Combining Music and Photography

>>> I have seen some photographic exhibits in which music was playing in the background.

 

Fortunately that kind of cheese has not come to any of San Francisco's major museums or photography

galleries. And never will, I suspect, unless it is a tightly integrated component of a special conceptual exhibition. In fact, the only

situations where I've seen music accompanying photos are with tacky wedding photo presentations. Or at some of SF's Fisherman's Wharf "galleries."

<p>Any medium or combination of mediums is only as cheesy as its creator and the possibilities only limited by a lack of taste and imagination.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>All music has become Muzak in a sense when it is randomly spewed out over the public like so much rainwater.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>So, the use of music devalues the music itself? The widespread use of photos devalue photos? It's like saying we should quit using knifes, because everybody has one in a drawer in the kitchen. If the use of a bit of Mozart in an elevator manages to remove your appreciation for Mozart, for example, I think you should really consider how deep your appreciation really ran in the first place.</p>

<p>Music as Pollution</p>

<p>More and more, public music is considered noise pollution.</p>

<p>QUOTE<br>

You go out to dinner and end up in a place where the management thinks more music will stimulate conversation or your appetite. Then a strolling mariachi band or a guy playing the violin comes around.<br>

<br />Psychologists call this barrage “audio architecture,” or “musical wallpaper,” designed to put you in the mood to buy more and eat a lot. <br>

<br />Even the U.S. government considers this “noise pollution,” especially when the music is cranked up. Not only has the National Institutes of Health warned about hearing loss from exposure to loud noises - including music blasting into one’s ear - but the Environmental Protection Agency has even issued warnings about the effects of “unwanted or disturbing sound.” <br>

END QUOTE - <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/unwanted-music-is-noise-pollution-to-some-144398355/180907.html">Source</a></p>

<p>It's true that most of us, me included, can "tolerate a little Mozart in the elevator." But, we've gone well beyond that now, haven't we? Music as a manipulator is a big business. The music piped in continuously to malls and restaurants and grocery stores and gas stations is designed to manipulate behavior. It is a psychological invasion of privacy. A means to get into your brain and persuade you into some act that you might not otherwise have undertaken. That's why enterprises pay so much money for it.</p>

<p>Piped in music raises blood pressure as a minimum of physiological impacts. Studies are being done to assess the further physiological impacts and it is suggested that such music can greatly increase stress and the flow of various hormones.</p>

<p>Let's imagine the questions then. When I go for a pair of socks, am I volunteering to be physiologically conditioned this way? Why would anyone do that? Suppose my musical interests run along the lines of west coast jazz, or Broadway musicale, am I going to hear that when going for the socks, or is it more likely I will hear something I despise, like ConePoneCountry? Remember now, I didn't arrive and pay for a musical concert, I arrived to purchase a pair of socks.</p>

<p>Just driving the car subjects a person to the massive bass-boomers roaming the streets with 2500 watt amplifiers and banks of sub woofers who sit next to you vibrating your car. That's an assault on people's privacy.</p>

<p>And finally we get to over-exposure. And my argument is that yes, overexposure reduces both desire and appreciation. Eat your favorite food every day and see if it is true for you. Listen to one album everyday for a month. Hang a favorite painting on every wall surface at home and at work. Watch reruns of Lucy endlessly. No doubt that at the statistical margins there are people who enjoy doing that. I don't believe it is typical experience.</p>

<p>The ears need rest just as they eyes and the brain in general. A perpetually agitated brain (the result of musical and noise manipulation) is unhealthy.</p>

<p>Using the Google, one can easily find hundreds of sources of solid educational materials on the effects of A) noise pollution; B) psy-ops using piped in music; C) physiological affects of stress inducing stimuli.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>No one here is talking about music as noise pollution. Well, almost no one.</p>

<p>What we're talking about is an artistic endeavor to integrate music and photography.</p>

<p>Using that as an excuse to rant about the insidious nature of music is fine, but that's all it is.</p>

