Elo-Quent

I created this video for one of my last classes of my time in college. This is the paper that explains what it is.

If for some strange reason you are interested in the notation for this piece, I can email it to you.

Isaac Middleton
Interdisciplinary Studies

Cortney Basham

May 9, 2014

Elo-quent

Richard Wagner was a prolific composer from the 19th century. He was responsible for composing many pieces known as Music Dramas, which are relatively close to operas. In an essay entitled The Artwork of the Future, Wagner stated in regards to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony that “the last symphony had  been written” (Gourt 730). It is a sad claim, but Wagner thought that at last music has been represented in all its completeness through Beethoven’s Ninth, that Beethoven had discovered music’s full potential in this symphony, and so instrumental music after Beethoven was now futile.

Because of this dilemma, Wagner believed that true artistic fulfillment no longer lied in individualized, centralized effort, such as a symphony, but that art must now be a collective work. Wagner states that an artist “can be fully satisfied only in the union of all the art varieties in the collective artwork” (Gourt 730). In other words, an artist can only be satisfied in the unification of different art forms. In a sense, he is saying a true artist is interdisciplinary. Wagner continues, “in every individualization of his artistic capacities [the artist] is unfree, not wholly that which he can be; in the collective artwork he is free, wholly that which he can be” (Gourt 730).

Wagner states that the best type of collective artwork functions correctly “only when each variety in its ultimate completeness is present in it.” Not only this, but each individual art form must only be fully understood through the “collective communication together with the other art varieties.” The art form is successful “only through the mutual understanding and understandable cooperation of all the art varieties.” Basically, Wagner is saying that good artwork must be contrived from many different elements, which all work cohesively together to create something larger and more perfect than what any could do on their own, so much so that the elements are inseparable once they are together.

This project involved many different disciplines (some I hadn’t really thought about until they faced me during the process of creation). The first property, and the most obvious, is the tap dancing. I started tapping my sophomore year of college when I took a bi-term class under the direction of a musical theatre adjunct faculty Jeremy Benton. I was an English major at the time, but had done a few shows with the theatre department and had taken a few dance classes. This first class, though incredibly simple, got me hooked. Also interesting to note is that because I ordered my tap shoes so late, which were then put on back-order, I went through the entire bi-term without actual tap shoes. The professor nicknamed me soft-shoe, after the style of tap dance. Though this was a mistake, looking back, I think this helped my articulation and groundedness later on. (It’s also ironic, because now, my style is anything but soft-shoe).

The seed was planted. I ended up maneuvering my school schedule around whatever tap classes were offered at Western. The next class I enrolled in was Tap II, which was many steps ahead of where my bi-term class left off; however, the professor, Amanda Clark, seeing that I was serious about learning, agreed to let me straggle along. I think this was the best way to help myself learn— to be thrown out into the deep water with the big fish and have no choice but to sink or swim.

I doggie-paddled, panting and choking, through Tap II, then a year later took Tap III. The other students were all dance majors with their perfect form and bodies, most of them having taken dance classes since they could walk. The next semester, I enrolled in Tap Pedagogy, which is the art of teaching tap dance. This class enabled me to think critically about tap, to truly come to understand the terminology and the world that surrounds tap, which I think aided in my choreography.

Eventually, tap became the thing that I would turn to when my life became difficult. It was my escape. I would spend many nights breaking into the Gordon Wilson Hall dance studios and tap until I couldn’t. I think this is when I actually started to get it. Tap no longer was a thing that I did because my professor told me to, and it was no longer just a set of moves (shuffle, ball-change, maxi-ford, Cincinnati).  It started to flow out of me. I started to get it.

Though I have tapped for about three years, I have never choreographed anything before. I had wanted to take a class in choreography, but I was not allowed, because I wasn’t a strong enough dancer yet (and still am not). The only experience I had with choreography was doing someone else’s, and watching other people’s choreography online. (the tapper/videographer I draw the most inspiration from is a hoofer known as Jack Evans. I included a directory to his youtube page in the works cited page).

