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Music rhythm VS picture rhythm

I’m working on a web series where the director asked me to compose the music before the editing so that he could edit the picture using the music I’ve done. It was the first time I had to compose without any visual references, such as the editing rhythm or the actors’ tone, etc.

It’s a tricky process because I fell into the trap of making a music that can be listened on its own. I’m very proud of the material I’ve done, but it doesn’t fit the picture that well. It fits well in terms of meaning, but it's too invasive, melodically and rhythmically. Plus, there is nothing that fits the shots or camera movements whatsoever. It’s a little bit like the music is doing its own stuff in its corner.

Yes, I’m adding and deleting elements and instruments depending on what’s happening on screen, but it’s like I’m ripping off (or adding to) a backbone that is completely ignoring the events on screen. It doesn’t work that well. I should be able to change the chords and everything depending on what’s happening on screen, but that would erase the musical time that what I’ve done in the first place and that’s not what the director wants anyway. I’m kind of forced to deal with my own music, it’s a bit weird.

It seems like music and picture doesn’t match under any circumstances. There are precise ways of doing it. It’s directly linked to an interview of Ryuichi Sakamoto I read in the special Music for Films edition of Les Cahiers du Cinéma, Sakamoto says : 

“Composers shouldn’t put too much musical time, or even musical grammar, on moving pictures. Cinematographical time, picture time, is much more important for the film than musical time. Musical time is simply the composer’s ego.”

What’s troubling me is that, at the same time, this is what the director wants. I’m not imposing my musical time, he wants to work with and around musical time. I don’t know if it’s a mistake or a calculated choice, but the editor seems fine with the idea as well.

I’m only on the first episode, maybe I’ll find a way to make it work best by the end of the series.

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Work of the Week

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Research assignment feedback

This whole blog was originally created for a research assignment within my master degree. I finally got the feedback from the tutor and I am glad to share it here:

Excellent set of blogs, informative, mostly aesthetically pleasing and reflective. More variety of images and links would have developed it further.

The sources in the annotated bibliography contained an excellent mix of sources – different perspectives and materials on your research interest. Each review was excellent and your communication clear and well structured.

The contextualisation of the chosen text within the critical analysis was detailed. You evaluated your chosen text closely and took a critical stance. Excellent piece of critical writing.  I particularly liked the text chosen as it was clearly linked to your research and practice interest. Mark : 75

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First narrative film assignment

I had to make the music for a scene from Cohen brother’ No Country For Old Men. It was a stealth scene that morphs into a chase scene.

Here is the descriptive text I submitted with my work. It gathers teachings from the course.

The personal objective of this project is to perfect my aesthetic by using knowledge acquired in class.

The music does not present a recognisable harmonic theme or melody, it focuses on ambience, rhythm and timbre. Without counting octaves, there are only 4 different notes used in the whole work, accompanied by microtonal explorations. This harmonic sparsity avoids commanding the audience in an epic nor sentimental interpretation, but guide them into the reality of the picture. The microtones also build the tension greatly.

The distorted synthesisers come from personal preferences, however, they are congruent with the violent mood as well as the timbre of the diegetic sounds. They also allow a homogeneous genre throughout the sequence. The sense of unpredictable continuity is brought by the rhythmic composition, using an identifiable motive and contextualising it with gliders and variations.

Three different moments stand out in the sequence by their mood, pace and density. It starts with a stealth scene before the chase begins with a first part on the ground with the car, then an even denser second part in the water with the dog. The music accompanies those motions by densifying the instrumentation, the rhythmic patterns and the frequency spectrum, it also provides the missing tension in the visuals of the dog chase.

Cues have been highlighted for the audience to follow the perspective of the protagonist. In the stealth scene, diegetic sounds are governing the soundtrack in order to the audience to be alert. When danger becomes more and more apparent, the music slowly takes over until the audience is totally immersed in the dread of the protagonist.

Diegetic sounds melt into the music by being highlighted and punctuated by musical elements, by leaving a place for the music when it takes over, and by how musical instruments tend to imitate their timbre.

All those points draw why the soundtrack manages to achieve my personal objective.

Here’s the music I did:

https://soundcloud.com/nairodofficial/ill-tell-her-myself

And here’s the feedback I received:

This is an excellent work! Very appropriate choice of style and sounds, well fitting the aesthetics of this film. Well focused and consistent material throughout. Well composed, developed and structured musical ideas, with a good sense of progression. Very effective gestures, emphasizing all the major synch points. Very good sound production, with a good mix, good distribution of frequencies, and good balance with the diegetic track.

An excellent write-up, demonstrating an advanced understanding of the workings of music and sound in narrative film – good pointing out the tripartite structure, and audience perspective in relation to the protagonist.

Suggestions for improvement:

Perhaps a little more differentiation between the land and river chases, with a little more variation in the latter (especially the “machine gun” pattern) would further improve progression.

The pitch-shifting effect at various points in the river chase sounds a little unsubtle and contrived – it really sounds like a record speeded up on a turntable. Try to find a more elegant solution – either actual modulation(s), or an appropriate variation of the pattern(s).

Well done overall – it shows that you have acquired a developed understanding of the role of sound and music in narrative film, with only minor refinements needed.

Mark: soundtrack (90%) 78 / write-up (10%) 75 – OVERALL MARK: 78

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Sound design assignment

Months ago I submitted a sound design assignment for my master degree. It was a four minutes video of an intruder inside an abandoned building. I had to write a 300 words text to describe what I had done, I figured that it was a good thing to put in a blog as it aims to gather all concepts taught in class.

