I asked the deaf man, who watched the flying birds in awe and wonder, if he could hear their chirp as they circled with the wind. He grunted and laughed, Fool! He clamored at me, grabbing my arms and shook me. You are the deaf one; your ears are filled with the wax of the machine, the bombing of the freight train, the retching of steel. I was shocked by his words, and he grinned his toothless grin. I heard your heart skip two beats, but listen honey I am not deaf; I just hear the earth in its original song.
Response
As the writer asked I listened to my surroundings. What I heard was the hum of my laptop’s fan running and the sound of the refrigerator hitting B-Flat on the major scale. I have always been sensitive to the subject of natural sound and industrial sounds. I even began to write a collection on how my main character goes from enjoying nature and falling in love to an instant change of environment and all he hears is drills and the crunch of concrete under his feet, instead of dirt.
It is simple the bunny chews a carrot as the duck fusses at the hand that changes his atmosphere. Mickey's sticks move as he conducts the train and the symphony strings turn the wheels. But the formless float, no water to be found, 'cause I've never known water to be that clear. Thighs and legs I guess, the line turned to an 8 no an & wait, what's that ~ over there, no speech or "What's up Doc?" The orange carrot, green vegetation topped, falls down, the ground is purple, the bunny is dead.
Response
The first time I ever saw Duck Amuck, was in my Introduction to Film Studies class. Now I was never unfamiliar with with the character Daffy Duck; he was the one that always spit and had the lisp when he talked. Anyway, when I watched the short animation I found it quite comical, as did the rest of the class (everyone laughing as if on cue) at how this drawing came to life and actually seemed like a human being. I later learned that it was a trademark of Warner Brothers to have a more adult like feel to there cartoons than its competitor Disney.
When I was younger and I enjoyed my Saturday morning cartoons, I, along with my sister and my cousin, found ourselves choosing to watch Looney Tunes over any Mickey Mouse cartoon. In thinking about it now I think we loved the more slapstick, unrealistic situations that the Looney Tunes characters found themselves in, instead of that "moral" of the story, teaching a lesson type cartoon; we went to school five days a week and learning was out the door. I mean seeing the Roadrunner out wit the Coyote every time was priceless.
This is not an advocacy for Looney Tunes over Disney, but just me thinking back to how I felt and how these companies used certain methods to win over different types of audiences. From my understanding Disney or Disney "types" would use what is called a symphonic approach, playing on the more poetic side of the art of animation and Warner Brothers or Warner "types" would use what is called the approach cacphonic, the more urban and industrialized based, when it comes to dialogue.
I can see were the symphonic plays into Disney, which plays onto the more "emotional" side of its audience, like subjects of love and friendship, and Warner being more of pop culture, drawing out laughter from its viewer, which is an emotion as well, but Disney seems to have a more "realistic" standpoint in situations than Warner Brothers.
As for the experimental side, which seems as if it doesn't have anything in common with the previous, also has a more "symphonic" approach, like Disney. The experimental draws out an emotional response from its viewer, if it is sadness , anger, confusion...etc, and also, like Disney, plays with the idea of music being its source of movement, visually or image based, rather than direct dialogue.
Music of the Pandora world affects the Pollock-ing drips of ink rhythm from the brush tip. The clock melts, a persistence of memory, Dali watches the room. Ants in mind I too practice the thick strokes of Van Gogh, lapped on the velvet coated lines swirl. Rather fond of the six hundred, I texturize lines from a razor, free forming shapes that have no name. I'm a kid again, boxed in the collegiate.
Response
So far my experience in this class has been a borderline to insanity and relief. I mean how often do any college students come across a class where there is no wrong answer? Even in my poetry classes when we workshop and critique each others words and images, we still tend to put a right and wrong tendency on the piece of art. I have grown so use to structure now I feel like I am being left out to dangle over the Atlantic without the help of any person, but having to figure out a way to survive on my own.
The class gives me my own freedom in finding a way to create on film. The idea of camera less film making blows my mind, because, first of all we’re dealing with actual film and not tape, and also there is no digital involvement in this process.
I get to enter a whole new world and think no thoughts to what I am doing; I just do, wherever the music leads, like a euphoria clouding my mind, leaving me unable to think of or connect to the masses of the outside world, but only to go deep inside my being to bring out something new. Not new to the universe, but new to me and my way of creating.
An outsider would think that the elementary approach to camera less film making as not of scholarly work. I would say tell that to the Brakhage’s and Deren’s of the world and many other types of artist, tell them that their way is wrong, and then try and give them a mathematical formula on how they are supposed to create, it would make those people, including myself, wither a die, because in due time scholars and critiques would have sucked the life out of true creativity.
Poetry writing classes took the place of my music classes, and now six by one is taking the place of poetry, amongst all of the critical studies and time consuming readings, six by one allows me to let my mind go further than an intellectual theory.
A flat and B flat turned burgundy. The stoplight flashed green light and my song sung smoothed notes, I the sultry one evolved to silhouettes, my curves morphed to waves, me the calm breeze. Clashing symbols synchronized beats with the ear drum, a bee-ing buzz firecrackered yellow blossoms, violent and thrashing red foamed the street. The flat line held its tone, enter the black.
Response
In the recent past is when I became aware of synesthesia, one of my poetry professors explained to my forms of poetry class about the relation between sound and colors and also how she saw numbers in color. I found the topic very interesting, and as a poet I secretly longed for what I considered a gift in becoming a better artist.
The reading on synesthesia and its mentioning of Disney’s Fantasia made me recall my sophomore year in high school, because that year in band we played the music from the Fantasia soundtrack. I remember to how the director would explain how staccato he wanted the low brass and low woodwind section to play the Sorcerer’s Apprentice section of the arrangement. He went to describe playing the notes, comparing it to splashing water in a pool, saying “If you use long strokes of your arms and hands, then you’ll end up splashing a large amount of water on the people around you. I want you to think of the notes as skimming your hand just above the water’s surface, making little splashes.” In a way he used a reverse synesthesia on us, making our section see and hear the notes as small splashes of water, instead of actual noted music.
In a way I think synesthesia is a method that the mind relates things for a person to have a certain understanding. Even when people don’t recall on shapes or smells or colors or numbers, they’re mind still has a function in working, in a mysterious mode that no scientist can ever understand. The human is a complex being, an entity far superior than the normal creation, do to our ability to make choices beyond the average animal.
On the topic of cymatics and how sound waves can form recognizable shapes due to the harmonic vibrations, further proves the idea of visual music. Let’s imagine Stan Brakhage’s The Dante Quartet as a symphony, much like any symphony, the melody of the entire piece will go through movements (most of the time four), but in some way will transform. Paint as Brakhage’s notes and film and camera are his instrumentation, Brakhage’s music explores, in its own right, the Allegro, Scherzo, Adagio and Recitative.
