Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utcsrgv.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!elf From: elf@utcsrgv.UUCP (Eugene Fiume) Newsgroups: net.music Subject: Re: sound and vision - something for everyone Message-ID: <3322@utcsrgv.UUCP> Date: Mon, 20-Feb-84 12:23:50 EST Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.3322 Posted: Mon Feb 20 12:23:50 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 20-Feb-84 12:31:38 EST References: <6783@unc.UUCP>, <3316@utcsrgv.UUCP> Organization: CSRG, University of Toronto Lines: 31 Some good points have been made regarding the connection between music and image. Oscar remarked, and it is worth reiterating, that in many rather poignant cases, a powerful image has been associated with a musical piece after the fact. If the image is particularly evocative (I'm singin' in the rain, just singin' in ...), then somehow a little "music post-processor" is installed, so that we then have trouble disassociating the music from the image. It seems to me that music videos are at heart just another attempt at giving a piece of music a programme. We already have a precedent for this in rock music: the concept album. (Programmatic music has been around in music of all ages, of course--particularly in late-Romantic.) The concept album seems passe now, and it isn't a coincidence that there's an alternative. If only videos weren't so god-damned dumb... It also demonstrates the focus on singles in today's music market. Has someone decided that we don't listen to albums any more? Maybe we don't. I avoid purchasing short EP's, long EP's, singles, extended singles, re-mixed dubbed originals, and single-play-then-disintegrate records. I like records of the 35-40 minute variety--and I play them in a very novel way: I put on side 1 (or A), and then after 17 minutes or so, I turn the record over and I play side 2 (or B). But I have digressed. If there are any psychologists out there, you may wish to explain why we accept novelty in visual art much more readily than in music. This always seems to have been so (e.g. witness our readiness to accept 20th Century art forms, vs. analogous musics). This may provide a clue as to why we can readily connect a new image to a pre-existing piece of music. Funny, if you are capable of doing the reverse, you'd probably be called a composer. Eugene Fiume