So here it is!

This project presents a willingness to extend my scope of skills by making a modern soundscape, getting rid of the heavy sentimental luggage of traditional music and working in a more suggestive and discrete manner. It starts with a refusal of musical instruments and sample libraries, focusing on field recording, with a complete freedom in sound modification.

The main challenge is to anchors a sensitive reality and a subtle emotional depth to the visuals through sounds, exploring different audio-visual concepts.

The intention for the emotional part of the video is to give a sense of dangerous mystery. The first element to connote the intention is the dialogue between the added characters. It also defines a point of audition and extends the diegetic.

The foundation of the feeling of sensitive reality comes through quality, texture, and space. The dusty, old, rusty visual material is translated with re-amplificated, distorted, mixed with dry sounds from rubbed little stones, dirt, towels, with added white noise and vinyl crackling warmth. Appart from certain breaks of reality, most of the reverberations anchors the visual-acoustic space.

All events on screen have their own associated sound. Certain causal sounds anticipate or expand further than their expected length, and/or launch unreal effects, always either to interlink visual parameters or to connote emotions. It allows a semantic approach of those sounds and explores the boundaries between diegetic and non-diegetic.

Towards the end of the video, we can hear loud train sounds which come in opposition to the still frame but emphasize the sped up shots, connoting a false calmness and a rapidly approaching danger.

At some moments, there are a lot of sounds which fill the depth of all previously presented concepts. Those moments of density are used as tools for a contrast between loudness and silence, as they often end abruptly. It allows the structure to be well defined.

Here’s the feedback from my tutor:

This is a very imaginative approach that has produced many interesting effects, and it’s commendable how you have been able to balance strict representation of a subjective hearing in relation to what is seen with a freer rendering of imagined sounds, extending space beyond the frame. Good use of the acousmatic sound over the opening titles. Very interesting and well crafted sounds in general, in particular the multilayered wheelchair sounds. Good audio production, with good mastering levels and good distribution of frequencies.

Excellent write-up, demonstrating a thoughtful process behind your work and a solid understanding of sound design principles, though the writing style could be improved.

Suggestions for improvement:

The closing hatch at the end lacks an impact element – you need an attack in synch with the closing event.

The change of space in the final exterior shot could be more convincing, with a sharper contrast from the previous shot and a more detailed ambience related to the exterior.

Mark: soundtrack (90%) 75 / write-up (10%) 72 – OVERALL MARK: 75

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Aesthetics

I recently talked with a friend of mine about my project. He was pretty supportive of the themes I want to address (productivity and mindfulness). His main criticism was about the aesthetics of my project, an aspect that I left aside until now but that I knew I would have to approach at some point. I direct you to my very first blog post where I present my objectives. One of which is defining a visual universe, a narrative, maybe a character, that resonates with my music.

We talked about recently successful artists in the electronic music scene, such as Polo & Pan and Jacques.

Polo & Pan

They have a really distinct universe yet it is a fusion of a wide variety of genres. You can instantly feel the fairytale, childhood point of view on a sort of jungle landscape. They touch the mystery, the discovery, with a point of view of innocence. It is not only visual, they sampled vocals from vintage and exotic sources that have that dusty, crispy sound typical of old vinyl. The universe is well thought-out and that’s a powerful element in their project. Every track of Polo & Pan is therefore instantly recognizable as their own.

Jacques

He has an extreme take on aesthetics. The emotion itself produced by the music is not the focus of his project nor the point. He focuses on how does he makes music. He only uses real objects, tools and toys, to make rhythms with strange timbre. Visually, he embodies a weird and funny character who shaved the top of his head while keeping it long on the sides because it is the exact opposite of the haircut that is in fashion these days. So it is “the haircut that no one wants”. That strangeness and lovability are what makes him interesting to watch, they are what defines his aesthetic.

If I were to choose an emotion, a feeling I want to express and identify to, it would be in a form of a struggle against anxiety. The kind of emotion that comes at the climax of movies, where everything can collapse, when everyone holds their breath. It would be pretty dark, but at the same time not hopeless. It would be like fighting against your own demons to be the person you really desire. It is energetic and inspiring, admittedly with doubts and dangers, but still fundamentally hopeful. But that’s not it. It would also have moments of eeriness, of vagrancy in the void. Like a strange dream where you would walk at night in an empty city engulfed in the mist in search of answers, while knowing that the search is ephemeral. You wouldn’t comprehend what’s around you but it would not be unpleasant, you would be curious and find it beautiful in a way. I also want to add moments of pure violence and darkness.

And that makes it already not that focused. Would I have to choose between emotions? Can I manage to make something powerful while still juggling with 3 fundamentally different emotions?

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Minimalism

I noticed there was something that I never thought about while making music: I always try to add, I don’t think the piece is complete until it feels “full”. I am curious about the teaching of minimalism because it seems quite opposite to my way of making music so far.

I remember a conference with Modeselektor, where an amateur music maker asked them what would be their best advice to beginners. They answered, “less is more”. I remember disagreeing with the idea, but it was the first time I encountered it. Try not to go in every direction and focus on what specifically makes your sound original and personal. To demonstrate how unfamiliar I am with this idea, I was proud to do the exact opposite on my last album CINQ. Every track goes in its own direction.

