Commemorative Video: Gotham Artists – 911

I made a commemorative video for the Gotham Artists project I participated on in 2001, in the wake of 9/11.

The song '911' was recorded In Memoriam October 3, 2001 with a 'We Are The World' spirit and the sincere desire to provide comfort and consolation to our then wounded city and country, and if it were possible, to help heal the world (and our own souls, too), though music.

The memorial video was created Summer of 2011 to acknowledge the Ten Year Anniversary of the September 11, 2001 Attacks on America.

A lot of wonderful New York Metro musicians and audio professionals contributed to this track. Please check it out & share.



Editing images is not one of my favorite tasks, but over the years I've been contacted by a number of fans who follow a few of the musicians featured on the track to create a video. And since I couldn't manage to interest any colleagues in editorial to make something for us, I did it myself. And as it turns out, an amateur work this cut may be, but in the end I'm actually glad I did it myself, because it was nice to reconnect with the work, and of course, it took me back to the day, so I experienced a bit of catharsis.

To learn more about the history of the tribute song, read the following article I published to this blog on Monday, September 11, 2006: Gotham Artists

Gotham Artists: Drums: Joe Bonadio. Percussion: Erik Charlston. Electric Bass: Will Lee. Keyboards: Charles Giordano. Electric Guitar: Larry Saltzman. Strings: Sandra Park, Jungsun Yoo, Sarah Seiver, Eileen Moon, Krysztof Kuznik, Ann Kim. Singers: Craig Chang, Tod Cooper, Jo Davidson, Jenny Douglas-McRae, Tabitha Fair, Morley Kamen, Gary Morris, Jenni Muldaur, Jason Paige, Sophia Ramos, Eugene Ruffolo, Stephen Scarpulla. Singers contracted by Valerie W. Morris, Val's Artist Management. Strings and Orchestral Percussion contracted by Sandra Park. Composed Produced by Terry O'Gara. Arranged by Tony Finno. Engineered & Mixed by Michael Sweet. Asst. Engineer: Steve Schopp. Special Thanks to David Crafa who generously helped us with studio time and resources. '911' was recorded and mixed 10/03/01 at The Cutting Room Recording Studios/NYC. Mastered by Larry Lachmann. Original CD Art & Promo Design by: Amy Taylor/Exec. Prod., Jason Sienkwicz/Designer. Video edit by Terry O'Gara. All images not in the public domain remain the property of their respective copyright owners.

SET ARPEGGIOS TO SEMIOTIC STUN

One of my favorite works from the Baroque era is the Sonata No. 1 in G minor for solo violin, by Johan Sebastian Bach. And one of the things I admire about it is that when the Presto section is performed, it not only serves as a means to display a given musician's technical mastery, but that even when played at half time or quarter time, the sequence of notes create the illusion that this work can go on forever. In this way the score sometimes strikes me as containing a secret code for perpetual motion, much the same way some believe the Bible has embedded within it a Torah code or Rapture mathematics.

J.S Bach: Sonata for solo violin No.1 in G Minor, Presto BWV1001

Another particularly brilliant aspect of this work is that while it presents itself as a series of broken chords, Bach has so conceived the pitch sequence that our ears are given to an aural illusion of transcendent melody floating upon a driving harmonic engine. Although not an ostinato , this effect reminds me how repeating patterns can fall upon our ears as both a linear sequence, or as an underlying dimensional sonic color, and sometimes both.

Here is another example:

J.S Bach: Prelude No. 1, C Major, BWV 846 [v03]

While Bach's Prelude No. 1, C Major (1722) is beautiful on its own, I think I actually derive more pleasure from a derivative work composed nearly a century and half later by French Composer Charles Gounod. Gounod essentially superimposes a new and original melody of his own upon Bach's piece, resulting in the equally evocative 'Ave Maria':

Charles Gounod: Ave Maria

Is Gounod's 1859 score for 'Ave Maria' evidence of the first mashup? One would like to think so, and that Gounod, perhaps, represents an early precursor to the likes of Armin van Buuren, Fatboy Slim, P. Diddy and other sample based composers and DJs, and that with 'Ave Maria', he thereby paves the way for hiphop and trance which would come only another 150 years later.