<p>That's a bit of what happens with point counter-point. I made the case that music didn't augment photography for me. One reason I cited was the musical pollution. Someone challenged that reasoning suggesting that I didn't have any music appreciation to begin with, and that "a little Mozart in the elevator" should be fine. I then simply reinforced my original argument with more data.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Thinking about Don's two posts -- combining picutres and music and/or combining pictures and poetry, I'm wondering if this doesn't have to do with projecting or channeling a "voice." In other words, the photos are to be a conduit of channel for his voice. Which reminded me of a book by Stephen Connor about ventriloquism in which he gets into the permutations of voice with or without body:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"What a voice, any voice, always says, no matter what the particular local import may be of the words it emits, is this: this, here, this voice, is not merely a voice, a particular aggregation of tones and timbres; it is voice, or voicing itself. Listen, says a voice: some being is giving voice."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>... and:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"The principle of the vocalic body is simple. Voices are produced by bodies: but can also themselves produce bodies. The vocalic body is the idea — which can take the form of dream, fantasy, ideal, theological doctrine, or hallucination — of a surrogate or secondary body, a projection of a new way of having or being a body, formed and sustained out of the autonomous operations of the voice."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>... which, Connor points out, allowed famed director Robert Altman "to declare that ‘fundamental to the cinema experience is a process — which we might call the sound hermeneutic — whereby the sound asks <em>where?</em> and the image responds <em>here!</em>‘"</p>

<p>... which seems to me to be what Don might be envisioning for his poetry and music. The problem for me is that I cannot think of any instance, artistic or otherwise, in which a sounded voice can be believably assigned to an inert object. In addition, the photo has to be purely a frame for the sound or words, in which case it is rendered is useful only in its absence of interference.</p>

<p>Sugimoto did a kind of similar framing/channeling thing that I think works better because it does NOT involve sound or words. He embedded one of his photographs of the ("everlasting") sea in an ash container from the Kamakura period. The piece (photo and its container) are called 'Times Arrow.' Sugimoto says: "Time's arrow passes from the creation of heaven and earth through the Kamakura period and now reaches your eyes."</p>

<p>Julie,</p>

<p>I never though about it as a voice, but it could be.. We all have our own models of life. I think in terms of interconnected systems of life (humananity, arts, environment, work, etc) with inputs, outputs, black boxes, filters, feedback loops, all interconnected with one another. i think, the system's view of life is common these days.</p>

<p>The inputs may be poetry, music, photography, dance, humanitarian problems, cultural or landscape beauty, pain, suffering...etc. which are all mixed together in my mind, and reactions occur and outputs are produced (e.g. a photo). I then take some of these outputs and mix them together with some of the original inputs/outputs (e.g photo and song, or dance performance). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, often i get negative results and apparent dead ends which sometimes in turn can result in new ideas. Also it is really subjective. I am really interested in experimenting with process, as much as the results. Nice results are fine, poor results are ok as well. Joy comes out of being comfortable with both the good and bad and the interconnection, and process itself.. Also I try not to make much distinction between taking photograph, reading a poem, designing a optical system, cleaning the house or recovering from surgery, even though there are some i like more than others. Which is why I blur the boundaries sometimes.</p>

<p>I consciously and subconsciously connect the dots between these elements. Photography, engineering design, and fundrasing are some the main processing elements in my personal black box. Photographs, optical designs, fundraising money or ideas are some of the main outputs. Everyone has their own elements/processes. The outputs can be well defined, others fuzzy, and sometimes don't sync up with other people or systems, which is inevitable. Also refinement of an output or process usually requires alot feedback iterations often with help from other systems. Also talking in this systems manner gets tiring pretty quick, it is much more fun to just be part of the process of the system of life.</p>

<p>The black box processing model, could be seen as a voice. let me know what you think</p>

<p>Here is two examples of my systems approach, #1 is a subsystem, Music and photography, #2 shows a wider system view.</p>

