Musicology Commons^™

The Techne Of Youtube Performance: Musical Structure, Extended Techniques, And Custom Instruments In Solo Pop Covers, William O'Hara

Sunderman Conservatory of Music Faculty Publications

They begin with a note, a chord, the tap of a button, or the triggering of a loop: through progressively layered textures, samples, and extended performance techniques, solo cover songs on YouTube often construct themselves piece by piece before the viewer’s eyes and ears. Combining virtuosity and novelty in a package ready-made for viral online popularity, this recent and rapidly growing internet phenomenon draws together traditions old and new, from the “one man band” of the nineteenth century, to the experimental live looping of 1980s performance art, to contemporary electronic music. Building on a number of recent studies that examine …