Brady (drummer, filmmaker, good citizen) and I will be filming a Big Swifty video for the song Break the Hold -if you go to Brady’s website you can see a few of his excellent short films.
It’s been inspiring for me to think visually as a form of creative expression. As a musician, of course, you are channeled towards auditory creativity. But there’s a clear connection in the human mind between music and the images it provokes - for some people more than others. Although I personally don’t often visualize the music I hear, there are a few exceptions:
1) John Adams: this music has an expansive quality and emotional immediacy that reminds me of great, beautiful landscapes, specifically those of Northern California, where Adams lives. I spent part of my childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area, a city revered for its beauty but also for the wildness of Marin County on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. I hear (and see) in his early pieces (Shaker Loops, Phrygian Gates, especially) the energy of a city combined with the meditative effect of nature on the mind and soul. There is something about this music that moves me deeply.
2) Philip Glass: When I learned this summer I was going to be performing with the PGE, of course I was excited. Shortly after this I went up to Alaska for a visit with my parents. I brought a copy of “Music in 12 Parts” with me so I could begin to understand how the 4 hr. piece is put together. This interested me both as composer and a performer, and so I ended up playing the piece almost every time I got in my parent’s car to drive somewhere. Now when I hear this music (especially Parts 1,2 &6) I often visualize the vast, mountainous, beautiful Alaskan landscape unfolding before me. Previously, I had always associated (not necessarily visually) the energy of Philip Glass’ music with a frenetic city atmosphere like New York. But now I also see parallels between how the music slowly unfolds and evolves and the way the face of the Earth changes over time. In Alaska almost everything you see has been carved out by the slow and steady process of glaciation, and how the land shifts is interconnected. For instance, a plate shift below the ground forces up rock to create a mountain, which by definition exists at a higher and colder elevation. This colder environment often creates glaciers, which then shape the face of the mountain and create valleys at the foot of the mountain. You could go on and on.
I also think an understanding of how our world slowly evolves and the nature of Glass’ music can be viewed through the Buddhist concepts of interconnection (described above as it relates to nature), emptiness and patience. In the Buddhist context, emptiness implies an understanding that all beings and things are empty of inherent existence. This doesn’t mean that humans or things don’t exist in a conventional sense, just that the way we often view ourselves - as operating independently of others and our surroundings is a false reality created by grasping to independent self nature. A sense of patience is also required for Philip Glass listeners to appreciate a piece like Music in 12 Parts. In this way there are parallels to the experience of meditation, which seeks to calm the scattered mind and allow individuals to focus single pointedly.
The music depends heavily on those performing to lock in with each other rhythmically - resulting in an interconnection of parts that can be hard for the listener to separate. In other words, a coming together of individuals to create an interconnected mass of slowly evolving sound. Since people inherently crave this kind of communal experience they are attracted to music which can embody that experience. This is also why music that doesn’t ask you to feel any specific way emotionally has the potential to make you feel the full spectrum of human emotion.