(no subject)

[lierdumoa]

I am such a dork. You know how sometimes you're drinking and it goes down the wrong pipe? I do that with my own spit. At least once a week. I did that this morning with drinking water and it ended up coming out my nose. Ow? Yeah.

Took a nap yesterday and dreamed of vidding. Specifically I dreamed I was exporting Gia!vid, only something happened to change the song and the clips were off, as if my avisynth file was malfunctioning, and there was this weird solarize filter on the whole vid. Only the weird bit was that it actually worked, and I ended up with this sexy looking remix. The audio turned out not to be fucked up as I realized that it sounded like a guys voice was singing and that it was in fact a Depeche Mode song (of my own invention) rather than the song I actually vidded. Of course, then I woke up.

Tues. night I dreamt of drawing. Female figure drawings. Some brown water paint was involved. And something sparkly. Weird.



So, I was thinking about the beat thing. Cutting to the beat. I was thinking. because I'm meeting more and more vidders who micromanage beat. I micromanage everything except beat. By which I mean, vidders who carefully analyze time signature and count out beats and it works for them and I watch their vids and I'm like yay! yay beatwhoring! only I totally don't understand their method. yhlee as been posting a lot lately on how she reads beat during her vidding process. Time signatures keep popping up. I'm just barely following what she's writing. Barely.

Some background. I tried to write a song when I was, like, thirteen or fourteen or something. I tried but I didn't know what the time signature was. I knew the song in my head, but I didn't know how to write it down. I ended up playing it for my piano teacher, who figured out that the song was 3/4 except for the chorus, which was 6/8. I was able to write it down once she told me that. I get beat. I get it on a level that requires no higher brain function. I try to apply higher brain function and I fuck it all up.

I think I had to have my piano teacher play the written version of my song about a billion times before I finally got it written down correctly because I'm kind of a retard when it comes to writing music. I never actually learned how to read music fluently. I can memorize a song very quickly and I have good muscle memory, but when it comes to just reading it I suck.

I see people counting out beats and pencilling them in and think, "Why? Doesn't that just confuse you?" When of course it doesn't confuse them it just confuses me, because I see that and I feel like it's working backwards. Like you're trying to learn calculus by memorizing the equations, instead of trying to understand the concept behind those equations. When it comes to beat, I don't bother memorizing the equations because I get the concept, so I can always derive the equations later.

Much later.

I'm a procrastinator like that.

This is probably the worst metaphor ever invented.

But, like, it's interesting seeing other vidders work through beat like this. I remember commodorified's post on beat, and her commenting on how she would be afraid to vid Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" because the song was 7/8 and she was like ::flail::. I boggled at this for a second, because I'd never heard of a song being 7/8 in all my thirteen years of piano lessons (wherein I gained depressingly little piano skill) -- then my roommate and I listened to the song for a (long) while and figured out that the song actually alternated between 6/8 and 8/8 every other measure. Or maybe it was actually 14/8. It wasn't 7/8, because if you read it as such, the note emphasis changed every other measure.

Perhaps this info will be useful to someone else who wants to vid this song. Were I to vid this song, I would find such information completely and utterly useless. To this day, I have no idea what any of the time signatures are on any of the songs I've vidded. Oh wait. I did figure out that "Pretty When You Cry" by Vast was 4/4 -- after the fact.

Okay, now that I'm thinking about it I'm pretty sure all of my vids were 4/4. Or 2/4. Or one of those 2^x beat per measure time signatures that I really don't know how to differentiate between. I wonder if my brain just naturally likes that kind of rhythm best. Or not. Considering that I also made up a song when I was, like, 8 or something that my piano teacher wrote down for me and it was 3/4. So apparently I like non 2^x beat per measure time signatures when I'm making up songs in my head.

o.0

I'm sure I'm overthinking this. Then again, this whole post is about me percieving other people's thinking as overthinking and whoa. I just confused myself. A lot.

Anyway, when I cut to the beat, I basically look at one whole musical block and make a guess based on my gut as to what cutting rhythm will look right for that block. I not even sure how to define musical block here. I've never thought about it before. I know for Gia!vid ("Girl Anachronism" by The Dresden Dolls) a musical block was about five seconds, which was the length of a 4 line stanza (it was a really fast song) or one of those instrumentals that sometimes came in pairs between verses. I make a guess, and if something looks off, I guess again. Usually my first guess will be mostly right and there are only a couple of clips I need to adjust.

Is it that I tend to think of vidding like dancing? Because dancing to music isn't the same as playing music. The beats you emphasize when, for example, playing a song on the piano aren't necessarily the beats you react to when you're dancing to it. You probably *couldn't* emphasise all those same beats because there are just too many of them being played and you have to choose. The rules for dancing are a lot looser. Or can be. Depending on the song and whether you're dancing to a certain type of dance like squaredance or just freestyling to the radio in your room. I tend to think of vidding as the latter.

Only, you know, less embarrassing.



BTW I totally need to stop staring at my Gia!vid because I keep staring at the same eleven or so clips that look like they're one or two frames offbeat. One or two frames. At 24 fps. Aaaaargh! Too late to fix it. I don't care anymore. I deleted the source off my computer. I submitted it to the con. I will stop stressing. I will.

Aaaaaany moment now.



OMFG how long is this post?

Comments

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Your dancing analogy now makes sense to me, because I think I'm like you: I feel the beat in my body first and foremost. As I was telling yhlee the other day, I only mark beats in the timeline if they are a) very hard to hear/grab due to other stuff going on in the music, b) extremely rapid in a section where I want a lot of very short clips, one on each beat, or c) places where I want to remember to do something in particular.

