Samples from the Visual Music Course

While most of us might think of the music video genre as the most obvious answer, if we consider a post-Cagean perspective, we understand that music is something beyond the notes on a musical instrument and might encompass, for instance, the mellifluous sounds produced by walking through gravel or the turning of a book's pages. The so-called Concrete Music genre is another type of a musical composition that could inspire film sound designers or students of Visual Music alike.

In essence, Visual Music is something that takes place anytime one senses a strong connection between sounds and sights. You could call it a form of deep listening and seeing. For instance, if our everyday life presents us a slammed door followed by a breaking glass with what one would call perfect timing - as if they were characters in a play, then you will start to understand the idea and even might become excited by the way things happen.
Then, the texture, rhythm and volume of daily events might appear to be like velvet to your ears and your eyes, an experience that makes you feel fully alive, at least through your hearing and your sight.

It is at the heart of what certain filmmakers strive to achieve at key moments in their films, filmmakers such as Jacques Tati, Andrei Tarkovsky, Robert Bresson, Michelangelo Antonioni, Wong-Kar Wai, Tsai Ming-Liang or Bilge Ceylan . These goals are also very much present in the films of other filmmakers like Oskar Fischinger, Peter Kubelka, Norman McLaren and Chris Cunningham.

Here, above, are some examples from the first class offered at WashU (more will be posted soon).