<p><strong><em>Example- 1 - Music and </em></strong><strong><em>Photography</em></strong><br>

<strong><em>Inputs:</em></strong><br>

1. A song: "Naked" by Anoushka Shankar<br>

2. A walk along a river in the rain.</p>

<p><strong><em>Process: </em></strong><br>

While I was walking in the rain, I saw connection between the cyclical melodic and rhythmic patterns in the music in my mind at the time to the whirlpools in the water, I take time exposed photos of the whirlpools then create three different views of the experience. A year later, a dance artist then takes the photos and dances on stage with them.</p>

<p><strong><em>Outputs</em></strong><br>

1. Video with image and music combined<br>

<p>2. A series of still images w/ no music</p>

<p>http://www.dphoton.org/Visual-Raga-Project/Water-Raag</p>

<p>3. A composite of only nine images on a single print (20x30")</p>

<p> http://www.dphoton.org/Visual-Raga-Project/Water-Raag/11818258_dX3MR7#!i=2338600215&k=s5D3bDG</p>

<p>4. Combine still images on stage with a live Indian dance performance<br>

Classical Indian dancers use traditional dance techniques to visually tell stories about the various forms of water, along with the series of these photographs.<br>

http://www.dphoton.org/gallery/11818258_dX3MR7#!i=2338688314&k=w94fsXp</p>

<p> 5. A new personal view of the song/photos combined, where the photos look like planetary rings, and connect with the the song's musical feeling of floating "naked" in the cosmos. A theme in Indian philosophy.</p>

<p>They all have their strengths and weaknesses, I think they compliment each other.</p>

<p>Often times in a discussion combining other art and photography, people will say something like, "What would the musician/poet think if someone else combines photos with their music/poems?" Anoushka really liked the photographic connection with her music in #3, and the idea of #4. especially since she sometimes has an Indian dancer perform on stage with her. I haven't showed her #1 yet. Also, I was really honored when the dancer Mouli Pal used photos to dance on stage as part of her performance. I am sure some that artists would be offended and object. I always give credit, copyrights can be difficult, Most often just make a reference to the music., and let the view make the connection</p>

<p>I am interested in other peoples feedback as well.</p>

 

I will discuss #2, the larger systems approach later.

 

<p>I don't think you're succeeding in "<strong>combining</strong>" your photographs with the other media (poetry or music or, now also, dance). The pictures and the other in no sense <strong>belong</strong> to one another in the sense of being "a" work of art or even "a" thing as opposed to several things that happen to be in the same space at the same time, however appropriate they may be to one another. For example, the decor in a museum is equally appropriate and equally *not* an integral part of any of the art that is displayed within its ambiance.</p>

<p>Let me try to explain: think of toy soldiers, the kind kids play with. Or, these days, I guess you'd have action figures. You're looking at one of them; one arm raised, face in an aggressive expression, legs bent for action, costumed for war. You study the figure and think about the figure and there's room for endless imagination. That's like your still photograph.</p>

<p>Then you play with your action figure. To make it speak, you make noises, jiggle it just thus, emote its body; to make it attack, you surge it this way and that, to make it die, or struggle or whatever, there is all sorts of movement, all sorts of "doing" that has to happen. The thing has to move in order to act or to sound. That equates to your music, your poetry, your dance.</p>

<p>When done, you put your action figure back on the shelf. That figure and what it did in no sense "belong" to each other. You have a figure and you have a "did this" but the one does not in any way require the other. You could just as easily have used another action figure. Or that action figure could have done an infinite number of different "did this" sequences. The "did this" in no way defines what you see standing on the shelf; and what's standing on the shelf does not define the "did this" that happened by your story/action/game.</p>

<p>Another example. Say you have a still picture of Hitler and along with its display you run a recording of one of his speeches. That still does not require or "belong" to that speech and that speech in does not require or belong to that still in the same way that the action figure does not belong to its "did this" as described above. The still of Hitler is both more and less than that speech.</p>