But the fact is, the way Gounod appropriates Bach is not so uncommon as one might first think. Inspiration often works like this, with new melodies blossoming forth from the fertile harmony of another work. Why should that be any surprise, really? Music has the power to inspire not just new activity, new love and new ideas, but also new music as well.

As it happens, it's works such as this Bach/Goundod collaboration that lead me to think that the genius of the modern minimalist, Phillip Glass, is that he, like Gounod, appears to have taken a Baroque convention and expanded on it. But whereas Gounod adds an ethereal top coat to the Baroque harmonic vehicle, Glass finds pleasure by discovering new and inventive ways to let the engine itself run on to infinity.

As such, I either hear more commonalities in Glass' work with 18th Century music than I do with the works of any of Glass’s modern contemporaries, or I simply enjoy searching for them. This includes other minimalist composers such as Steve Reich or Terry Riley, –or even Ravi Shankar, whose work Glass has indicated as a strong influence from his time working for him.

Philip Glass: Glassworks

Of course, neither Bach nor Glass (or Gounod for that matter) are the only composers who trade in repeating patterns. Most conventional music, whatever the genre or cultural heritage, is built upon repeating patterns. But great composers all share a similar knack for altering repeating harmonic patterns so as to create stylistically individual and recognizable works.

Another thing that makes both Bach and Glass so interesting to me is that both composers capably produce the effect of motion though space.

If Glass is cinematic, Bach is compelling. But both are a bit of the other, actually, even if the latter predates the invention of film by a century and a half.

I like to imagine that the German composer was no doubt #soundtracking to his own tunes while he walked the streets of Leipzig way back in 1730. Who needs a radio or an iPod when your own brain gives birth to terabytes more music on a Sunday than most people have contained on a circa 2010 portable playback device?

And because Bach and Glass are both particularly compelling and cinematic, commercial media producers often turn to these composers and their works –and even to the suggestion of their works– for inspiration. Either Glass' influence runs deep, or media producers like to sync to nothing better than the haunting kineticism produced by reloading arpeggios, and they like it the way some people enjoy hiphop, on EVERYTHING.

But why? And why and how could this technique have so many applications?

I think it happens something like this:

Repeating patterns act upon brain cognition in at least pertinent two ways. First they demand our attention, initiate beta waves in the brain and thereby produce a feeling of alertness. The result is increased sensory sensitivity and a heightened level of aural awareness. Our ears once open, our hearing then becomes ready to tune into any incoming information, and our minds prepared to focus any subsequent message.

However, left unabated, our senses in very short order attenuate to the pattern. Our brains then produce alpha waves, and we relax. The pattern then becomes transparent, and we give in to the music.

An adept composer or songwriter recognizes when this shift occurs and at this point will introduce a lyric or melody. Another kind of sonic artisan might introduce a message, or signal a shift in story structure. Still another kind of composer, one concerned with mediation or healing, might signal no such thing at all, and simply let the power of the pattern continue without interruption or transformation.

In effect, repeating patterns in music trigger nearly simultaneous ratios of alertness: calmness, focus: receptivity.

I imagine it's the musical equivalent of smoking a post coital cigarette.

Synced to pixels, it's as if the moving image has been charged with both perpetual motion and perpetual emotion.

In this regard, it might even be said that the repeating pattern represents the perfect carrier of semiosis in media, movies and not to mention not-so-subliminal messaging –any content platform, actually.

In fact, I think it possible that no idea (or motif or message) is too majestic or too scant that it can't be capably delivered upon the undulating wave of a recycling sequence or arpeggio.

Such is the power of the pattern.

I. Michaelson: Google Chrome 'Dear Sophie'

M. Montes: Starbucks 'Vote'

DECODING THE NOW: Modern Art, Mashups & Memes

I recently came across an online forum whereby one contributor to the discussion inquired, "Why is modern art so boring?" It was a hypothetical and perhaps subjective premise at that, but I still thought the question intriguing and wanted to take a stab at answering it. That is, its very open-endedness presents us with an entertaining intellectual challenge, even if the answer we arrive at will be every bit as open-ended as the initial query.

