The Visual Song

I was thinking about the idea of 'liveness' and it got me thinking about the construction of liveness in recordings. It seems like the idea of synesthesia is crucial to this process, and the idea of instrumental elements as 'tactile' sensations is inherently used in music and naturally lends itself to transference in music videos.

For example, taking examples from rock/pop music:

Tinny vocals - indicate a feeling of distance and mediation, perhaps through a radio or a phone, and immediately signifies nostalgia or melancholy.
Hi-hat heavy rhythm track - immediately gives a sense of the music existing in more of a 'suspended vacuum', almost like being underwater.
Fingers across strings - the sliding effect during a rest when the guitarist's hand moves up or down the fret.
Rests - especially before choruses or sections, in modern pop-rock signifies a band member or a protagonist or someone 'jumping'
Half time drums - signifies slow motion, but also the idea of flying or being suspended in mid-air.
Breathing sounds - obviously, idea of singer being very close to the mic and very much 'present', but also seems to 'flatten' the message, in the sense that whatever the lyrics are saying are immediately directed to you personally vs. an audience of many people.

Obviously, there are other things such as reverb which immediately indicate a sense of space, but I just thought it was interesting how there are certain image associations already attached to music either because they are naturally how the sounds are made, or because we've become accustomed to those image-audio pairings over time.

An example of how these image-audio connections are maximised in thecreation of music is the phenomenon of 'One Man Band With Laptop'. That is, musicians who do everything on the computer themselves, or even if they record many of the instruments themselves, they try to provide the illusion of having a full band and a sense of liveness. If you are interested, check out Radical Face, Electric President or Get Cape Wear Cape Fly.

Dennis
ID:3977394