Soundtracks.
After I upped the RAM in my computer and can run Premiere, I can't export with out my computer overheating and shutting down. So I'm musing in words.
In thinking about how I use music in my videos (and how I think about music in my life in general), I strive to find the appropriate match for the content and the audio. Yes, admittedly there are literal connections (I just baked a cake for the cafe and the audio was "Dark Chocolate" by Dan Bern), but much more often I try to form a more visceral link between visual and audio.
Why visceral? Hmm... my own reaction to music is a visceral one. I feel strong associations when I hear certain songs.
On my walk into town today I was flipping through my ipod in a playlist called "room in a house." "room in a house" is a playlist of songs that I dream of hearing when I live in this imaginary apartment or house. I could tell you about the structural features of the space, but more important is the feeling of the whole thing. Some songs include "Sweet Harmony" by Maria Muldaur, "On the Fiddle" by Paul Curreri, "For You Only" by Rachel Ries, "Shelter from the Storm" by Bob Dylan. While I associate all those songs with this dream I have, they all have separate associations. The above four: a summer evening on my parents' deck, shopping at the farmer's market in Dublin, October in Montpelier with my kitten, and driving to high school when I was 17.
and all those also make me think of my future home.
The interesting part of this story is that those songs do carry associations with this dream I have but also with a variety of other moments in my life. Maybe a song's association is:
15% the first time I heard it
55% percent the first time I attached to it,
20% a pivotal moment I experienced while listening to this song, and
10% the small inklings I have about listening to the song in the future.
That does equal 100% right?
That's kind of how I hear music. When I choose a song to go along with a video, it can be an immediate association, or it can take days of thinking and listening to get the right combination. Just for my ears because when I don't want to mess around with a particular previous association.
Hmm... maybe when I pair a video with a song, I'll start listing where the song association came from.