The phrase, 'modern art', itself goes undefined, but I will accept it to mean not only those works produced from the 1860s to the 1970s, as the phrase formally suggests, but rather inclusive of a casual survey of the contemporary western art scene in its entirety –art and artists, and inclusive of all mediums –i.e., what's happening right now.

The question itself also recalls a similarly provocative argument that I heard from one composer that, "There are no good Jazz musicians anymore."

I might say the same thing about Disco singers. However, although many people would presumably accept that statement as simply hyperbole,  if I were a Jazz musician who had devoted my life to this art –and now my art– and especially if I considered myself at the top of my game, then upon hearing that someone had said that there were no good Jazz musicians, I would take real, personal offense.

So, obviously modern art is not boring. The real question is what cultural or societal factors would bring someone to think that it is? It might be that anyone north of thirty is simply jaded –not because of their age, but because they personally experienced some of the variety provided by the Twentieth Century. During that era fashions changed rather radically throughout every single decade from 1915 to 1995, ushering in cultures, economies, living standards and shiny new things to try and buy, the likes of which had never been seen or experienced in the prior ten thousand years. And then came along the Internet, all but transposing our obsession with production, with disruption and its consequences.

It's an irony that at about the same time our tools for communication began rapid evolution, what we once called our culture appears to have stalled. Technology itself will certainly contribute to another general life frame, but in the meantime, we're all trying to balance the zeitgeist beneath us.

And somehow, I think, we may have gotten stuck in the eighties –myself included. I say this because I sometimes get the sense that although language and design evolve at light speed, content in its substance and form remain stagnant. Not to say there is nothing new that can be said employing classic and classical forms, but if there is, why isn't anyone doing so? To put it another way, so what if the bricks have chips in them, if we're still using them to build Tudor styled mansions. Or was that the dream we aspired achieve to all along? At any rate, here he are at the dawn of a new century trading our dollars for Greco-Roman Pavilions furnished with flat screen TVs, in order to watch shows about decorating Greco-Roman Pavilions with flat screen TVs.

–No wonder we're bored.

FROM PRINT TO PIXEL

Consider, also, that even major advances in film making address the technology of capture and perception, but story experience itself has remained largely unchanged for nearly a century. Sorry, but even print to pixel is still a minor advance compared to the quantum leap from stage to screen.

True, film makers oft transfer traditional stories into movies, but the scale of the screen and the portability of the cameras allow for radical perspective change. Smaller screens projecting material from ever more portable cameras do grant wider access to the filmmaker, thereby providing a broader social context, but they can also produce a simultaneous effect of putting blinders on the viewer. Yes, now you can participate in the revolts in North Africa from the comfort of your home, and even pause to brew a pot of tea, but how is that going to help you cross a busy street in London, or Madrid, when your nose is in your phone?

No doubt activists are using technology to dramatically change their social and political circumstances. Not to mention that the disabled now have powerful tools with which to interact with worlds once beyond their physical reach. But equally interesting is how an exponentially greater demographic is choosing an alternate route to the future, that of the urban technologist (or technologista). This person's idea of participation and engagement is limited to a text exchange, and rather than experience the world firsthand, he or she would rather observe it at the comfortable distance provided by a lens.

TAG IT AND IT'S YOURS

If it sometimes feels as if modern art collectively lacks the necessary stimuli to trigger excitement in a presumably jaded and increasingly selective audience, perhaps it's because we in the West live not in an age of Artistic Discovery –despite the new tools at our disposal (and presumably new ideas in the air)– but rather an the age of Autistic Discovery, "...characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior."

Indeed, in this way it is also an exciting age of rediscovery and recycling, which a future historian might one day point out paralleled a tandem growing awareness and social movement that called for the recycling of our entire environment.

But whereas once art was the product of recombinant processes, now we simply copy and paste, sample and loop, layer and remix. Or if we are really clever, we establish where points A and B are on a graph and then we take credit for the space between.

We tag a wall, for instance, and it is ours.

Imagine, entire bridges and buildings are for the taking! Tag it, shoot it, share it and revel in your fame. Maybe that's why modern art feels boring – because when faced with an interactive interface, we are still relegated to being consumers, not creators, which is what we want to be, and what we do  become, when at the very least, if we can't paint the Mona Lisa, at least we can take a picture of it.

