Music - With Video or Without?

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drkrack said:
The imagination starts with the verbal description without the accompanying image. We're basically talking non graphic novels.
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Yes, I get your point. My post was a related thought when I read Sachin's comment in the previous message:

An average listener (or anyone who isn’t born in a classical music surroundings) keeps evolving through the ladder of musical appreciation to reach the point where the lyrical aids aren’t necessary. One also starts finding them distracting, as you said.
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In western music , especially jazz, there is one particular - should I say genre - where the lyrics at least according to my opinion distract from the appreciation of music. This is vocalese, in which words are added to the improvisations of the soloists. This is not scatting in which unintelligible phrases are sung and can be quite endearing (Louis Armstrong). In vocalese , which I could never appreciate , usually its someone else - not the original composer - providing the lyrics.
A good example of vocalese is Resolution from Kurt Elling’s Man In The Air. Here he has added lyrics to part of Coltrane’s famous suite “A Love Supreme“. I give both the original composition and the vocalese rendition of the same.





SachinChavan said:
Guys, I had posted this reflection on my FB page as well and one audiophile friend of mine, who also sings and plays guitar well responded with views that gave this subject further dimension. He pointed out to even the possibility of lyrics being a distraction for some just as visuals can be. And pointed to the necessity for all of these to be well aligned. Here’s his reply:

“Sachin, I would like to take a step back and say that, already, lyrics is a distraction to appreciating music. Visuals too form a distraction. However, there are some values laden in experiencing music - sociologically, for instance, skill as the great leveller, that sublime joy does not cost, etc. Also, the artist might be seeking to convey a particular Rasa. So long as the semantics in the lyrics and the semiotics in the visuals stay aligned with the listener's sense of the (largely unstated) underlying values, all if fine. There should not be jarring pieces. Or then, the jar should be deliberate and well designed, as in a sonata (where it is ultimately resolved, but that need not be).“

And my reply in turn:

“XXX, Thanks for the insightful reply. Yes, there’s something about music unaided by even lyrics - classical for example. An average listener (or anyone who isn’t born in a classical music surroundings) keeps evolving through the ladder of musical appreciation to reach the point where the lyrical aids aren’t necessary. One also starts finding them distracting, as you said.

But for most, lyrics keep them engaged. Words have meaning and emotional connotation that we are conditioned to. Music without words can too bring out those emotions as well or better, but that takes a very good performer (and composer). Music for masses therefore continues to use lyrics to leverage our association with words.

And then there are visuals that get further used to convey the meaning and emotion. As you said, a visual that’s coherent with the music will aid will bring to it further larger audience. May be it’s to do with the visual appeal (e.g visual aesthetics, celebrity actors, etc.) or that it engages one more sense (for those who can’t put their entire attention in one sense - here, the auditory). And perhaps, like in cases of well aligned visuals in some music videos the combined AV experience becomes another form of art itself!

But still there’d always be the devout audiophile who won’t get attracted to the visuals or lyrics even when well composed. He wants to shut all other senses (including semantic and semiotic cognition parts of the brain) and just focus entirely on experiencing the music.”
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moktan said:
In western music , especially jazz, there is one particular - should I say genre - where the lyrics at least according to my opinion distract from the appreciation of music. This is vocalese, in which words are added to the improvisations of the soloists. This is not scatting in which unintelligible phrases are sung and can be quite endearing (Louis Armstrong). In vocalese , which I could never appreciate , usually its someone else - not the original composer - providing the lyrics.
A good example of vocalese is Resolution from Kurt Elling’s Man In The Air. Here he has added lyrics to part of Coltrane’s famous suite “A Love Supreme“. I give both the original composition and the vocalese rendition of the same.


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That sounds outright horrible! And this isn’t even his own (the original), or musical.

In Indian classical Ustad Vilayat Khan used to burst into singing while playing sitar. While it sounds cute at first, on repeated listening I didn’t like it. Not just because it’s not what I expect from a sitar rendition, but also because his singing is not a patch on his sitar playing. But in his case one can still put it down to idiosyncrasy.
 
Personally, I prefer video only when it's a Western Classical performance, especially with a dedicated (and well known) conductor. It adds another dimension, and sometimes more energy, to the music.
 
May take being there is some amount of best in both the worlds. I miss the 90s Music Videos that used to come with a story plot making them visual treats beyond the audio and each time I get to hear the audio I tend to recall the visual, with the ATN channel logo on the top right corner ;)

Multichannel surround Audio Songs are great for dance numbers and helps create ambiance that two channel simply cannot offer. Heck some of the surround video tracks are not at all tolerable on pure two channel without the video.

That being said, pure two channel Audio is all about finesse, without the video distraction to enjoy that faint background instrument that you never noticed or paid much attention when it was playing with the video.
 
A very straightforward choice for me.
Video for all live shows because I love watching the artists interacting with the spectators and experience the energy they draw from each other.

For all other music listening, no video. I tend to listen to a lot more albums than compilations and enjoy the mental picture I draw each time for the album's narrative. What I enjoy most is that picture changes with each listen :)
A video spoils that for me most times.
 
For me it’s a no - brainier.

Recordings of live performances: videos wherever possible.

Studio albums : Without question , only audio. Cases where videos are well packaged to market \ enhance the songs - it can be a parallel but second alternative

Film OSTs : Only audio , snippets of dialogues welcome.
 
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