7-Opinion
Wednesday, January 20, 2021 — 5
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Artist Profile: SMTD
senior Addison Tharp
digitizes jazz
Innovation in the performance
community is not a new phenom-
enon during the COVID-19 pan-
demic, but what about here on
campus? The School of Music,
Theatre & Dance has a whole host
of performers who have not stood
by and waited for the pandemic to
pass, and SMTD senior Addison
Tharp is no exception.
As a jazz studies major, Tharp
has faced the challenges of remote
music production head-on as he
navigates the new digital world of
music production. “As a musician,
you have to sort of adapt to the
lifestyle because obviously, I don’t
have any gigs or performances or
anything like that anymore,” Tharp
recently told The Daily in a virtual
interview.
Despite the challenges that have
been presented to him, Tharp has
been working on multiple projects
this semester. Although a trumpet
player by training, he also plays
piano, composes and writes music
whenever he can.
Tharp’s most recent endeavor
was a virtual big band piece en-
titled “Awakening,” performed by
Tharp himself alongside a small
group of musicians. Tharp com-
posed, produced and performed
the piece along with his peers —
the total process took four months
to complete.
When recalling the making of
“Awakening,” Tharp describes the
process as an interesting and dif-
ficult one, especially for a jazz mu-
sician. When a jazz ensemble per-
HADLEY SAMARCO
Daily Arts Writer
forms or records live, it is common
for the musicians to rely heavily on
improvisation instead of strictly
following the written music. How-
ever, when virtual, this natural flow
between players is near impossible
to replicate when the perform-
ers cannot hear and react to each
other — instead of the usual spon-
taneity of someone taking the lead,
the parts have to be organized and
planned out more than they would
in a typical jazz performance.
“It requires listening, being all
there together, reacting to every-
body playing,” Tharp said. “That’s
the one downside to this format, is
that you can’t really do that.”
Each part of Tharp’s piece was
recorded individually and then lay-
ered together one by one instead
of the traditional group recording
style.
This was a new experience for
Tharp, who had no exposure to
recording in this kind of digitized
way, with its lengthy process and
discombobulated parts. However,
the experience offered Tharp the
opportunity to learn new skills
mixing and arranging pieces of
music digitally.
“It was just a lot more focused
in terms of having to record every-
thing, whether that was soloing or
just the written parts,” Tharp said,
revealing a consolatory advantage
of remote production.
Although it was months in the
making, Tharp’s song was finally
completed on Nov. 27, 2020, and
can be streamed now.
When asked about the inspira-
tion for the piece, Tharp replied,
“Basically, the overlying message
of the chart is like, trying to find
beauty with all the stuff that’s go-
ing on right now. Trying to find
beauty in things as simple as hear-
ing the birds sing or something
along those lines.”
His words, as well as his music,
strike a common chord — beauty
is something the world is sorely in
need of right now more than ever.
Tharp championed “Awaken-
ing” as one of his more complex
pieces of work, and the lyrics were
personal to him: “I used it as sort of
like a way to cope with the initial
shock of COVID. Because that was
like, one of the first things that I did
over the summer was start writing
this tune.”
It has been a difficult year for
many, and Tharp’s story is not an
unfamiliar one. Seeing the beauty
and art that has bloomed out of
hardship is inspiring and heart-
warming.
With this piece finished and be-
hind him, Tharp has more time to
focus on his long-term project, a
five-to-six-song EP he has been ex-
perimenting with. With one song
finished and another on the way,
he is branching out from his acous-
tic roots and delving into electronic
music, resulting in something akin
to a mixture of Anomalie and Rob-
ert Glasper.
Excited for what comes next,
Tharp is ready to take his new
skills with him into his career post-
graduation. “It’s adding a whole
new dimension to (my) creative
ability.”
Although it hasn’t been perfect
by any means, Tharp’s work is
proof that jazz performance has
persevered.
Photo by ADDISON THARP
The gap between semesters is
always a perfect time to catch up on
the movies I was too busy to watch
during the school year. Yet, return-
ing home also gives me a chance to
access the countless DVDs that my
family has bought and kept over the
years. So every winter break, I face
a dilemma: Watch the latest films
in order to get in on the conversa-
tion, or gravitate toward the old
favorites? The answer, of course,
is both. But while I finally got
around to seeing Film Beat favor-
ites like “Emma,” “Never Rarely
Sometimes Always” and “Sound of
Metal,” it was the old favorites that
I enjoyed the most.
After the time I’ve spent on the
Film Beat, it’s certainly a little
weird to watch films that I’ve loved
for most of my life and learn that
they have low Rotten Tomatoes
scores and divisive critical reviews.
With old favorites, though, that’s
not what’s important; it’s more
valuable to focus on how much I
enjoy watching these movies, even
though I have seen them countless
times and can quote nearly all of
the lines.
