No Music Day
The No Music Day (German: Tag ohne Musik) takes place annually on November 21st and is an event that the British concept artist Bill Drummond created to encourage people to think about their relationship to the art form music and to make them aware of them how ubiquitous music is now. In the first five years (2005–2009) there were various actions as part of a so-called five - year plan to draw attention to this day. Since 2010 everyone has been able to celebrate “their” No Music Day anywhere and publish their thoughts and performance on the associated website. Many take advantage of this opportunity and report that music has now become a kind of white noise - a product - for them. They believe that the commercialization of music has now reached a saturation point.
background
During his work in the music group The KLF , the concept artist and former music manager Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty drew attention to the mechanisms in the music business: for example, they published the book The Manual (How to Have a Number One - The Easy Way) . The No Music Day is intended to stimulate thought about the meaning that music has for each individual, what relationship one has with it and whether the music often only serves to isolate and numb. Drummond thinks that the relationship to music has changed because it is now available anytime and anywhere, everything has existed before and music is only consumed. The music-less day should also bring to mind how often one is unintentionally exposed to so-called elevator music, for example in shops, restaurants or at work. Out of the idea of what it would be like to wake up one day in a world without music, the idea of No Music Day was born .
"I decided I needed a day I could set aside to listen to no music whatsoever. Instead, I would be thinking about what I wanted and what I didn't want from music. Not to blindly - or should that be deafly - consume what was on offer. A day where I could develop ideas. This day I would call No Music Day. "
November 21st was chosen because it is the day before the feast of Saint Cecilia , the patron saint of music. This approach followed the observation that antithetical events often take place on the day before a religious event , such as Mardi Gras celebrations before Ash Wednesday begins.
Five year plan
The No Music Day takes place every year everywhere: everyone can celebrate the day and post their motives and plans on the associated website. To establish the day, Drummond developed the so-called five - year plan .
- In 2005, Drummond set up a No Music Day website where anyone can post their thoughts on a world without music and how to deal with music, and announced the day with a poster at the entrance to the Mersey Tunnel in Liverpool.
- In 2006 the radio station Resonance 104fm broadcast its program without any music. At times when music would normally have been broadcast, discussions and interviews related to music were broadcast. Drummond put a "Road Closed" sign on Denmark Street (Tin Pan Alley ) in London, which was originally used by many music publishers, but now mostly record stores and recording studios are located.
- In 2007 BBC Radio Scotland followed 24 hours a day. Drummond had an approx. 4.0 × 0.6 m street sign with the imprint "No Music Day: Nov 21" made, which he placed and photographed under the "Scotland Welcomes You" signs on the Scottish border in Gretna Green .
- In 2008 the No Music Day in São Paulo (Brazil) was advertised with graffiti. Drummond was invited and asked to distribute flyers to people listening to music on the main shopping street. He should also go to the music stores and tell them to close that day and ask the street musicians to take a day off and think about the place music has in their lives. He doubted, however, that "compared to a conventional day in Brazil on November 21, 2008, even one bar less music was consumed".
- In 2009 Drummond traveled to Linz as the European Capital of Culture in 2009 to accompany the day there as part of the Hörstadt project . The center of the No Music Day was the Open Culture House , in which, for example, a joint soup was cooked with Drummond and two movies were shown without music. Several radio stations in Linz adapted their programs to the motto of the day and in addition to the support from shops, restaurants and schools, there were performances in theaters and concert halls that managed without music. The masses in the old cathedral took place without organ, chorales and hymns.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ nomusicday.com , website accessed on November 7, 2015
- ↑ a b Michael White. Who'll Stop the Ring Tones? New York Times, November 18, 2007, accessed November 18, 2015
- ↑ Christoph Dallach: Eccentric - Millions in Flames . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1997, pp. 152 ( online ).
- ↑ Jens-Christian Rabe. No Music Day in England - The screaming and the nothing . Sueddeutsche.de from May 19, 2010, accessed on November 7, 2015
- ↑ a b The loudspeakers go out in Linz09 on Saturday , krone.at from November 18, 2009, accessed on November 8, 2015
- ↑ a b Bill Drummond. Silence is Golden - or for at least one day of the year it is . In: The Guardian website , October 15, 2006, accessed November 18, 2015
- ↑ How No Music Day struck a chord . BBC News website of November 21, 2007, accessed November 17, 2015
- ↑ Penkiln Burn HOME . Penkilnburn.com. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
- ↑ Events . Penkilnburn.com, accessed November 18, 2015
- ↑ Events . Penkilnburn.com. Retrieved July 1, 2015.