02]
Thank you so much Charlie and thank you Professor of splendor this is a great event and Thank You have every one who joined us today I dropped in the chat the link to the Georgia Tech library as vents and workshops at the Georgia Tech library is committed to providing accessible dollars reprogramming to our local and our global community so thank you for some but thank you so much for joining us today and if you signed up on the Is that right I will send out the recording of today's program so you can watch it again at a later date or send it to any friends or family thank you for joining us and have a good song.