Hey everyone… Group 7 with ‘Music in Visuals’ is here!
Excited? I thought so.
Musical Theatre – James Reid
Opera
Claudio Monteverdi in Early 16th Century
Mozart popularised comic opera in 18th Century
Bel Canto style came forward in early 19th Century with Rossini and Donizetti
Mid to late 19th Century – “The Golden Age of Opera”. Wagner and Verdi
20th Century – Stravinsky’s Neo-Classicism, Schoenberg’s atonalism and serialism and Phillip Glass’s minimalism
Musicals
Started as early as 1866.
Truly popular by 20th century on both sides of the Atlantic.
Lots of big names both writing and performing, e.g. Gershwin, Porter, Rogers & Hammerstein, Wodehouse, Kern // Fred Astaire, Ethel Merman etc.
Movie business sky-rocketed musicals’ success in 50s
70s saw the rise of the Rock Musicals
This decade a revival of the musical motion picture.
Music in TV and Film – Matthew Rutherfoord-Jones
Films and TV shows were designed for profit. It is no wonder therefore, that for every film and every show, an image is built. Branding is important in marketing and that’s why we associate certain theme tunes and sound tracks, with certain movies and TV shows!
Music is also very important for preparing an audience emotionally and psychologically. Our minds are more open to stimulus when we are in this state.
Think of the most exciting action sequence you’ve ever seen. Now look it up on youtube and watch it with the sound off. Any good?
Trainspotting
In the seminar, I played two scenes chosen for their use of music. The first was the opening scene of Trainspotting. The song played in this scene was not composed specifically for this movie, but I believe that the monologue read by Ewan McGregor was written to work seamlessly with the song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3g9nTOV9KM
When watching this scene, you can hear how the message of ‘Choose Life’ implied by the track gets further and further from the ideals being portrayed by the monologue. At the end of the scene Ewan simply says ‘Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?’… a far cry from the ‘Lust for life’ that Iggy Pop encourage.
American Beauty
The final scene of American Beauty is particularly poignant because of the music featured in it. It was composed specifically for this film and so its structure fits in perfectly with this scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztkd6VP8vHw
Note the way that the piano gives way to the monologue and also subsides, as the shots are fired. A very moving scene.
Music Videos – Andy Shields
Music Video: “Short film or video that accompanies a piece of music.”
Music Videos are primarily used to promote the sale of music – they are
used as a marketing device to further promote a bands music.
This had advantages for both the band and the record companies.
Record companies
- Able to market the band through another medium. This gives them a chance
to make money off the video every time it is played. – Also able to promote
the band through a new use of advertising which would give the chance for
more people to hear them, which could potentially lead to more people
buying their music.
Band:
- The bands music is now to reach a further audience. – Able to promote
their image/style through the use of video. – Ability to convey additional
feeling that the music cant account for alone.
The term “Music Video” came into popular usage in the early 1980’s
The key innovation in the birth of the modern music video was the
development of relatively inexpensive and easy-to-use video recording and
editing equipment. Technology became a lot easier to use, more portable.
1981 Marked the launch of MTV.
A television channel dedicated to playing music 24 hours a day.
First song ever aired was “Video Killed the Radio Star.” By the Buggles.
The launch of this channel led to a massive increase in the creation of
music videos. Now that there was a mainstream means in which music videos
could be played, bands seen the opportunity to further promote their music.
2 Concepts for music Videos.
Focusing on two ways music is implemented through the use of music videos:
Visual Representation & Live Action
Visual Representation
This is when the audio content of the song can be directly linked to what
is happening in the video. It can be implemented in different ways such as
representation of lyrics, where the storyline helps to explain lyrics, or
perhaps the tempo of the song controls what is happening in the video.
To demonstrate the use of Visual Representation in the use of music videos
I chose a video where it was very apparent how the music was conveyed by
the video content.
Daft Punk – “around the world”
Directed by Michel Gondry
The video is a visual representation of the song.
Each element of the song represents a different instrument.
Uses repetition up to the point of it getting boring then it stops and
moves in another direction before it gets boring. Uses 5 instruments, hence
the five different groups of people in the video:
Voice
High Pitched Keyboard
Bass Guitar
Electric Guitar
Drum Machine
Androids represent the singing robot voice
They stay static until the vocals come in.
Rapidity of the athletes represents the ascending/descending bass guitar.
Their movement up and down the stairs represents the ascending and
descending phrases played. Femininity of the disco girls represents the
high-pitched keyboard. Itchy Skeletons represent the guitar Mummies
represent the drum machine
Choreography is used as a visual means to represent the audio content of
the song.
Live Action
Refers to work that is acted out by human actors, as opposed to animation.
Many bands prefer it because they can create music videos that they can
star in. This helps to establish the band, as fans like to know what their
favourite bands look like.
I chose this video as an example because I think that the video has really
captured what the band was truly about.
“Smells like teen spirit” Nirvana Directed by Samuel Bayer. He believes he
was hired because his test reel was so poor the band anticipated his
production would be “punk” and “not corporate.”
At the end of the video the crowd come down and invade the set, smashing
amps and jumping about. This was completely unplanned, all the fans that
were there for the fimling of the video became tired of waiting around all
day taking numerous shots of the same thing.
Questions to think about – possible blog discussion?
Are music videos simply a marketing tool to make more money or are they a
way for bands to further express their music? Do bands sell out by making
music videos? Anyone have a favourite music video that they would like to
share?
Thanks for reading
Group 7
But with increased visual aspects being introduced to the music culture, don’t you think this takes away from the art of listening? Indeed the originally intended purpose of music, aural entertainment!
Through visuals, I believe, we will come to a point where we can on longer perceive music, without the accompanied visual to help us, in which case we are as good as deaf!