The National Treasure series
may have a critical rating that is
thirty percent lower than the audi-
ence rating, but I will never get
tired of watching Ben (Nicholas
Cage, “Face/Off”), Abigail (Diane
Kruger, “Inglourious Basterds”)
and Riley (Justin Bartha, “The
Hangover”) run around historical
landmarks on improbable treasure
hunts. With movies like the Chron-
icles of Narnia film series, I’ve
decided that it’s less about whether
the films follow C.S. Lewis’s books
perfectly and more about how they
bring the world to life in such a
lovely way. And sure, “Night At
The Museum: Battle of the Smith-
sonian” is not quite the epitome
of comedy that I once thought it
was, but it makes me laugh, and
my sister and I have been parrot-
ing Kahmunrah’s (Hank Azaria,
“The Simpsons”) utterly quot-
able lines to each other for over a
decade. These movies come with
the perfect kind of caveat, fueled
by a nostalgic bias: They may not
be perfect, but I love them anyway.
— Kari Anderson, Senior Arts
Editor
I simply don’t know how I went
so long without watching “Jen-
nifer’s Body.” Since I, like many
others, had nothing going on over
break, I decided it was finally time
to see what this acclaimed movie
was all about.
For those who haven’t seen it,
“Jennifer’s Body” follows pos-
sessed teen Jennifer (Megan Fox,
“Rogue”) who hunts down and
kills her male classmates, as her
best friend Needy (Amanda Sey-
fried, “Mank”) tries to stop her.
Yeah. It’s crazy. Going into it, I was
excited because I love Diablo Cody
(“Juno”), and I know that this film
is regarded as a cult classic.
But what I was not expecting
was the hard-hitting social com-
mentary. I don’t know if I was
taking it too seriously, but I feel so
passionately about the themes of
sexual violence and toxic mascu-
linity that make up this story. Obvi-
ously, it has an iconic script, with
lines like “He looked like lasagna
with teeth” and “You’re lime green
jello and you can’t even admit it to
yourself” being some of my favor-
ites.
But when I wasn’t laughing, a lot
of this movie made me so sad. The
reason that Jennifer is possessed in
the first place is because an indie
rock band uses her as a “virgin
sacrifice” to Satan in exchange for
fame and wealth. However, Jen-
nifer was not actually a virgin, so
she is perpetually possessed in the
movie. Most unfortunately, if that
isn’t a metaphor for how sexual
assault can traumatize someone
or monumentally change their life,
then I don’t know what is.
I see myself watching this movie
many times more, but I’m glad that
the first time I watched it was over
break. A well-written, clever, at
times heartbreaking and (dare I
say) genius film is just what I need-
ed to end 2020 with.
— Judy Lawrence, Daily Arts
Writer
Sometimes I feel like I’d be a
great test subject for an anthropo-
logical study on the amount of time
Gen Z’ers spend in front of screens.
Some graduate student could write
about how the strong economic
growth of the ’90s influenced my
parents, originally from working-
class families, to start a large bour-
geois family. Or perhaps they could
write something about how the
economic downturn of the aughts
meant we couldn’t always afford
great childcare, but they could sit
us down in front of some video
games or a computer or a TV to
shut us up for eight hours. When-
ever I’m with my family over win-
ter breaks, we tend to blow through
a lot of new and revisited media, so
let me break it down.
The good stuff is easy to talk
about, since they were the films I
revisited with my siblings for the
comfort of familiarity:
It’s no secret that “1917” is a
masterpiece. The score by Thomas
Newman (“Skyfall”), the cinema-
tography by Roger Deakins (“Blade
Runner 2049”) and the exhausting,
relentless performance by George
Mackay
(“Captain
Fantastic”)
make me want to read T.S. Eliot
and Virginia Woolf or whoever had
anything to say about World War I.
A few of my friends brushed it off
as just another movie full of white
guys, but I genuinely think there’s a
place for films like this that explore
masculinity so deeply.
When I watched “1917” in
theaters last year, I saw a young
boy, his (assumed) father and his
grandfather seeing the film togeth-
er. Observing that family, and then
seeing how Blake (Dean-Charles
Chapman, “Game of Thrones”)
spoke about his brother and moth-
er and how Schofield (Mackay)
interacted with the infant and
stared at the photo of his wife
and children resonated with me.
I think we should talk about why
male strength is so often repre-
sented through war, and why gen-
erations later men still hold such an
attachment to these stories — just
as director Sam Mendes (“Skyfall”)
clearly does in his adaptation of his
grandfather’s firsthand accounts
of the war.
And, obviously, all those one-
shots. I mean, how can you not
appreciate the work put into them?
Additionally,
“My
Neighbor
Totoro” is Hayao Miyazaki at his
finest. This film is a comforting
and stunning story about children
told in a completely non-conde-
scending way. I could try to explain
it, but it’d be better if you just watch
it and see what I mean.
I watched some bad stuff too,
though:
“Spree” was a heavy-handed
attempt at social critique but, at the
same time, I always love a chance
to see Kyle Mooney (“Saturday
Night Live”) in anything. That’s all
I have to say about that.
