I know this is possibly ill-considered of me to admit, but I love video paired with live music performance primarily because I often find watching musicians themselves to be kind of distracting. “But Molly!” you may cry, if you’re an exceptionally motivated person, “you’re missing the artistry, the profound beauty of bows across strings and souls out there on the stage building this beautiful thing before your eyes!” And I’d say I know you have a point, and yes sometimes that’s true. But just as often I find that it is not the case at all and it helps me chill out and concentrate on what’s really central to the experience if I can have a milder place to park my eyes while partaking in the aural experience (and because, let’s face it, closing them seems a bit melodramatic, don’t you think?). It’s more akin to putting certain senses on mute and giving them permission to remain quiet, not violently turning them off completely.<\/p>\n
This may be a very personal thing. I also loved performing in spaces where I was in a pit orchestra or in the balcony of a church where the “audience” couldn’t see me that easily. It helped focus things, I always felt. But today I came across a visual manifestation of music that actually kind of rattled me at the core. This wasn’t some cheesy “visualizer” option in my mp3 player, but a video directly tied to the shape of the sound. It tweaked something weird in my brain, and I’m still working on what and why that is. Maybe it was just the novelty, but it seemed to plug the sounds into a different ear socket, so to say, in way that I found enjoyably compelling.<\/p>\n
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