I am actually working with a director on his TV series. The main downside that I see in his project is that I can’t find the tone of the series. He wants to make something adventurous and mysterious while keeping it funny and adding romance at one point. It goes in every direction. I can see that the goal is to make something close to Spielberg or Star Wars, in terms of mixing genres, however, it feels kind of chaotic and imprecise. It makes me wonder how Spielberg and Lucas managed to write such gathering films.

A few days ago I watched a wonderful video on the differences between a good and an excellent movie. One of the points was the focus in tone. Today we came to a point where, generally speaking, movies try to please the largest audience possible. It often ends in a confusing mess, certain scenes seem out of place or forced. Such movie loses a certain ability to be a particular milestone in a genre or to transcend expectations linked to a genre. When a movie knows what it is (like Get Out or John Wick) there is a sensation of a universe well-defined with limits, and moreover, the theme of the movie is kept in sight and on point. It is more precise, clearer and thus more efficient and more powerful.

I believe one could think about music the same way.

Until now, I avoided focusing on only one tone because I believed it would be too repetitive in the length of an album. So I must find a way to focus on my prefered tone, using always the same sounds to keep a sense of aesthetics as well, while finding different ways to do it so it doesn’t get boring. This is challenging.

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Work ethics

On the topic of working in art, I stumbled upon some great insights shared on Reddit: David Bayles, Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking: “PERFECTION The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work — and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”

Ann Patchett:

"For me it’s like this: I make up a novel in my head (there will be more about this later). This is the happiest time in the arc of my writing process. The book is my invisible friend, omnipresent, evolving, thrilling… This book I have not yet written one word of is a thing of indescribable beauty, unpredictable in its patterns, piercing in its color, so wild and loyal in its nature that my love for this book, and my faith in it as I track its lazy flight, is the single perfect joy in my life. It is the greatest novel in the history of literature, and I have thought it up, and all I have to do is put it down on paper and then everyone can see this beauty that I see."

And so I do. When I can’t think of another stall, when putting it off has actually become more painful than doing it, I reach up and pluck the butterfly from the air. I take it from the region of my head and I press it down against my desk, and there, with my own hand, I kill it. It’s not that I want to kill it, but it’s the only way I can get something that is so three-dimensional onto the flat page. Just to make sure the job is done I stick it into place with a pin. Imagine running over a butterfly with an SUV. Everything that was beautiful about this living thing — all the color, the light and movement — is gone. What I’m left with is the dry husk of my friend, the broken body chipped, dismantled, and poorly reassembled. Dead. That’s my book.

...The journey from the head to hand is perilous and lined with bodies. It is the road on which nearly everyone who wants to write — and many of the people who do write — get lost… Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.”

Therefore, according to those texts, I should stop thinking about my project and just start trying things, while expecting to lose some of the wonderful qualities that it has in my mind.

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Mindfulness in science

I have found many answers in a source of one article of my bibliography, the one on mindful breathing ( http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005796710001324#bib49 ). This source is Mindfulness-Based Interventions in Context: Past, Present, and Future by Jon Kabat-Zinn. It tells us about what does science think about meditation and mindfulness.

What is mindfulness?

First, a definition: Mindfulness is the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment.

Mindfulness-based stress-reduction calms and clarifies the mind, allows caring and goodwill, and refine attention and action. Kabat-Zinn, the author of the article, suggests that it is clinically efficacious with 3 supporting experiments. One of which was healing in the standard way 2 groups of people that have a skin condition caused by stress, with the exception that one group will listen to an audio recording of an indication to practice mindfulness. The group with the audio recording shows a healing 4 times faster than the control group. This experiment suggests that there is a link between the state of mind and the health of the body.

I would like to input that placebos have a similar effect. If we believe that it is good for us then it can effectively be good for us. The power of the will on the body is something truly remarkable that I look forward to use, master and convey in my project.

Kabat-Zinn talks about how hard it is to the western scientific paradigm to seriously consider and integrate mindfulness given the associated traditions and disciplines that can come with meditation. However, he believes that knowledge from spiritual traditions could be integrated into the theoretical system of scientific psychology if one manages to find a way to gather what may be different but complementary ways of thinking.

How to practice mindfulness?

The article also focuses on the unique meaning of practising mindfulness. It is not practising as in training for a future success. Practising mindfulness is just willing to be and being engaged in the discipline. There are a lot of different exercises that can help to cultivate mindfulness.

One of my favourites would be the body-scan: In a static position, eyes closed, start by breathing slowly. Empty and fill your lungs completely. When you got that covered, focus on one part of your body. Feel the sheets, the floor, the piece of clothing, the air around it. Feel the temperature, the moist, the blood circulating inside. When you feel like you are fully aware of that part of your body, move to the next one. I usually go from the feet to the fingers. When you are finished, you are fully aware of your whole body. You are relaxed, you feel heavier. You are in a mindfulness state. From now, every move you will make will feel like moving mountains. When you look around, everything is brighter with more details. You feel at peace.

However, those exercises are only launching platforms, they are the menu, not the meal; the map, rather than the territory.