<p>"Did this" things, things that have duration, things that start here and go there, can be combined and made to belong -- such as movies and sound tracks, or music and dance. You can add a "did this" with another "did this," but you can't make a "did this" and a still figure, an action figure or an object belong to any particular "did this" any more than I can look at Don and say that he, standing there, "belongs" to any defined segment of his acts. He is both more and less than those acts. A "did this" is like a finite series of numbers "this follows that" which any "body" can follow but which sequence/process is defined. A still picture or an unmoving action figure or "Don" is like a defined infinity or a number that goes on forever (like pi). It is a source from which in infinite number of things could happen, in an infinite number of trajectories.</p>

<p>On the other hand ... which is why I brought up ventriloquism. If the "still" is taken as a conduit or channel, an oracle stone/bone/entrail through which or from which voices can be heard/known, then I think you do get a "belonging" in the sense that the still is an integral part of the process -- but at the cost of having its own "meaning" nullified (or almost so; oracles seem to only speak through rather peculiar things). Another "container" type relationship is reliquaries. The nature/appearance of the reliquary does participate in the emanations of what it carries.</p>

<p><em><<<the decor in a museum is equally appropriate and equally *not* an integral part of any of the art that is displayed within its ambiance.>>></em></p>

<p>This goes to the crux of what feels like a denial of the process of PRESENTATION, which is so vital an aspect of photography. Presentation is probably worth a thread of its own.</p>

<p>We can probably debate for days what an "integral" part of a photo is and how important "non-integral" parts are, but the contexts in which photos are seen, integral or not, are influential, persuasive, and affective.</p>

<p>Whether or not Don is creating ONE new work of art, I don't know, but he is adding to, possibly taking away from, but definitely affecting his photos or his dance with their accompaniments.</p>

<p>The decor in my home studio, where I just had my first show, was very much a part of the viewing experience if, by decor, you consider the colors of the walls and other design accoutrements which affect the viewing of photos. What things are not "integral"? Is the combination of natural and studio lighting an integral part of a photo show? If it's non-integral, fine, but it certainly is in part determinative of how the photos will be seen. I know this because, depending on which side of the studio my prints were going to hang in, I needed to print them differently to get the look I wanted. That's when I knew a print was a living thing, when I moved it from wall to wall. </p>

<p>There's a sense of "combine" in which two or more things become one and a sense of combine which is not quite as state-altering (many factors "combined" to cause the recession).</p>

<p>Watching Don's first slide show and looking at his dance slides, all I had to do was accept his challenge, which I didn't take to be to sit around and try in an academic manner to decide if he had created a new oneness or some kind of meaningful multiplicity, but simply to allow a few things to interact in my presence and feel whatever I felt. I think the last thing an artist wants is a viewer whose response to his work is a matter of defining "what is this?" There's a thread over in casual conversations, where someone asks "what is a landscape?" Most of the answers, though I have disagreements with their dogmatic tone about rejecting definition per se, center around the fact that the category is not as important as the photo. I'd say the same with Don's experiments.</p>

<p><em><<<at the cost of having its own "meaning" nullified>>></em></p>

<p>No photo, painting, movie, sculpture, clay pot, rug, football, tennis racket, desk, or chair, has its OWN meaning. We give it meaning, and that meaning is fluid and changeable according to context. A photo does not live and cannot be seen in a vacuum. Some of its meaning will always be the book in which we find it, the wall on which it's hung, the frame surrounding it. In that sense the music in the slide show provides space in which to view the photos. If one doesn't want to be manipulated into something, one shouldn't be going to see a photography show to begin with, because the space is already being manipulated by the hanging of photos. If the photographer or curator decides to go further and manipulate the space the photos are seen in and against (which will have to be done even if by default), then so be it. Someone's got to decide what atmosphere the prints are going to be seen in. Whether that's a choice of incandescent, fluorescent, halogen, or LED light or the choice between music or silence, colored walls or white, thin frames or thick, reflective or glare-proof glass, I don't see that a photo can possibly have "its own meaning", some sort of mythological purity that would be tarnished by musical accompaniment.</p>