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The image that leads this article is the West African Adinkra Symbol, 'Nkyinkyim' which is a symbol of initiative, dynamism and versatility. The original image can be found at Adinkra.org, which allows use of African symbols at no cost for non-profit uses. 

Future Friendly For David Fincher

Have you ever lit up the world with music? You Will. In 1993, the music house I worked for was commissioned by ad agency, NW AYER, to create an original score for an AT&T campaign named 'YOU WILL'. At the time I was a young assistant –hanging onto the ropes of commercial music production with one hand, answering phones and getting coffee for composers with the other. 

 The premise of the 'YOU WILL' campaign was that with the future right around the corner, AT&T was in a position to deliver all sorts of high tech goodies to their customers. Try to visualize the pre millennial era: Few in the public sphere had yet heard of the Internet, much less owned a personal computer. Cell phones were the size of car batteries. The hot technology was the CD-Rom.

So imagine how futuristic these commercials looked and sounded when they first aired and asked the then hypothetical questions: "Have you ever paid a toll without slowing down? Bought concert tickets from a cash machine? Or tucked your baby in from a phone booth? 'YOU WILL'." 

In one sense, 'YOU WILL' can be seen as (and possibly) modeled after GE’s own campaign 'WE BRING GOOD THINGS TO LIFE'. But cleverly, AT&T recast the message so as to position itself as the GE of the future. But what a dark future the ad agency imagined for its client. Let's look at one of the spots now, sans audio. Doing so will give you an idea of just the way our music composers first approached the project: 

AT&T YOU WILL  'TOLL':30 (NO AUDIO)

 

Director David Fincher was commissioned to shoot the commercials. His vision of the future, as it turned out, was pretty bleak, made only somewhat more pleasant by gadgetry. At first glance, most of the interiors looked like they couldn’t even power the lights in the room much less a computer, while exteriors seemed designed to resembled a climate change model in full effect. Which is not to say the film didn’t look good, it was great, even beautiful. But the art direction did not immediately convince one that a brighter future –either figuratively or literally– was upon us. 

Essentially, Fincher delivered a study in Sci-Fi noire: equal parts 'ALPHAVILLE', 'BLADE RUNNER' and 'BRAZIL'. Oddly enough, no one at the agency or anyone of our creative staff initially thought this Orwellian version of the 21st Century presented much of a marketing problem (for a company trying to position itself as a ubiquitous element to your future lifestyle). 

In fact, the consensus between both agency and our compositional staff was that Fincher’s footage demanded a rich cinematic treatment that inspired admiration in the things AT&T could achieve for its customers. Someone suggested that the music house use as a reference Ennio Morricone's 'WHILE THINKING ABOUT HER AGAIN’ from the soundtrack to 'CINEMA PARADISO'. I don't recall who first made this suggestion. It may have been Fincher, Jim Haygood (the campaign's editor), someone at the ad agency or one of our own creative directors Jonathan Elias or Alexander Lasarenko. But upon its acceptance and approval, Lasarenko composed a stirring work that captured the emotional depth of Morricone’s original cue. 

In fact, if you lay the 'CINEMA PARADISO' cue against any of the AT&T spots today, you can see that as a temp track, the music synchs relatively well to picture (it lacks sound design, but you get the idea). If I had to guess, I'd bet that Haygood might have used either Morricone’s music, or Lasarenko’s demo, to facilitate the process towards a final cut. 

 AT&T YOU WILL 'TOLL':30 (Alternate music direction):

   

Either way, Morricone's track certainly reinforces the cinematic quality inherent to the footage. It also adds emotive warmth, and in that regard it humanizes the picture. By virtue of the orchestral arrangement, it also conveys a sense of understated power, which one would think agreeable sonic branding for the communications giant. 

All of which is to say that this direction seemed exactly right for the project, and everyone at the ad agency seemed to agree at first. 

Unfortunately, the account executives at AT&T found the Morricone direction, however romantic in its original context, weirdly dark for a project that purported to be a brand imaging campaign. It wasn’t simply an issue of the music not working, but that the music worked too well, reinforcing Fincher’s dark vision, demanding awe and respect; rather than conveying a feeling of technological marvel and inspiring a sense of excitement and wonder. 

