11.19.2009

WIP: Work update

This is just a quick entry, mostly for my benefit, to keep my momentum going. Starting this blog has certainly helped me focus my ideas for this work. I gave myself a goal of writing here at least once a week. It's amazing how a simple task like that reap such great rewards.

So on to the work... I think that the ideas about performing in geographically diverse areas is one that should be put on the back burner. If this idea comes to fruition and my interest doesn't wane, I may revisit the idea. I also think that using visuals may prove to be more distracting from the intent of the piece, as my focus is on exploring and (hopefully) eliciting nostalgic responses through music. However, I'm becoming more comfortable with the idea of using sampling and other technologies.

I was speaking with a friend about this project and he brought up an interesting potential for the piece. He thinks that this has the potential to prove, in some ways, how separate we all are from each other. We were talking about how unique the American culture of the past fifty years has been. For the first time, perhaps, we have people from completely different generations, locations and cultures that have consumed the same art and entertainment. My example being the fact that my parents' generation grew up with the Beatles and their music often elicits strong nostalgic responses. And just as that music was a soundtrack for their lives, so it has been for the succeeding generations. So, it's possible that members of both generations could have nostalgic responses to the same music. Now, this was possible before, but not to the same degree.

Audio and visual recording technologies have made this possible. Now a musical piece is no longer confined to the span of its initial performance and those witnesses. However, what I find truly interesting is that subsequent generations can experience the same events almost as if they were happening now. For instance, my mother saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. So did I, in reruns and documentaries. To my mother, the Beatles were a group of young men from England that played rock 'n' roll music. And they were to me as well. When I was a child, without the benefit of television and film, rock 'n' roll would have been my parents music and the music being created by my peers would necessarily be labeled something else (and quite possibly sounded completely different). I wouldn't want anything to do with rock 'n' roll as that would be 'old people' music. So, in some ways, my relationship to the Beatles is much the same as my mothers.

I find this interesting, also, in light of the essay on music as 'Time Travel' which I wrote about previously.

P.S. - My mother didn't really like the Beatles, so our relationships to the Beatles are fundamentally different. But I think you get the point.

1 comment:

Janets Planet said...

Your mother here. Actually, I liked the Beatles early work best.