Click the picutre to watch the video of Feist sing her Sesame Street filk of “1-2-3-4”
Every morning, I drive my daughter to daycare with a playlist of music that I think she will like. She's picked her favorites. One such song is Sesame Street filk of “1-2-3-4” by Feist. We used to watch that video when she was a wee bairn, along with other Sesame Street songs.
Occasionally, she asks me to play this song. Whenever she does, she mentions visual cues from the video–“girl walking with monsters”. Now mind you, she hasn't watched that video in months, maybe even a year. But she still remembers the video.
That's a good lesson for musicians. Tom Jackson, a live music coach, talks about creating moments with your stage shows. I try to incorporate those visual cues into my shows. Sometimes I'm successful, sometimes not so much. The visual element is almost always there when someone hears your recordings.
Think for a moment of your favorite song. What images does that song conjure?
Have you seen me perform? What image and song comes to mind?
I'm listening to Keep the Celtic in Christmas, a Celtic compilation CD I plan to release next month featuring a number of incredible indie Celtic artists. As I listen to Pandora Celtica sing “The Holly and the Ivy”, I have a total visual element from their live shows, which I've seen numerous times at DragonCon.
One of the reasons I love folk music is the incredible storytelling. I've never seen The Gleasons perform, but when I hear “Irish Holiday”, I have a total visual element of them in the pub and the merry moments that ensue.
In my senior year of high school, my drama teacher asked us to do some performance art to a song. I acted out a seen from “Nine Million Rainy Days” by The Jesus & Mary Chain. I failed the project. I still don't understand what he ultimately wanted, but it wasn't my mellow dramatic interpretation of the song. I think he just didn't want me acting out the song. He wanted a music video, much like Ah-Ha's video for “Take On Me”.
Of course, that's the reason I have so much trouble making music videos. I'm terrible at creating an interpretation that is not exactly what is on the page.
How about you? Do you understand what my drama teacher asked me to do? Can you make a video using one of my songs to create a visual impression? You can do a photo slide show. Take pictures of your cats. Use clips from TV shows. Or make an original music video.
Let me know when it's done.