“Just let go” As a society, we devaluate the present moment in favour of perpetual distraction, self-absorption, and addiction to a feeling of “progress”. The main challenge of mindfulness is to let go of the expectations, goals, aspirations, even the will to feel better or be relaxed, and to suspend all judgments and distractions. It is the trickiest part to explain because it involves emptying the mind and paying attention at the same time. It is paradoxical, in a way, that one has to let go of the desired outcome in order to acquire it. One has to try sustaining that state as long as possible. The concept of trying to “catch the unfolding now”, moment by moment, can help. It is not easy to sustain very long (or at all) the first time because it is difficult for each individual to know how addicted and how deeply identified they are to repetitive thoughts, to goals and distractions... But with a commitment to try, every session unfolds keys and mechanisms in understanding mindfulness better. Moreover, it is not supposed to stop when sessions end, it is like a general way of being, of seeing, a “philosophy”, that is present in everyday life and situations. In everyday life, mindfulness involves focusing on whatever process or activity you are doing, by doing so it increases the pleasure of joy during the process and thus increases the possibility of achieving the outcome.

The separation with tradition

The article addresses how mindfulness could be used in hospitals as a tool for the relief of suffering. An important point that I share is that mindfulness should be free of the cultural, religious, and ideological factors associated with its Buddhist origins. Kabat-Zinn approaches the value of such separation in saying that his goal is not to train Buddhists, but to offer new methods for facing, exploring, and relieving suffering for both the mind and the body, and to understand the potential power of the mind/body connection in doing so.

My take on this is just based on my own beliefs. I am a convinced atheist, I think we should not consider metaphors or new-age explanations as to why the world works like it does. However, I believe that not every knowledge from spirituality and religion should be discarded. I think that it is a general bias in western society. We managed to grow out of religion as a civilization, but there are some insights that should not be lost in the process. Moreover, I think that if such insights can help us bring the best out of us and be the best person we can be, then they deserve to be studied and mastered by science and thus, shared with all people.

In order to ideally understand the ways of mindfulness, Kabat-Zinn suggests that one should retreat at Buddhist centers or be trained by people who have retreated to such centers. I have trouble understanding why would that be so important, especially if the goal is to finally separate mindfulness from the traditions. Furthermore, I hope that such approach is not really essential and that we can manage to emulate what resides in those centers anywhere in the world. This thought can lead further research.

The challenges of teaching mindfulness

Mindfulness cannot be taught to others without the instructor’s practising in his life. It is paradoxically the work of a lifetime and the work of no time at all. This paradox can only be fully understood through sustained personal practice.

The practice involves working with whatever arises in awareness, which at the beginning would be repetitive thoughts and afflictive emotions, so that it is recognized as such without judgment. It is essentially happening in the mind of the student where he is the only observer. Learning mindfulness is a decision that only the student can make and maintain. The teaching would consist of asking the student to look deeply into his own mind and body, and the nature of who he is. As a corollary, mindfulness can’t be taught to someone who is unwilling, too busy, or not interested enough. Furthermore, it would be difficult to promise to people with stress, pain, that they can achieve their goal of healing only in letting go this very goal. It can only be taught if the instructor has a deep confidence in the practice and an equally deep humility in offering it to others, developed through his own intimate engagement and struggles with it.

I believe that the best way to teach mindfulness is to passively lead by example. Letting people around the one practising be inspired by his kindness, happiness and success.

In a sense, this limits the effective range of my project, as I would be actively trying to teach people mindfulness, without personally dialoguing with each member the audience. It means that my project would only be about introducing the concept of mindfulness to the whole audience, without making sure that everyone does follow through. Nevertheless, this is not an issue: I was expecting such limitations and it doesn’t destroy the core goal of my project. In addition, I am already practising mindfulness in my daily life thus, I will be able to build the show from my personal insights. They may not be the most effective insights depending on the audience, that being said, they would still have the essential value of coming from my own experience.

The risk of bad teaching is to become caricatures of mindfulness, missing the radical, transformational essence and becoming caught in similarities between mindfulness practices and relaxation strategies, cognitive-behavioural exercises, and self-monitoring tasks.

This would be the core difficulty of my project. I can only overcome it by deeply practising mindfulness myself. It would also require further research as to how different from mindfulness, relaxation strategies, cognitive-behavioural exercises, and self-monitoring tasks are.

Limits of the article

The article does not develop the inner mechanisms of mindfulness (maybe because we are not sure about it yet), nor the nature of mindfulness-based interventions. Essential core meditative practices rely on silence, stillness, self-inquiry, embodiment, emotional sensitivity, and acceptance of the full gamut of emotional expression held in awareness.

I have to further research on what was said on the audio recording from the experiment. What is taught to introduce mindfulness and how?

-http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jclp.20776/full -http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1093/clipsy.bpg015/full

Source - Roemer, L. (2003). Mindfulness: A promising intervention strategy in need of further study. Clinical psychology: Science and Practice, 10, 144-156. http://rdcu.be/BjkA/

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New ideas for the show

Structure In my annotated bibliography, you could see that I ditched the 3 parts structure for a 2 parts structure. The first part of the narration will follow the psychodynamic therapy and the second part will introduce mindfulness.

Narration focus I was previously wondering about which problem would the narration be focused about. I had the solution, mindfulness, but not the source of tension. I was thinking about being open to any problem, and address them all in summarizing sentences, but that would generalize and blur the impact. Moreover, I don’t feel like I can talk about problems that are not mine. It would be interesting to research on something that I did not experienced but it would lack profound insight. I found out that the main personal focus of my last few years was productivity. I am ambitious but lazy and it creates this internal tension that makes me suffer the most. I am addicted to social networks and entertainment, it wastes the time I need to involve myself fully in my projects. I am constantly fighting against my comfort zone and guilt-tripping myself when I fail. I realize I feel good when I’m productive, but then I feel tired and I procrastinate, I feel guilty about procrastinating, and then I have to fight to be productive again. It is a painful circle, I wish it could be different. I figured that it is a really common issue among people in general and among people of my generation more specifically. I believe managing our time and energy will become a core issue of tomorrow society, when the traditional conception of working will be abandoned. I feel like I have found something that will talk to people and that is not overused (like breakups, for example).