<p>If part of a photo's meaning is given it by the photographer, and I think it is, then the photographer is entitled to affect that meaning with music. You can like it or not but contorting yourself with histrionics and creative analogies about toy soldiers and Hitler's speeches in order to claim some sort of inappropriateness to combining media simply shows a lack of imagination, IMO, more akin to schoolmarms who attempted to stifle their students than artists who more often attempt to open up possibilities. </p>

<p><em><<<That figure and what it did in no sense "belong" to each other.>>></em></p>

<p>Julie's story of the action figures is so adorable, in a sense, because it's so not childlike. "Action figure": I wonder why they call it that? You tell the little kid who's action figures sit on a shelf until he plays with them that the action and the figure IN NO SENSE "BELONG" TO EACH OTHER. They'd probably go running to Mommy or Daddy to tell them Aunt Julie is being mean. OF COURSE, they belong to each other. Maybe the kid is too immature to have learned what Julie's telling him, in which case, GOOD FOR THE KID.</p>

<p>Looking at photos and displaying them is an ACT. Those acts can belong to photos as much as the chemicals used to fix them. The belonging is simply less permanent.</p>

<p>I'm not saying all examples of photos and other mediums will be successful or well done. But there is nothing inherently schizophrenic about any level of media combination, whether it be to provide a context or sense of space or atmosphere, or to more directly and intimately interact with each other, or to become one.</p>

<p><em><<<You can add a "did this" with another "did this," but you can't make a "did this" and a still figure, an action figure or an object belong to any particular "did this">>></em></p>

<p>You are only as limited as your imagination, your restrictions, your rules, your logic, and your myopia. </p>

<p>Julie,<br>

As I think if it "combing" probably wasn't my most accurate choice of words to describe what i am trying to do. I think "connecting" is more accurate.<br>

Also I am not sure If you addressed your original statement and my question in my the last message about whether your "finding a voice", was comparable to my systems view of creativity which was the original point of my last email.<br>

The Jazz guiatrist Pat Metheny said that his main goal in all his performances was to focus on performing for the audience within first. WHen he plays live or on an album he is actively thinking what do I what note do I want to hear next, not what do I think the audience wants to hear. This is where I always start.</p>

 

When I feel that I have made this connection that is my ultimate success. When a musician such as Anoushka Shankar tells me that these photos really connect with with her own vision of her own composition, then I think that is personal success.

 

 

When the curator of Asian Art Dept at the MFA in Boston who studied Hindustani vocals tells me that she really really sees the connection between the photographs and the spirit of music, when she moderated one of my shows, and I think that is a good sign. I haven't provided a link to these images yet.

 

 

If these people thought the connection worked, but I didn't I would be going down a different path. If I thought they worked, but others didn't I may still continue down the same path. In some cases like my connection between the farm photos and the music of crooked still, that connection is fairly weak, and didn't really work because of my limitations in copyright issues in connecting the two.

 

 

 

<p id="yui_3_7_2_21_1359300105664_39">Julie</p>

<p id="yui_3_7_2_21_1359300105664_39">Your toy solider analogy was really helpful, I thought about it some more, as well as the comments of others</p>

<p id="yui_3_7_2_21_1359300105664_39"> Maybe if one plays with the soldier with a child-like sense of wonder then success is only limited by one's imagination. However, seeing the world with that sense of wonder is probably what is more important than getting caught up in the results of one's work.</p>

<p> Getting too caught up in the desires of whether one's work is good or bad , a success or a failure, or who and how many people like or dislike it can only bring more dissatisfaction in the long run (at least for me).</p>

<p> I find myself getting too caught up on the apparently endless treadmill these desires all of the time. Occassionally, I realize that I can step off into that open sense of wonder of the world.</p>

