Sunday, April 30, 2006
Photography as Music
Ed note: Owen C. Grant passed along the following thoughts for your consideration.
I’ve been debating for a number of years over the merits of popular music with a friend of mine. I’ve always argued along the lines of Stockhausen’s Advice to Clever Children...: I wish those musicians would not allow themselves any repetitions, and would go faster in developing their ideas or their findings, because I don't appreciate at all this permanent repetitive language. It is like someone who is stuttering all the time, and can't get words out of his mouth. I think musicians should have very concise figures and not rely on this fashionable psychology. I don't like psychology whatsoever: using music like a drug is stupid. One shouldn't do that: music is the product of the highest human intelligence, and of the best senses, the listening senses and of imagination and intuition.
Since then I have started to see similarities between photography, and popular music. I feel that like much photography, popular music is about capturing a moment of beauty, honesty, and truth. I think that popular music is about trying to find interesting sounds – whether it’s a riff, a groove, a texture, an arrangement, and so on – and displaying it clearly with little or no development. When one starts to consider popular music through the eyes of a photographer, I think it allows one to understand and appreciate the music much more easily on an artistic level.
The penny has dropped, and I am having a renaissance of popular music (albeit leftfield). I hope that this insight may allow others to as well.
posted by Jerry Bowles
3:16 PM
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