I am actively trying to find a solution to this problem, in doing this very project, and the best response I have yet is mindfulness. I am monitoring my progression so I can share it with the world once I am done.

I am conceptualizing this project so every aspect of it is deeply and exactly relevant to me. It has become the only thing I think and talk about.

Project flexibility I consider this project to be flexible and alive. If a new idea, information or practical issue comes and changes aspects of the show for the better, then I would adjust the show. For now, I don’t have a director for the visuals, but I could release a version of the show with only texts on screen. It would be sad but the idea would be there. I could design and screen simple shapes that connote the meanings I want to express. I found an article about the meaning of shapes, I could start from there. Obviously, it would be better with the help of a professional.

Broadcasting As part of the major project of my master, I need to render a video file of my project. This is not a problem and it adds to the way the show can be broadcast. It could very well end up as a 20 minutes short movie on Youtube as well as a changing performance on stage.

Abandoned idea For the visuals, I thought about using the internet and leaving each frame blank for people to fill them. After reflexion, I don’t believe it would end up in a good way because people could put literally anything. Moreover, such feature makes no sense in the narration.

Sources: - http://gth.krammerbuch.at/sites/default/files/articles/Create%20Article/08_Pinna_KORR.pdf

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8 Functions of film music

Taken from "Music as a source of emotion in film", by Annabel J. Cohen, chapter 11 in "Music and Emotion" (Juslin & Sloboda). As described by Cohen (1999a):

1) Mask extraneous noises.

2) Provide continuity between shots.

3) Direct attention to important features.

4) Induce mood when it is not associated with a specific feature.

5) Communicate meaning and further the narrative.

6) Enable the symbolisation of a character, place, event or theme with the use of leitmotiv.

7) Play on the sense of reality of the film.

8) Add to the aesthetic effect of the film.

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Annotated Bibliography

This bibliography can seem quite broad because it assesses different lines of questioning within my project. I took the liberty to add titles and connecting notes to the different items so that the logic chain is more clear to the reader.

Music psychology and philosophy

1) Emotion and Meaning in Music Meyer, L. B. Univ. Chicago Press, Chicago, 1956.

This is the core of my research, Meyer’s stance is so elegant that it still makes for the authority in the field.

He begins by dismissing previous debates on the subject. Meyer argues that the two different ways the brain forms thoughts (phenomenological and reflective) are two sides of the same psychological process, so they are not contradictory (as we previously debated about) but complementary.

What is elegant about his work is that he presents a modern theory of emotion and applies it to music. His central thesis states that emotion is stimulated when a desire is prevented. Emotion in music lies in the structural building of tension and release, so in that sense, it can be universal.

This new way of redefining music certainly impacts on how I perceive it. It also changes how I think about how my brain works and that was unexpected.

2) Music and Emotion: Theory and Research Juslin, P. N., and Sloboda J. A. (Eds.) Series in affective science, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Music and Emotion: Theory and Research is the modern update of Meyer's work. It presents how Meyer reflected in different works during the years, what other authors with similar objectives wrote, and confirms its authority. It expands and challenges the knowledge of the 50s with modern experiments.

The book seeks a wider perspective by presenting approaches in different fields (philosophy, musicology, psychology, anthropology, biology...) delivered in chapters written by one expert in each field. There are so many different points in those approaches that I certainly could have used each chapter as a different source in my bibliography.

Juslin and Sloboda helped me have a wider point of view on what is written on music and emotion, which work stands out the most, and where are we researching now. They address criticisms that were very welcome for this bibliography.

3) The Language of Music Cooke, D. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959.

Deryck Cooke attempted to do exactly what I wanted my research to conclude on. His thesis is that composers have used similar musical parameters to express similar emotions, so we can deduct a language, a lexicon, a dictionary of music. His assumption is that no matter the instrumentation, the emotions expressed stay the same, thus, we can link expressed emotions with text in vocal works with their associated melodies in instrumental versions. He bases the lexicon expressivity in tonality, each interval of the scale has an associated meaning.

However, Cooke's method is heavily based on extramusical aspects, it does not consider a potential emotional quality inherent in music. It does not take into consideration the musical context around those intervals he talks about, which can completely modify their meaning. Additionally, music significance may not be as fixed as language significance.

4) Analysing Popular Music: Theory, Method and Practice Tagg, P. Popular Music, Vol. 2, Theory and Method (1982), pp. 37-67 Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Within the same range of ideas than Cooke’s (i.e. decode music with language theories), Philip Tagg brings the term of "musemes" to label musical parameters used to express specific emotions. He raises two methods to test musemes effective reality: by confirming that the emotion and meaning expressed have been exactly identically comprehended by two different listeners (inter-subjective comparison); by comparing every association between the musical parameters studied and its meaning expressed in extra-musical ways (inter-objective comparison).

Same criticisms can be applied to both Cooke and Tagg approaches. However, reading about their theories and their limits taught me a better understanding of what music really is and isn’t. It changed my mind about the possibility of building a lexicon of music.

Along with the philosophical approach, I wanted to know what science had recently found on the subject of music in the brain.

