Sometimes, you may find that you have terabytes of music on your computer, however you do not have anything you want to listen to at a particular moment. You sit and lazily flip through your music folders in order to find something special. Generally, the new albums of famous musicians seem like repetitions of previous works, with only small changes. Nothing seems to be interesting to you or to cause of you delight. Is it impossible to create something new or special? Have all possible genres of music already been explored? Are there only endless remixes of the existing genres? I almost lost hope in finding something special for my essay after looking at over a hundred sites on the internet, but luckily I stumbled across this site Nigel Stanford — Solar Echoes (2014). Accidentally…
I like the first single from this album, 'Cymatics' very much. This is the music video I want to describe in my blog. New York director Shahir Daud filmed this unusual clip it for musician Nigel Stanford. The idea was to demonstrate visualization of sound through sound, fire, plasma and ferromagnetic liquid which was born in Stanford's head when he got to know about the phenomenon known as cymatic. This phenomenon is the ability to 'see' music through other senses, particularly the eyes. In this clip the musician uses different physical and kinematic phenomenon such as deformation of the shape of water, oil, flame height, sand, electric charges by using high vibration, plasma sphere and Tesla coil. In my opinion, the result is stunning. It seems that you really can 'see the sound'. This was made possible through use of music vibration, montage techniques and technologies. The director and musician were able to express their own 'increasingly unrealistic' (Sandywell and Beer, 107) image of music, which stimulated the emergence of my own illusory fantasies, and I hope that of many viewer. In this case music does not link with vocals, faces, history, associative images, or a particular genre. Thanks to a combination of modern technologies and music they created a specific style of music where the main character is the music and your own perception of it. Included are not only my listening ability, but also my viewing ability and fantasy that arose in my mind from this perfection. On the one hand, sound conducts to the image; on the other hand, the fiction pictures control the perception of music. This is some kind of symbiosis of the magic of sound and science. Furthermore, the musician was able to save the general plot line that the aim of this music video is research of new ways of music expression. He was able to create and show the magic combinations of music, sounds, vibration and technology in each frame. For example, it was interesting for me how was shown the magic of science. When electricity from the Tesla coil beats into the heart of the sexless character dressed in armor, this beat does not kill the creature. Electrical charges associated with the frequency of the voltage create and change different notes of sound in the air. Jump - the final shot of the music video and sounds are frozen. Simultaneously the playing of the drums sounds like a voice over. It is still a terribly interesting performance of the combination of a science, a fantasy and music vibrations. In the interview Nigel said that he was writing music after had filmed and assembled the materials. It was quite difficult because of the necessity to synchronize sounds and pictures. I guess that it was a challenge to imagine how this video and music could interact together and, consequently, have an impact on the viewers and on their perception of music composition. This is some kind of symbioses of the magic of sound and video. The image with hose pipe looks like a camera trick. A hose taped to a speaker, playing audio frequencies while the camera catches the illusion of water frozen in a spiral in the air. This video transforms the perception of the music for the audience. It illustrates what modern music and sound perception are, transforms the understanding of the musical genre, and finally, transforms the mind of the audience itself. However, the musician keeps the general theme that the main components of the composition are the magic of music and sounds. In my opinion, it is not surprising that technology is widely used in the music industry. Moreover, many music genres arise and develop due to the use of digital technologies. In the 1980s, the development and wide distribution of digital technologies led to the development of experimental manipulation with sound. Electronic music continues to have more and more effect on the music itself. Sometimes modern technology can have total control over the sound or even over the space. Digital technologies give us the opportunity to create not only new genres in the music industry, but to change our aesthetic perception overall. Probably we are on the boundaries of a new world order and music reflects this tendency. Furthermore, music may lose its autonomy in the future and will be a part of an audiovisual synthesis. However, the attempt to show music through tangible objects and shape change is another new trend. It is difficult to assess what kind of opportunities there will be for the creation of such hybrid forms and how they will change the concept of genre. Undoubtedly music forms 'actually become more significant in the digital age.' (Sandywell and Beer, 108)
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Reference:
Sandywell, Barry and Beer David. "Stylistic Morphing: Notes on the Digitization of
Contemporary Music Culture." Convergence: The International Journal of Research
into New Media Technologies 11.4 (2005): 106-21. Print.
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