Relation to Music.

[skulpture]

Hi All,

I've just been thinking. Wanted to share some thoughts and ask some open ended questions....

Quite often we get asked to do visuals for a gig. We say yes. We 'generally' for the lower end/intermediate gigs anyway get told the type of music; Hose, trance, DnB, Dub etc. This is great (the larger gigs have much more planning, production meetings etc, I know)

BUT, do you ever get to a gig but really cant 'get into' the music, if so how do you relate to the music when VJing? Do all of us VJs have a music background? Or do those who do not learn through experience? What if we VJ for a true jazz freestyle gig? Everything goes out the window then!! haha.

For example, I compose my own music so I have a fair amount of music theory so I can predict song changes etc.

I also DJ so I know nearly all of the Dj techniques, effects and technology.

I also teach music and music technology so again, I understand the concepts and ideas behind production and live performance.

So, what happens when you have very limited knowledge or no knowledge at all of music, music performance, music theory or similar. Do you guess? Leave longer clips running and add real time effects etc?

I know everyone has their own style and different hardware/software preferences but I think you know what I am getting at.... hmmm. :confused:

[vjair]

although i think the amount of musicality within a vj performance varys from vj to vj and style to style, i do think that on the whole some knowledge of music can improve a performance.

i dont think you need to know music theory as such, but a good understanding of musical structure is very usefull as well as being able to relate your visual output to music in ways such as colour, shape and motion within your visuals to reflect the mood, movement speed and of the audio other wise the audio and video can become fairly disjointed and irrelevant to each other and it can end up looking like two seperate people just doing thier own thing.

for me, a key part of vjing is to create a relationship between the two aspects.

[SteveG]

I suppose in the same way as some of the greatest modern day musicians couldn't or can't read music...as long as you can count, hear, see, drink and stay up past bed time you're quids in:)

[vjneef]

I don't have a music background, although a lot of my friends are musicians, but I do think I can understand what happens in music most of the time. This is not because I know anything about music but by intuition.
Sometimes it's very hard to get along with the music and sometimes it works great. A jazz freestyle gig would be very good for me to work with. A constant beat all night long is much harder.

[skulpture]

See I find that really interesting. Doing a jazz set would be horrid I think. Maybe it's my dj background but I like to work to a tempo. Not knowing when something is going to happen makes me nervous! Well not quite but you know what I mean.

[vjneef]

Well that's part of the game. To try and figure out how the musician/dj works and do something that works well with that. Not reacting to the music because you will always be too late, but to be in the same state as the person that makes the music.
I guess my lack of musical knowledge is a advantage when working this way. ;)

[KidKDN]

in relation to music i think vjing is a form of visual music, and thus is subject to the same constructs of tonal music.

tonal music has got consonance and dissonance, tension and release. vjing is like creating visual music in real time... is just expressing consonance and dissonance visually.

A Vj that mixes video to match the musical movements, is creating visual music. but that is not to say that a vj should do this.. or has to do this ... it is just a option... a way to think about vjing in a certain context.

it is a definitely a musical context to look at vjing at but it kind of makes sense at least to me ...

but free form jazz.. good luck with that .

free jazz always reminds me of a john cage story this composer i interned for told me
a three piece jazz band once ask john cage how they could make their improve sessions better..
john cage said to practice out of earshot from each other...