Music and neurology

5) Music, the food of neuroscience? Zatorre, R. Nature 434, 312-315 (17 March 2005). Available from: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7031/full/434312a.html

Zatorre made me realize that the neurological approach is by no means less complex than the philosophical approach. We know which parts of the brain are associated with musical skills but we don't know how they work essentially. The article also taught me that music recognition was surprisingly innate, this is important to identify the importance of music to humans.

Evidence of psychological mood changes and physiological changes caused by music are mentioned. One hypothesis to what brain responses can explain those effects is that we tend to imitate the behaviour of the music we listen to. To scientists, it is surprising to see how deep human's response to music is compared to how little it is useful to survival.

6) Exploring the Musical Brain Leutwyler, K. Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. (22 January 2001). Available from: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exploring-the-musical-bra/

The difficulty with the lack of research on the subject is that many articles relate the same piece of information between each other. I will focus on the differences.

Leutwyler assesses the importance of music and how deep it is implemented in nature. In the human world, music seems to predates farming, but it also exists in the animal realm as well (e.g. birds, whale), thus it is not an ability specifically human but rather an intricate part of life. What is most surprising is that animals share a lot of musical preferences with humans.

This article also relays the famous assumption that dissonance seems unpleasant and consonance seems pleasant with scientific evidence.

Leutwyler ends by presenting the debate about music purpose between S. Pinker who thinks that music is nothing more than an "auditory cheesecake", an accident in speech evolution, and D.J. Levitin who believes that something that has such profound effect on emotions must have an important purpose. Levitin best suggestion is that music is an aspect of our cognitive tendency to make order out of disorder.

7) Music And The Brain Weinberger, N. M. Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. (1 September 2006). Available from: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/music-and-the-brain-2006-09/

Weinberger's article seems to be the continuation of Leutwyler's article, as it begins with the debate between Pinker and Levitin.

Here we have the first occurrence of what has been widely researched on recently: Brain damaged patients seems to unexpectedly recover long lost brain functions thanks to music, suggesting that music runs even more deeply than others cognitive skills.

The article then presents the path of music from the ear to the brain, which is what I primarily started my research on. Weinberger studies confirm philosophical intuitions, such as we interpret tones differently according to context.

Supported by many studies, the article goes on about how musicians are better at playing and listening to music than non-musicians. However, I think this is an expected result of cognitive training and as we can't conclude on musicians having better brains than non-musicians.

Those neurological approaches draw a map of what music can expect to produce in the brain of the audience, supported by scientific evidence. We even have a new line of questioning about how old is music and what is its purpose.

Thoughts on film scoring

8) Sound Design is the New Score Kulezic-Wilson, D. Music, Sound, and the Moving Image, Vol.2, Issue 2, 127-131, 2008. Liverpool University Press. Available from: http://online.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/abs/10.3828/msmi.2.2.5

The content of this article develops the approach of my master course on a quite different topic than previously covered yet very relevant to my project. Kulezic’s main idea is to get out of the traditional way of making music for films which have become too predictable and too heavily sentimental and lean progressively into sound design which is much more suggestive and discrete. The article illustrates with a range of examples from directors Aronofsky (for a hip-hop inspired editing style) and Gus Van Sant (for using musique concrète instead of traditional music).

My research with Meyer's book taught me the distinction between music that gives meaning via itself and music that gives meaning via extra-musical references. I believe that in film scoring, music always uses the latter. In that regard, this article suggests using the very powerful denotative and connotative potency of sound design to express extra-musical meaning.

9) In The Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing Murch, W. Silman-James Press, 2001

I believe it is an essential part of the composer’s job to understand film mechanics, especially editing.

Water Murch provides a hierarchy of importance of factors in editing decisions, emotion being the most important factor. What is so stunning about his work is that he allies editing with technology and neurology, albeit keeping a very easy to read style of writing. It doesn't feel like he is imposing manifestos, he writes like he shares orally his personal finding so that we can actually follow his train of thoughts.

One of his most insightful findings is that the moment we naturally blink is a great moment to cut, because the action of blinking is a consequence of the way we comprehend the world.

Walter Murch is also the inventor of the term of sound design. Those reasons are why I couldn't avoid to put him in my bibliography.

Research specific to the live project

10) Stress Recovery during Exposure to Nature Sound and Environmental Noise Alvarsson, J. J., Wiens, S., and Nilsson M. E. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2010, 7(3), 1036-1046. Available from: http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/3/1036/htm

Linking the power of sound denotation with supporting scientific evidence, this study proves that nature sound helps recover from psychological stress better than a noisy environment. The study also assesses previous research in the area which focused on the effect of nature visuals. Conclusions are that the idea and projections of nature relieve human beings.

There is a part of my live project where I wish the audience to be relieved from stress as much as possible and I was looking for the best way to emulate it. I plan on using nature sounds and visuals to achieve such results.

11) A Comprehensive Review of the Psychological Effects Of Brainwave Entertainment Huang, T. L., and Charyton, C. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine; Aliso Viejo Vol. 14, Iss. 5,  (Sep/Oct 2008): 38-50. Available from: http://www.machineswww.mindmodulations.com/resources/STUDY-ComprehensiveEntrainment.pdf

Still with the objective to find the best way to relax an audience, this article gathers various studies rigorously selected which suggest that brainwave entertainment (BWE) benefits people suffering from a list of different negative disorders such as stress, anxiety, mood and behavioural problems.