“Wonder Woman 1984” was
horse-tranquilizer-to-the-face
levels of boring, but Pedro Pascal
(“The Mandalorian”) seemed like
he was having fun, particularly
during a climax that my siblings
and I struggled to hear over our
own slightly mean-spirited laugh-
ter. Kristen Wiig (“Bridesmaids”)
seemed lost — or maybe on auto-
pilot — and it just made me want
to see her in something like “The
Skeleton Twins” again.
Anything I could say about the
film’s imperialist undertones or
nauseating nostalgia for the 80s
has already been said, so I’ll just
say I absolutely could not believe
that they thought I cared enough to
watch two and a half hours of this
garbage. And this is coming from
someone who actually really liked
the first movie! I guess my closing
thought is: “Imagine all the people
…”
— Mary Elizabeth Johnson,
Daily Arts Writer
My
What the Film Beat Watched Over Break
‘Bridgerton’ proves there’s
nothing like a good period piece
Netflix’s
period
drama
“Bridgerton”
has
taken
the
world by storm, and with good
reason. You don’t have to be a
fan of period pieces to see how
the series immerses viewers in
a riveting universe while also
confronting relevant issues in
our modern world. “Bridgerton”
proves my long-held belief that
period pieces are among the top
tier of television, when they are
done right.
With the vast amount of new
television series coming out
these days, I’m faced with a dif-
ficult question to tackle: What
exactly makes a series “good”
when the range of available
content is so extensive? Amid
a broad variety of genres, sub-
ject matter and creative per-
spectives, what is the common
thread that runs through every-
thing worth watching?
“Bridgerton,”
and
period
pieces at large, can be our case
study to answer these questions.
For one, good TV ought to pro-
vide a mode for escapism.
The beauty of period dramas
is that there is escapism inher-
ent within the genre because
the whole concept is based on
another time period. “Bridger-
ton” is set in 1813 London and
revolves around aristocratic life,
particularly that of several fami-
lies with children of marrying
age. “Bridgerton” finds the per-
fect opportunity for escapism
by walking the line between the
reality of the time period and
extravagant fantasy, through
using striking costume design
that defined the Georgian peri-
od. Beyond costume design, the
bright, vibrant cinematography
and editing style mean that,
while the show may be set in a
society with an abundance of
rigid and boring rules, it’s also
visually
striking
throughout,
immersing viewers in a world
far, far away from their living
rooms.
Escapism is also achieved
through
emotion.
Nothing
makes you forget the problems
of the real world like taking on
the problems of fictional char-
acters and resonating with their
experiences.
This is easily done through
period pieces because the set-
ting in a different time period
implies that there’s going to
be a different set of values and
standards of success. Because
this world is so different, view-
ers can easily decipher what it
means to succeed while main-
taining a degree of emotional
separation from their own lives.
In “Bridgerton,” success comes
through
maintaining
wealth
and status within aristocratic
society, which requires adher-
ence to a strict, repressive set of
social rules.
For Daphne (Phoebe Dynevor,
“Younger”), the protagonist and
eldest daughter of the Bridger-
ton family, this means marrying
well so that her younger sis-
ters can benefit from the status
she achieves. As the show pro-
gresses, Daphne’s understand-
ing of success begins to include
her desire for love. Escapism is
provided by how much we can
empathize with Daphne and
how we can understand the ten-
sion between wanting to take
care of our families while also
seeking our own personal hap-
piness. The passionate relation-
ship between Daphne and the
Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean
Page, “Sylvie’s Love”) is thought-
fully built, and it feels real. This
passion also leads to an absurd
amount of sex scenes — which
is another form of escapism, if
you’re into that.
It’s clear that escapism is
rooted in our ability to empa-
thize with the problems of the
characters in the show. “Bridg-
erton” not only creates a vibrant
world but a world whose prob-
lems we can easily adopt every
episode. This notion isn’t exclu-
sive to period pieces, obviously,
but I think period pieces do it
better because the distinctive
rules and values make the emo-
tional struggles of its characters
more blatant.
However, escapism alone isn’t
quite enough to merit a series’s
quality. At the end of the day, the
problems have to mean some-
thing, otherwise we wouldn’t
actually care. There are definite-
ly shows that provide escapism
for escapism’s sake, but in order
for a show to be meaningful and
have longevity, there ought to be
context and relevance behind
the problems the characters
face. Ultimately, there needs to
be a message that connects the
show back to our current reality.
This is easily achieved in period
pieces because, while they may
take place in a different time
period, they still exist within
our own universe.
In
the
NETFLIX
SARAH RAHMAN
Daily Arts Writer
ILLUSTRATION BY MEGHANA TUMMULA
DAILY FILM WRITERS
Daily Film Writers
With four weeks off of school, having fewer responsibilities gave the Film Beat more time to watch films, old and new.
Here are some things that the Film Beat watched over the winter break
Read more online at
michigandaily.com
Read more online at
michigandaily.com