Since I didn’t have much of a place to start, I decided to work from within. While choreographing this piece, I had also been working on a paper in my Music History class about Beethoven’s String Quartet in C Sharp Minor, which opens up in a Fugue (I included a directory to a youtube video of this in the works cited page, as well). The way the Fugue works is that the violin plays the opening melody, which is then followed by the second violin’s interpretation of the same melody at a different interval, and then the viola’s, then the cello’s, until they all eventually flow together into sameness, all the while attaching themselves seamlessly together. I wanted to create the same effect with my choreography, which explains why I open with Tapper I starting the time-step, followed by the others joining me one at a time— it’s my own rhythmic fugue. The String Quartet also emphasized cohesion and interconnectedness; so, that artistic principle hopefully protruded through the choreography.

Going about recording this posed various problems. First, how could I make it so that every dancer was in line with each other? How could I avoid getting off the beat? How can I get good, clean audio?

To record the video and audio, what I did was this: I recorded the video from my laptop camera for all four dancers to a metronome (120 bpm) coming from my laptop speaker. This solved the problem of keeping every dancer on beat and together, since they’re set to the same metronome. However, this created the problem of corrupting the audio. How can I get rid of the sound of the metronome that’s now muddled with my taps?

I then put headphones on and re-recorded the audio without the video to the metronome. I did the same moves, just with headphones. This way, the metronome wasn’t picked up. I then matched the new audio with the old video and muted the old audio, and it all matched up perfectly.

Herein lies a moral issue that can be raised. Am I cheating? Perhaps a little. Is it that big of a deal? It depends on who you are. For this project, I could find no other way to do it. It was the only way this project could be made possible.

I then took that audio home and recorded several different musical interpretations to that metronome. I experienced until I found something I liked. I wanted to make sure that I followed the principle of interconnectedness, so at times the music intentionally follows the editing and the choreography. I was also careful to make sure that it was something that I truly liked. I had grown tired of settling with projects that I’m only partially happy with. I wanted to truly feel satisfied by the end of it.

I then edited the video takes on Final Cut Express HD, after looking up online how to do it. I had taken a video editing class a few years ago when I was a film major, so I understood the capabilities of video editing, I had just forgotten the technical know-how, but was quickly reminded.

I decided that I would make it easier to differentiate the dancers through different clothing. These clothes represent the four different phases in my life that I went through in college. The first, in the top left, consists of gym shorts and a blue shirt, which is pretty much what I wore during Freshman year, when I didn’t value physical appearance as much. In the second box, I’m wearing a large denim button-down shirt that I was given by Charles Hall, a director of a theatre company for which I’ve worked for two summers, and have had a large, positive affect on my life. The shirt represents that era of my life, when I started to truly get into theatre. In the third box, I’m wearing a cat shirt that belonged to a girl, representing the era of my life I spent with her. In the fourth box, I’m wearing clothes that represent the me that is present. The me that is now. Through the device of costume, I wanted to express, at least to myself, the idea that you affect yourself. The choices that you make now ripple down and affect what you do later.

The initial point of this project was to experiment with the relationship that each artistic element has with another. I asked the question of what would happen if you messed with this relationship? Usually, in choreography, a dancer choreographs something then finds music for it afterwards, or finds a song and puts choreography to it. But what happens if you choreograph a piece, and then write music to it afterwards? What if you edit the video in accordance with the music, with the choreography, or with both? I did find that having control over all of these elements makes it much more accessible to accomplish my artistic vision; however, it is also a lot to handle, and can be a bit overwhelming at times. The results were interesting, and effective to a certain extent, though I do not think I accomplished the feeling of total cohesion and completeness within this video.

The following is the notation for my choreography. I have it split up into four different sections, according to the dancer. 

Works Cited Page

Grout, Donald Jay. A History of Western Music. New York: Norton, 1960. Print.

Beethoven, Ludwig Van. "Beethoven String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131 - Afiara Quartet (Live)." YouTube. YouTube, 14 Feb. 2013. Web. 09 May 2014.

Evans, Jack. "H E I P O a | Jack Evans." YouTube. YouTube, 21 Feb. 2014. Web. 09 May 2014.