Memory Tools
We don't realize it, but there's a massive amount of forgetting that goes on in life. Most of us aren't the people we were--even compared to last year, and certainly not after 20 years. I've held on to vestiges of my identity as far back as 1977, because it still informs what I do now in music, because I'm playing the same instruments.
Musical instruments are powerful containers of memory because they are tactile. Not that other memorabilia aren't, but a photograph isn't an instrument. A camera is a tool, as an instrument is a tool, but it's not a "playable" instrument. Cameras can be seen as instruments as synonymous with tools, but they aren't as responsive as a guitar. Cameras capture images that we later have to process, whereas a guitar isn't capturing anything per se.
Cameras can be as expressive as an instrument in the sense that they let us time-shift emotion. Music recordings are like photographs in that they can be replayed, but the playing of an instrument can't be that expressive in terms of psychological valence or moods. If I pick up a guitar and get an idea for a piece of music, that has to be captured in some way. When I play it tomorrow, it might not have the same power. But if I get an idea on a synth and record it, then that mood is captured like a photograph would be captured. It's a snapshot of that moment.
The ability to capture traces of emotions with electronics has been key to our creativity for little over a century--which is deceivingly long. Without a reference point or object, we can't comprehend dimensionality. (Michael Heizer's City complex outside of Las Vegas doesn't look that big in photographs, but it's over a mile in length). We think electronics have been around forever.
We take it for granted, but if you do anything without electronics, it won't have that same "dreamy" quality. If the guitar isn't tuned or your skills are rusty, a fleeting emotion can be there when you play it, but it's unlikely that that same emotion can be repeated at will. Tomorrow, you'll be a different person in the sense of what you have to attend to in the moment. Those precious emotions will be gone, just as the memory of a film you liked fades within 12 hours. But new emotions can be brought to any moment, and those are the only ones you have. This is why spiritualists say that you only have the Now. You can re-watch the film again and again, but who does that? This is why music is resilient to the fading of memories because the captured moods in recordings can be revisited repeatedly in 1-45 minute durations--which is much more effective than glancing at images, although they can trigger us in both good and bad ways as Madeleine Moments. Combining the two is even more powerful, as I have done with Photographs For Music series.
- Discuss instruments as containers
- Discuss a camera as an apparatus
- Compare and contrast how art, photography. and sound differ in terms of memory and emotion
Comments