<p>Don, thank you for thinking more about what I said. And I agree very much with the "Getting too caught up in the desires of whether one's work ... " part of you last comment above, though I don't so much think it's the good/bad success/failure but that it's what those judgments mean -- that people aren't feeling the work. I think that's totally natural, and good and ... inevitable. That's what we who love photography are here for/about.</p>

<p>I in turn have thought about your post and, while I hope my "doesn't belong" argument made some sense, I can also see your "connected" claim. After all, that's what toys are for (not meaning to suggest that your work is a toy; just sticking to the analogy). They invite the child to, as you say, wonder. And if we or somebody presents two toys in close proximity, there will be the fertile potential for the child to invest them with connections.</p>

<p>Thank you for returning; it means a great deal to me that you took more than a few minutes to think about what I said -- whether or not we end up fully agreeing. Thank you.</p>

<p><<<<em>Getting too caught up in the desires of whether one's work is good or bad , a success or a failure, or who and how many people like or dislike it can only bring more dissatisfaction in the long run (at least for me)</em>.>>></p>

<p>Don, I try not to get caught up in the good or bad dichotomy and the like or dislike dichotomy. As a matter of fact, strong dislikes of my work can be gratifying, since I make work that I assume not everyone will like, including me sometimes. When your work is liked universally, you are as likely to have a pop and fleeting phenomenon (or an Elvis on black velvet) as you are a DaVinci masterpiece.</p>

<p>But I'm not sure I'd want to rule out a concern with success and failure, or at least something akin to it, which in my vocabulary is about <em>sharing</em>. I don't see photography as an individual pursuit or a pursuit I do just for myself. It is a way for me to express to others and to share (ideas, emotions, and myself). So whether a sharing of sorts take place, which might be a communication or some sort of bond created by the photo, can be of great significance to me (though I don't necessarily expect that sharing to be universal).</p>

<p>I can't separate (or don't want to) the "results" of my work from the wonder of my work. I am after a finished product as well as a process and a mind set. Reactions, responses, dialogues forged, the sharing that ensues are all part of the wonder to me.</p>

<p>I actually embrace the endless treadmill of desire, which I consider life. Like you, I am wary about "getting caught up in it." For me, getting caught up in it is being too conscious or especially self conscious of it. The meta level, where I am constantly looking at it or thinking about it is dangerous for me. But the "it" (if it's the treadmill of desire) isn't a problem for me.</p>

<p>I don't experience wonder and desire to be at odds with each other.</p>

<p>The obvious PN caveat must apply here. So I have to say that when I'm shooting or making photos, I am not tailoring them to meet others' needs or desires, but at some points in my process I do consider that these photos will be met by others. I am often working in the moment. Nevertheless, I will be sharing my photos and that is a significant aspect of the experience for me.</p>

<p>Combine(?) photography with music !!!<br>

How about adding live belly-dancing in a small window at top-right of the picture, as well? Oh, and pop-corn.</p>

<p>Nosar,<br>

I do a lot of belly dancing photography, don't tempt me.</p>

<p>It is disconcerting but we have to live with it. But <em>anything</em> just to get people to galleries is good. They have all evolved into social venues I'm afraid. Why not belly dancers? Project pictures on their bellies! I know, I know, it's been done! :-) There are so many good musicians now it is hard to compete for photography that is too serious. By that I mean the music is just as likely to be Fender guitar as cello.</p>

<p><<<They have all evolved into social venues I'm afraid.>>></p>

<p>What's to be afraid of?</p>

<p>Art galleries as a social nexus . . . to be feared? Really?</p>

<p><<<<em>It is disconcerting but we have to live with it.</em>>>></p>

<p>Musical accompaniment in galleries is rare. No one has to live with it. At least not in my experience. It's actually quite rare.</p>

<p>This (below) is a kind of interesting formulation of music + photography (copy/pasting <a href="http://www.photoeye.com/bookstore/citation.cfm?catalog=ZE971&i=&i2=">from PhotoEye</a>):</p>

