Genealogy of Music Video - Visual Music
• DEFINITION: a short film, video or moving image derived from or designed to accompany a piece of music, commonly a song.
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
• VISUAL MUSIC: 1920’s Germany, Oscar Fischinger, Walter
Ruttmann, Hans Richter, Themerson’s began making animated
films synchronised to jazz & classical music.
• Visual music, sometimes called "colour music", refers to the
use of musical structures in visual imagery.
• Since ancient times artists have longed to create with moving
lights a music for the eye comparable to the effects of sound for
the ear. – Dr. William Moritz,
Genealogy of Music Video – Image Jukeboxes
• SOUNDIE (USA 1941) & SCOPITONE (France, 1960): jukeboxes based on technology developed during World War II, where color 16 mm film clips with a magnetic soundtrack were shown on demand.
• copacabana scopitone
Genealogy of Music Video - Talkies
• HOLLYWOOD CINEMA
• The Jazz Singer (1927) is the first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era. The movie stars Al Jolson, who performs six songs.
Mammy by Al Jolson
Genealogy of Music VideoMusical Films to Music Video
• From the Hollywood Musical to Music Video: The Grafting that Lies Beneath Contemporary Australian Musicals - Diana Sandars
• SupraDiegetic - ”leaving normal day-to-day causality behind, the music creates a utopian space in which all singers and dancers achieve a unity unimaginable in the now superseded world of temporal, psychological causality” – Rick Altmann
• Supra (Latin for "above")
Genealogy of Music Video - (M)TV
• TELEVISION: Bandstand (1952), Top of the Pops (1964, BBC) and
Countdown promote artist such as Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Bill
Haley & the Comets. Artists perform on TV-stage to live audience.
• RECORD LABELS begin creating promotional videos that replace
live TV-stage performances in the 1970s.
– COUNTDOWN 1974-1987 weekly Australian Music TV show on ABC.
– MTV begins 1981 - first clip: Video Killed the Radio Star.
Countdown Intro
Genealogy of Music Video - Online Distribution
• INTERNET: new distribution of music video
via Google Video, Apple iTunes, MySpace.
YouTube etc
• Pitchfork Top 100 Videos
Video Images / Video Identities
Identity – The comprehension of a group or individual as a discrete, separate entity, with a relation to other groups or individuals.
• Image / Identity is reinforced through visual style, physical appearance, props, location, camera treatment.
• ‘Social Identity’ is essential in defining a song as commodity: The video as vehicle for increasing commercial sales
• The video as vehicle for constant stylistic re-invention / re-construction eg Madonna, Kylie, Michael Jackson
• The video reinforces perceptions of power, authenticity, beauty (eg Madonna, - fashion, Bono- human rights, Kurt Cobain – angst, Thom Yorke – fragility, integrity)
Music, Lyrics & Video – A Potent Brew
• Videos construct specific relationships to the songs which produce new meanings or add to existing menaing
– Illustrating: video reflects the mood or literal narrative of the
song; visual images directly illustrate lyrics
– Amplifying: visual images heighten the meaning of the song
but may have no direct relationship to the lyrics/ musical
content
– Contradicting: visual images seem to have little relationship
or are directly anathema to the lyrics or musical elements
Representations of Identity
• Music videos construct and reproduce representations of:
– Race– Nationality– Class– Gender & Sexuality– Ideology & Opinion (war, environment, drugs, education)
– EXAMPLE – Ideological Messages in Devo – Beautiful World
Strategies of Representation
• Representation is articulated and reinforced in Music Video through various modes and strategies:
– VOYEURISM (‘peeping tom’ perspectives, extreme close-ups etc, the relation of audience / spectator to performer)
– EXHIBITIONISM (physical provocation, showing off, status, skill, power, omnipotence)
– LIFESTYLE (products, fashion, cultural and subcultural cues)
– NARRATIVITY (events with articulate attitude, morality, culture)
– VIDEO AESTHETIC (editing, camera angles, fidelity)
– MISE-EN-SCENE (props, settings, spatial design etc)
– GENRE SPECIFICITY (metal, hip-hop, punk)
– INTERTEXTUALITY
Nirvana – Heart Shaped Box
Lyrics or Song Narrative
Words function in complex and varying ways:
– EXPRESSIVE objects: merging with the melody and timbre of the voice to create a certain mood or feeling, eg ballads
– NARRATIVE: constructing story based, episodic events which may or may not resolve. creating a rhythmic or harmonic flow, often following the speech melody eg in rap and conveying meaning
– SOUNDS: absorbed into the musical phrasing, creating a rhythmic, timbrel or harmonic flow, eg nonsense language, scatology
Example: ‘I’m so Post Modern’ - The Bedroom Philosopher
Sound Image Relationships in Music Video
• The visual image in music video can be used to illustrate, amplify or contradict aspects of the sonic content, such as:
– SONIC TIMBRE may correspond with Visual Colour, Lighting or Effects
– SONIC TEXTURE may correspond with Visual Layering or Counterpoint
– SONIC RHYTHM may correspond with Visual Cuts or transitions
– SONIC MELODY / HARMONY may correspond with Camera Movement reflecting
melodic contour or rising gestures
– SONIC STRUCTURE may correspond with changes in Visual Location or
Narrative..
– SONIC HOOKS may correspond with recurring Visual Motifs
– SONIC FADE INS AND OUTS may correspond with Visual Fades
– How To Make A Beat
A Music Video Genre: Parody
• In parody one text or form comments on another and, to be successful, relies on recognition of both forms. A parody is generally meaningless without knowledge of the original. It relies on audience interpretation.
• Parody is a reframing device, seeking new modes of representation, often of history and past forms.
• Parody self-reflexive or self-conscious in style. illusion/ artifice is openly acknowledged.
• It has the potential for multiple interpretations and can be ambiguous (a thing can be both one thing and another).
Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues Weird Al Yankovic – Bob
Tasks & ReadingsTASK
Analyse a music video.
What is the relationship between the music, lyrics and image? How is the image / identity constructed? What does it represent? What meaning does it convey?
Continue to work on your presentations, commencing next week.
READING
Carol VERNALLIS. Chapter 9 Connections Among Music Image & Lyrics in Experiencing Music Video. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.
references
• Carol VERNALLIS. Experiencing Music Video. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004
• Nicholas COOK. Analysing Musical Multimedia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998
• Andrew GOODWIN. Dancing at the Distraction Factory. London: Routledge, 1992
• Pete FRASER. Teaching Music Video, London: British Film Institute, 2005.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_video• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mise_en_sc%C3%A8ne