And of course they were right. Most of the time music is supposed to support picture, but the AT&T campaign provides us with a perfect example of a project that requires a score that contrasts picture. The symphonic direction did well to announce a Brave New World, but our real job was to introduce a Friendly Future. Lest there be any confusion, the future was not going to be dark, rainy or Orwellian, or feel anything like the inside of a rusting deep space oil rig. It was going to be fun, engaging, the technology liberating and easy to use. –Less 'ALIEN 3', if not quite 'JETSONS'. No rayguns; no monsters; and the weather is going to be fine. 

In other words, Disney’s TOMORROWLAND: safe, warm, inviting; and above all human and accessible. 

So why didn’t Fincher shoot happy-go-lucky spots in the first place? 

In all likelihood he was the hottest young director at the time, and sometimes that’s all it takes to get the job. Which is to say Fincher was hired to do Fincher (and he delivered), and any issues related to branding would be managed in post, which they were. 

But another surprise awaited our composers: While our symphonic music demo was soundly rejected, the edit it was synched to was approved. In many cases, when music providers get it wrong, agencies simply fire them and move on to someone new. But in the case of 'YOU WILL', NW Ayer gave us another chance. However, now we were in a position of having to compose a new score that contrasted picture, and in such a way designed to represent the polar opposite of our first demo, but would nevertheless synch to the existing edit, therefore matching picture lock. 

Elias wanted to provide yet another reference track for the creative team, in order to provide a concrete example of the client’s aspirations. So, this time out Lasarenko suggested an inspirational acoustic rock track, written in the odd meter of 7/4, whose cadence roughly followed a driving I V I vi V vi† chordal sequence, upon which a mystical lyric was delivered. Slammed against picture the music’s energetic beat and shimmering guitars all but lit up Fincher's otherwise dark world. (†FYI: For readers who are not musicians, the roman numerals in the previous paragraph represent shorthand for various kinds of chords: Upper case = Major/ Lower case = Minor) 

As a choice for a scratch track, it was far from typical film music. But it indicated a direction that could transform a Sci-Fi noire mini feature into a fanciful version of the future. And it achieved this result by forcibly re-framing picture with music (that specifically provided the necessary context). Obviously this speaks to the power of music, whether in advertising, entertainment or something else altogether: That is, the power to make you believe you are seeing something you are not, because your ear is telling you that you absolutely are.  Today, people re-frame their own respective worlds simply by scoring their life with personal playlists streaming off their own iPods or other portable playback devices. 

In the end, both Elias’ NY and LA composers created several versions of the driving acoustic rock direction. The agency selected the strongest demo, which was further developed by adding sound design and an affable voice over courtesy MAGNUM P.I. actor Tom Selleck. When at last approved, and the final spots delivered, AT&T released the following press announcement: "… the 'YOU WILL' campaign takes a whimsical look into the near-future when information technologies now being developed at AT&T will soon enhance the way people work, live and play." 

 AT&T YOU WILL 'TOLL':30 (FINAL AUDIO):

   

Of course, if the agency had approved the original symphonic orchestral direction, inspired by Morricone’s CINEMA PARADISO, the spots would never have been framed as anything near whimsy. Even now, the images themselves remain, dark and a bit Orwellian. If this is the future, where the hell is the sun, you may ask? Well, it's there, of course, beaming down upon the entire campaign, whimsy and all. It may never be a prominent element in any of the video. But nevertheless, it shines bright, illuminated by the power and magic of music. 

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 Here's a video that includes all the spots in the campaign

 

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Read what other people thought about 'YOU WILL': 

1. From Boingboing, Cory Doctorow writes: “I think these are the most emblematic advertisements of the era, defining the way that big companies totally missed the point of the Internet…” 

 2. The Work and Genius of David Fincher: AT&T - "You Will" (1993) 

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 FUTURE FRIENDLY FOR DAVID FINCHER is the third in an educational series examining the utilization of temp music in advertising, entertainment and media production. To read previous articles on this topic, click on either the following link or the TEMP MUSIC label/link that follows at the footer of this post: 2009 WINTER/SPRING CRITICAL NOISE ARTICLES ABOUT TEMP TRACKS: 

Scratch Track Fever