<p><strong>American <br />Power LP. </strong><br />Photographs by Mitch Epstein. <br />Music by Erik Friedlander. <br /><em>Steidl/Skipstone <br />Records, 2012. 4 pp., 44 color and 1 black & white illustrations, record, <br />12¼x12¼". </em><br /><br />Publisher's <br />Description<br />In 2003, Mitch Epstein began American Power, a five-year <br />long, twenty-five state investigation of energy production and consumption in <br />the United States, and how they had become manifest in the country's landscape <br />and culture. His interest lay in the notion of power; in the overlap of <br />electrical, corporate, civic, religious, environmental, commercial, <br />governmental, and artistic power. <br /><br />American Power won the 2011 Prix <br />Pictet award, whereupon Epstein was invited to present the project that July at <br />Les Rencontres d’Arles. To broaden his perspective on his own work, he asked <br />musician Erik Friedlander to collaborate. Friedlander composed music inspired by <br />the American Power pictures; and on a July night in a Roman amphitheater, <br />Friedlander performed his music on the cello in tandem with Mitch, who narrated <br />the project’s history, while behind them the photographs were projected on a <br />cinematic screen. <br /><br />In September 2011, Erik went in to the studio to <br />record the compositions originally performed in Arles. The American Power LP is <br />a suite of those six compositions, pressed on 180 gram audiophile vinyl. This <br />limited edition of 500 hand-numbered albums features gatefold artwork by Mitch <br />Epstein as well as a two-sided, 24x36 inch poster including Mitch’s photographs <br />from the presentation as well as Erik Friedlander’s handwritten score and a free <br />digital download of the music. <br /><br />180 gram audiophile vinyl featuring <br />gatefold artwork by Mitch Epstein<br />Limited Edition of 500 hand-numbered albums <br /><br /></p>

<p>I came across several videos by aupstudent on youtube in which a photo slideshow of images from Afghanistan are mixed with a sound track of traditional Afghan music. The think the combination of the two mediums in this case really compliments each other and helps to transport me there. I think it is more interesting than just the images alone (w/ volume turned down) at least in video format. Hopefully I will be going there in a year to two.<br>

<p>Don, I'm on (very, very, very slow) dial-up so I can't see your sample, above, but it seems to me that surely there's a tremendous risk that you'll unintentionally make comically wrong or at best random pairings of traditional music to particular pictures. By which I mean, suppose someone from Afghanistan posted that they were pairing traditional American music with images of America. Would that be country-western, or jazz? Pictures of urban or country, North or South? East or West? Even within the various genres, a foreign person would have trouble getting the particular branch that would be appropriate to particular imagery.</p>

<p>Maybe that doesn't matter -- if the combination transports you, then that's good enough. It depends on your intent; is this for enjoyment, in which case it doesn't matter; or is this to educate some audience, in which case, it seems to me that it matters very much.</p>

<p>I came across an interesting video on an artist who creates paintings inspired by music during a live performance, both are "performing" together on stage<br /><br />

/><br />Here is the artist statement:</p>

<p>Artist's statement by Linda Clave: Sound in Paint are my works with musicians. The vitality of the moment is captured in paint during live performances or live sessions with a musician. My interest has been dual creativity sparking new rhythms and tempos to my painting style of gesture and color. The works are also statements of movement during the change of seasons at the spring and fall equinox or other events where shifts are taking place</p>

<p>Don, thanks for that YouTube link. Quite interesting. </p>

<p>I do wonder, however, about her "artist's statement" when her resulting paintings all appear similar. <br>

<a href="http://www.lindaclavearts.com/sound-in-paint-2014.htm">http://www.lindaclavearts.com/sound-in-paint-2014.htm</a></p>

<p>The opposite of what she does will be music composition or improvisation while being visually stimulated, and if I take that approach, I see Enya in her paintings. </p>