BWE consists of presenting auditory or visual repetitive stimulation - such as a pulsing tones or lights - to the patient whose brainwave will resonate with the frequency. Brainwave frequencies are associated with states of alertness, it goes gradually from delta frequencies (1-4 Hz) associated with deep sleep, to high beta frequencies (20-32 Hz) associated with intensity or anxiety, going through alpha frequencies (8-12 Hz) which are associated with conscious calmness.

I could use this therapeutic tool to lower the audience's brainwave frequencies and thus progressively ease them down. Now I just have to found speakers that goes below 20 Hz.

12) The efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy Shedler, J. American Psychologist, 65(2), 98-109, 2010. Available from: http://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2010-02208-012.html

This article gathers empirical findings that support the efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy. I wish my live project to be based as much as possible on scientifically supported methods. This is why the first part of the narrative structure of my live project follows the psychodynamic psychotherapy.

Like in therapy, we would begin by focusing on expressing emotions and labelling feelings, before exploring the attempts of the mind to flee unpleasant thoughts and feelings. The goal is to identify recurring themes and patterns of avoidance. We would talk about how past experiences and interpersonal relations could be themes and causes of patterns.

We may have to skip the part of the therapy where it focuses on the relationship between the patient and the therapist as it would take a widely different form in the live show.

Once negative thoughts are externalized, we would then encourage the positive thoughts, which is the second part of the live project.

13) Differential effects of mindful breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and loving-kindness meditation on decentering and negative reactions to repetitive thoughts Feldman, G., Greeson, J., and Senville, J. Behaviour Research and Therapy Vol.48, Issue 10, October 2010, 1002-1011. Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005796710001324

The second part of the live project would consist of proposing the audience to engage in stress-reducing methods accompanied by sounds and visuals. This article compares a well-known method (mindful breathing) with two alternative stress management techniques (progressive muscle relaxation and loving-kindness meditation) and provides further evidence towards the superior efficiency of the first method.

The objective of mindful breathing is to clear the mind of repetitive thoughts in observing internal sensations caused by breathing without controlling or judging them.

The article also gives us the notion of decentering which will be the main theme of the second part of the narrative structure of my project. The idea of decentering resides in learning to view thoughts as events in the mind rather than necessarily being reflections of reality or accurate self-view.

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Critical Analysis

This is a critical analysis of a passage page 33-35 of Leonard B. Meyer's book Emotion and Meaning in Music, introducing the problem of meaning in music. Despite being a rather old source as it has been published in 1956, it still is the main authority on the subject and is still widely referenced in 2017. It may be because it is predominantly philosophical and thus does not depend on technological achievements. Meyer strength comes from the fact that he is the first to merge musicology with psychology.

The book is highly informative in its entirety, I chose this particular text because it gives the best argument I found to the core stake of my research: How is music linked to emotion and meaning?

Meyer starts by dismissing the debate that stood between referentialists who think that meaning in music comes from extra-musical sources, and absolutists who think that meaning in music comes from music itself. The author brings to light two fallacies that generated such disagreements on what the second meaning can be: Predecessors dismissed potential different types of meaning and they focused on only one type of meaning which is using an object (e.g. a word) to call another object of a different kind (e.g. an idea).

Meyer resolves both fallacies by presenting Cohen's (1944) quite complex definition of meaning where it is "not a property of things”. Meaning is acquired by anything when the full nature of such thing is revealed by a connection between an object and an interpretation of such object. Subsequently, the author illustrates the definition furthermore with examples.

Then he returns to the content of the debates and examines which points entered in contradiction with the definition. The major mistakes of predecessors were that they tried to identify separately which one held the meaning between the object, what it points to, and the observer. Meyer concludes his examination using Cohen (1944) and Mead's (1934) concept which states that meaning is in fact established in the relationship between the three formerly separated elements.

Moving on, the author assesses another difficulty from predecessors to make themselves understood between each other because of a missing distinction. Meyer differentiates designative meaning which is the one type of meaning predecessors focused on, and embodied meaning which is using an object to call another object of the same kind (e.g. a musical event). He succeeds to identify what predecessors were really talking about within his newly created structure of definitions and distinctions. The text ends with this narrower and precise identification of meaning in music that Meyer will expand on further in his book.

The text provides a primarily deconstructive argument as its title states "The problem of meaning in music". In that sense, it rather answers the stake of how not to link music to emotion and meaning. Those moments of the book were the most informative to me because they challenged my own conceptions that I undoubtedly inherited from musicology courses. I recall being very excited about "how this author is dispelling such classic conceptions" and "what is he going to propose instead?".

Thus, despite its deconstructive aspect, the text still has a positivist approach as it overcomes previous failures with new concepts. The structure of the argument can be schematized as firstly identifying confusions, then introducing a brighter definition, subsequently using the new definition to examine the mistakes that caused confusions, and concluding with a better overall concept. Meyer does it two times in the text, but they don't finish the same way. The second time, the argument ends on an overture for the book to continue on.

The main ability of Meyer to end debates resides in suppressing fallacious distinctions, namely considering that what was opposite beforehand is in fact complementary.

One of the most important occurrences in his book is when he allies expressionism and formalism, meaning that the phenomenological and reflective parts of the brain are intertwined like two faces of the same entity. In that respect, emotion and meaning are interlinked. This idea will reflect in the totality of the book, including the chosen passage, and it is precisely what makes Meyer's theories so foundational.

However, those associations are never arguments to moderation as he supports them with psychological and philosophical theories. We have one occurrence in the text when he states that "Meaning, then, is not in either the stimulus, or what it points to, or the observer. Rather it arises out of . . . the "triadic" relationship between [them]".

