The Great thing about cooperating with Mary on this project is that we bring two totally different points of view to the game, and yet communicate and understand each other very well. I am the "Half Nerd Artist" who tends to think of visuals, images and technical possibilities afforded by the new hardware and software available today to play with. Mary is the reminder, as Myrna was in the workshop, not to lose track of "content"(I hate that word, it makes Art sound like it belongs in a box, and my greatest desire is to get out of the box!). She thinks in terms of music, rhythm, meaning, style, choreography, feelings, expression, movement.
Which brings me to our current discussion about "music". I love "Good Music" in all genres. I was brought up on "serious" classical music mostly because my parents had gotten me in a "record of the month club" that didn't offer any rock and roll, and because my high school Music Teacher was in love with the great Russian composers. This is definitely a bit of an acquired taste, but it stuck for many many years, even though I also loved the Beatles, Ray Charles, John Lee Hooker, Cat Stevens, Leonard Cohen, as well as Georges Brassens, Jean Ferrat, and Jacques Brel.
There was a Music from the Andes period in the late 60's culminating in a trip to Peru and Bolivia in 72.
After moving to the US to be with Rachel, I got into Renaissance Music in the 70's, and baroque music in the 80's. The high point was definitely hearing Mozart's Requiem in Prague in the very church where it premiered.
In the 90's, I started to concentrate on Vivaldi's Religious and Operatic Music, almost to the point of obsession. I researched and tracked down every recording by RV numbers. I would play it loudly non stop all day when I was in the studio painting, from the Stabat Mater to Orlando Furioso. Don't mention the Four Seasons please...
Things changed around 1999, which is when I started spending most of my time either inside on the computer, or outside building our house, which took several years. I found that either activity required a kind of concentration that tuned out music, so there was actually no point playing any. At the same time, I was restless and searching for a new way to express myself as an Artist, and the Internet offered a novel marvelous new way of doing research. No more poring through shelves of books at the library, everything became readily available from my desk with just a few clicks. It was a game changer. I was already a "hunter", I became a maniac, one site leading to another, click after click, procuring rapidly masses of information, knowledge and images… eBay changed the face of collecting, and the house filed up with wondrous old stuff from all over the world.
My hunting included music, and I discovered all kinds of new music, mostly singers: Rokia Traoré, Souad Massi, Missia, Elena Frolova, Agnès Jaoui, Daby Balde, Etta Scollo, Yasmin Levi, Cesaria Evora, Chavela Vargas, Sopor Aeternus, Devendra Benhart, Katie Melua, Paolo Conte, Daan. I suppose the common thread is "singing from the guts".
I became particularly impressed by the oratorio like work of Belgian composer Nicholas Lens: Flamma-Flamma, Terra-Terra, Amor Eaternus. Unfortunately, his work is becoming more minimalistic and challenging over the years, and I still consider his early Flamma-Flamma his best.
My work in Animation, Video and Architectural Mapping required sound tracks, and I started collecting thousands of sounds to go with the thousands of images I already had. I used Nicholas Lens work many times as a base. But what works for a sound track is often not the music you would listen casually. It has to have power, expression, rhythmic variety, originality, and the beat drives the movement of the images on the screen. A sound track doesn't have to be what we would call music, it is more like a mix of layered interesting sounds: music, sounds, noise, speech.
Which brings me finally to our ongoing conversation with Mary about what kind of "music/ sound" we want to work with. We saw the Koresh Dance Company the other day, and the strongest piece had no music per se, just spoken words and sounds. The track for Bridgman-Packer's last piece "Voyeur" is a very complex forever changing layering of music and sounds. I liked both.
We definitely don't want "pretty music", nor traditional "dance music"(if I hear another Bolero, I will puke! I swear), nor boring repetitive "minimalistic music". I would like to have beautiful harmonies, but also some dissonances, a strong changing beat, some jarring unexpected sounds(to wake up the audience…), natural sounds, words. I want unexpected "things" to happen. I want the listener to be surprised, a little confused, a little shocked, never bored.
Which brings me to our current discussion about "music". I love "Good Music" in all genres. I was brought up on "serious" classical music mostly because my parents had gotten me in a "record of the month club" that didn't offer any rock and roll, and because my high school Music Teacher was in love with the great Russian composers. This is definitely a bit of an acquired taste, but it stuck for many many years, even though I also loved the Beatles, Ray Charles, John Lee Hooker, Cat Stevens, Leonard Cohen, as well as Georges Brassens, Jean Ferrat, and Jacques Brel.
There was a Music from the Andes period in the late 60's culminating in a trip to Peru and Bolivia in 72.
After moving to the US to be with Rachel, I got into Renaissance Music in the 70's, and baroque music in the 80's. The high point was definitely hearing Mozart's Requiem in Prague in the very church where it premiered.
In the 90's, I started to concentrate on Vivaldi's Religious and Operatic Music, almost to the point of obsession. I researched and tracked down every recording by RV numbers. I would play it loudly non stop all day when I was in the studio painting, from the Stabat Mater to Orlando Furioso. Don't mention the Four Seasons please...
Things changed around 1999, which is when I started spending most of my time either inside on the computer, or outside building our house, which took several years. I found that either activity required a kind of concentration that tuned out music, so there was actually no point playing any. At the same time, I was restless and searching for a new way to express myself as an Artist, and the Internet offered a novel marvelous new way of doing research. No more poring through shelves of books at the library, everything became readily available from my desk with just a few clicks. It was a game changer. I was already a "hunter", I became a maniac, one site leading to another, click after click, procuring rapidly masses of information, knowledge and images… eBay changed the face of collecting, and the house filed up with wondrous old stuff from all over the world.
My hunting included music, and I discovered all kinds of new music, mostly singers: Rokia Traoré, Souad Massi, Missia, Elena Frolova, Agnès Jaoui, Daby Balde, Etta Scollo, Yasmin Levi, Cesaria Evora, Chavela Vargas, Sopor Aeternus, Devendra Benhart, Katie Melua, Paolo Conte, Daan. I suppose the common thread is "singing from the guts".
I became particularly impressed by the oratorio like work of Belgian composer Nicholas Lens: Flamma-Flamma, Terra-Terra, Amor Eaternus. Unfortunately, his work is becoming more minimalistic and challenging over the years, and I still consider his early Flamma-Flamma his best.
My work in Animation, Video and Architectural Mapping required sound tracks, and I started collecting thousands of sounds to go with the thousands of images I already had. I used Nicholas Lens work many times as a base. But what works for a sound track is often not the music you would listen casually. It has to have power, expression, rhythmic variety, originality, and the beat drives the movement of the images on the screen. A sound track doesn't have to be what we would call music, it is more like a mix of layered interesting sounds: music, sounds, noise, speech.
Which brings me finally to our ongoing conversation with Mary about what kind of "music/ sound" we want to work with. We saw the Koresh Dance Company the other day, and the strongest piece had no music per se, just spoken words and sounds. The track for Bridgman-Packer's last piece "Voyeur" is a very complex forever changing layering of music and sounds. I liked both.
We definitely don't want "pretty music", nor traditional "dance music"(if I hear another Bolero, I will puke! I swear), nor boring repetitive "minimalistic music". I would like to have beautiful harmonies, but also some dissonances, a strong changing beat, some jarring unexpected sounds(to wake up the audience…), natural sounds, words. I want unexpected "things" to happen. I want the listener to be surprised, a little confused, a little shocked, never bored.
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