The objective of the text is to clean conceptual confusion to dig out what mystery we should focus our attention on. Meyer uses a very subtle and elegant way to introduce the reader to this mystery.

When calling out the two first fallacies he argues that "there has been a tendency to locate meaning exclusively in one aspect of the communicative process" and then explains what is that one aspect without mentioning what is the other aspect. Meyer could have called out the mystery right away for clarity's sake but the reader has to read through six other paragraphs before finally earning the answer the whole text seems to point to: The embodied meaning.

The six paragraphs are all very necessary to the argument, but we may appreciate a certain writing style which was fairly unexpected in what seemed to be an exclusively rigorous logical chain. It is pleasant to acknowledge that Meyer is experimenting on the reader the main thesis of his book which claims that emotion is created when a desire is inhibited.

A blurry point of the text is the way the definition of meaning is introduced. The first definition doesn’t include the observer. Thus the second definition is more complete, and it makes for a difficult argument to understand clearly. Meyer’s overall writing is dense and complex, but it is highly informative and rewarding.

Here is the text :

Source's references:

-Morris R. Cohen, A Preface to Logic (New York: Henry Holts & Co., 1944, p. 47. -George H. Mead, Mind, Self, and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934), p. 76.

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Blog discussion #5

I feel like I have failed the blog assignment. After achieving the two other assignments the last few days, the annotated bibliography and the critical analysis, I have a much more precise idea of my project. It is more advanced than what my blog shows. In a way, it means that the blog doesn’t really follow the state of my research. I have fought to make it right, but in 2 months time, I didn’t manage to implement it into my routine. I think it may have to do with the pressure of the deadline. I thought about this blog and wrote on this blog with the idea of being read by tutors, and it completely shaped the blog.

However, I am fairly optimistic. Now that the deadline passed, I can take the time to make this blog right, more concise, more personal. I guess now I am talking to the few people who may one day be interested in the making of my project so that is a very different perspective. I believe the blog is a good tool to formulate ideas and gather sources, it has been useful to go back here to recall things and thoughts.

I had trouble falling asleep last night because I was invaded by new ideas and deductions from the annotated bibliography and the critical analysis. It feels like I reached a new step and I believe that I can start experimenting with practice from now on. I will post the two other assignments on the blog because they represent pivot points in the making of my project.

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Blog Discussion #4

After another conversation with tutors, they suggested that I start creating for my live show music wise and deduct results of what is efficient or not by experimenting. It is true that I am totally focused on gathering theories and not trying them yet. However, this is the core of the method I want to try for this particular project. All previous projects were derived from my personal instinct and sensitivity. I know I can very well make 30 minutes of live music that aims at relaxing the audience. It would not make any improvement in my skills. Moreover, there is a risk that I grow attached to what I firstly make and that it would be too much of a hassle to have to modify and destroy it because I would find more efficient or contradictory techniques during my research.

By researching first I am trying a different approach that I never have and I believe it would result in a better way. Of course, this is the first part of the creation of this project. By researching before creating, I am feeding my mind with seeds that will grow through time. There will be a step where theory will meet practice and they will then assist each other. I am just not there yet.

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Psychotherapy inspirations

The structure and overall concept of the live show will be inspired by psychodynamic, existential and transpersonal psychotherapy.

Firstly we will focus on expressing emotions, i.e. talk about putting words on feelings, before appreciating the power of the mind to flee unpleasant feelings, what it can do consciously and unconsciously. The goal is to detect patterns of avoidance and what are objects of such avoidance.

The second part will be about introducing the idea of accepting the human condition, the tension between limits and possibilities, and embracing existence as a blessing.

We will finish with applying those concepts of acceptance on objects of previous avoidance. Of course, there are many things that a live show can’t reproduce. Such psychotherapies demand personal one-to-one sessions over several weeks or months. If the show can help some people that will be unexpectedly awesome, the expected minimum will just that people will learn a bit about psychotherapy and what approach can they engage, which tools can they use in everyday life. Sources: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/psychotherapy/how-it-works/ http://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2010-02208-012.html http://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2010-05168-005.html http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0197455606000219

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Way of thinking legacy

My grandfather died a few days ago, I am back in France to see my family. It explains why I didn’t have the time to post anything yesterday and the day before, and why I may not be able to post anything tomorrow given that tomorrow is the day of the ceremony.

Reading through my grandfather’s unfinished autobiography, I was really curious about his writing style. He was a hard worker that built his own real estate company, he wasn’t a man of art. I believe you can learn about someone through the way they write. What astonished me about his writing is that it was flooded with numbers. My grandfather autobiography is a collection of memories that are not linked to each other. It starts with his first memory and goes on chronologically until a certain point where it’s just a list in progress that needs to be re-written and re-organize. It’s nothing more than a draft obviously. However, every memory begins with a number in the first sentence. It can be the time of the day, the traveled distance, the model of the car, the number of countries visited before the anecdote, etc. There's even one memory that begins with a written out calculus of the estimated time and distance he passed on his bike all his life.

I will never know if he had an idea of conveying a sense of personality through writing. Did he choose numbers to be particularly relevant to his way of thinking or way of life? Why? Or was it unconscious?

Either way, he had a thing with numbers, with the measure of reality. I wonder how much I share with him on this. I wonder if my inner need of positivism is linked to this in some way or not.

Maybe I am just over analyzing and over-interpreting.