And that's really all the thinking I do about it. Lacking any rigorious musical training, I still can't really read music and I remain somewhat confused about time signatures -- I'm pretty sure I couldn't identify the time signature of any given song without serious thinking, and that's the kind of thinking that I find unnecessary when vidding. Instead, I just notice when my head bobs or my foot taps and call that a place to cut.

I wouldn't say that I think of vidding like dancing, exactly; I think of vidding like *chair*-dancing. (:

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say that I think of vidding like dancing, exactly; I think of vidding like *chair*-dancing. (:

I alternate between chair-dancing and actual dancing depending on just how numb my arse is from sitting and vidding for hours.

*g*

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Very sensible. I'll have to try that.

[sdwolfpup.livejournal.com]

Wow, your comment is pretty much exactly what I wanted to say, laura! We vid very, very much the same way.

I have one college semester of guitar as formal training and everything else I know (which is not much at all), I taught myself. Time signatures were never part of that so, like you lierdumoa, that information isn't useful to me at all.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Great minds think alike, right? (:

Can't wait to see you at VVC! I hope we can carve out some time for a conversation.

[sdwolfpup.livejournal.com]

Only two more weeks! We'll definitely make time. Somehow. Heh.

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

I have a vidding friend who had no musical training, but still figures out beat by time signature (though she doesn't necessarily refer to it as such) -- she establishes beat pattern first, and then cuts to it. The more complicated the beat pattern is, the harder time she has figuring out how to cut.

I think you and laurashapiro are more like me. We don't look for patterns in the music when we're vidding. In my last vid, each verse is cut slightly differently. Even though the rhythm in each is basically the same, I interpret it slightly differently every time based on what the singer's voice is doing and my own whimsy. The more I look at the vid (I really need to stop looking at it) the more random it seems.

And yet, it still makes sense to me. Same as laurashapiro's Suspended in Gaffa made sense to me and your Cold Cold Water made sense to me. Very much cut to the music, very much in rhythm, but at the same time with a little random thrown in -- not pattern based, but more interpretive.

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

Adding also that interpretative whimsy and musical patterns play a part in both methods, but I throw in whimsy first and then try to organize it, and other vidders organize it first and then throw in whimsy.

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

I think feeling the beat and knowing the time signature are pretty much simultaneous for me. Insta-analysis.

Ah. Makes sense. :)

I don't automatically hear time signatures. I think it's because I don't listen to music in measures. Which, now that I think about it, is kind of weird. I go straight from single notes to musical stanzas, so I'm either looking to deep in a measure to see the whole thing, or I'm watching a whole set of measures at once and my brain, for some reason, just skips straight past the middle ground.

Okay, now I want to see if I can force myself to look at the middle ground, and concentrate on individual measures. I wonder if it would change the way I hear songs.

Hmmmm. Curious.

download: Solsbury Hill (http://s9.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0GPIX5ING5N1F0WGPZFWOLVXJW)

[sdwolfpup.livejournal.com]

I am really time signature-dumb. I try, and even when people tell me what it is, I'm not sure I get it.

I like the descriptor "interpretive." Also, I'm looking forward to seeing your "Girl Anachronism" vid. That song is so full of sound I wouldn't have the foggiest idea of where to start. I think sometimes that's why vid idea and narrative play such a huge role in my vids, because I don't know what to do with all of that music.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

I supposed played the flute for two years in junior high band until the band director pissed me off and I quit to run track for the coach/science teacher who respected that what I lacked in talent, I made up for in heart. He actually said that. I was there. It was like Rudy, except kind of an unintentional burn.

This is kind of how I vid. I can barely read music. I have no real sense of rhythm. But I can hear something and I know what that sound should look like to me, or how to use that sound in a visual way to make myself feel a certain way and that is fun. I have no idea how to tell what a time signature is. I can barely tell the difference in strings versus synthesizer sometimes. Half the time I really don't know what is going on and the other half of the time, I am faking that I know what is going on.

But when I listen to music I feel something. I connect with some songs and then I want other people to connect with the song and I want to show them what I feel when I hear this song. It has nothing to do with beat-whoring and everything to do with making a compelling vid and exploiting the song. If a movement works on a primary beat-- do it. If a razor cut works here - do it.

I'll analyze a songs emotional structure to death -- even when I am not vidding it -- like Cold Cold Water. GREAT SONG (also your premiere vid - GREAT SONG) and I loved how you worked with the music to develop this wonderful vid but as I was reading your feedback, I realized that I took it entirely for granted that you were varying style according to the different musical structures in the song. I mean, I remember being all excited about the percussive section (and the punching) and the dreamy-stuff and all, but I think it was just a given that of course you would tailor your editing to these song changes. The song dictated it and you followed it and developed it into saying what it wanted to say. It felt extremely holistic to me.

But sitting down and analyzing time signatures and, um, other musically stuff... not my bag. Unless it is an intense audio edit -- I might count, you know, what are those things called? Crap - that stuff that then repeats? Whatever - I'll pay attention to that during audio editing but only cause I have to. While vidding, I might mark a beat on the timeline if I am being very strict about the story being told in this section (ie I want all the cuts to match in some quick succession way and I'll mark up the audio track to remind me to try this) but other than that --- it is much less scientific.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I realized that I took it entirely for granted that you were varying style according to the different musical structures in the song. I mean, I remember being all excited about the percussive section (and the punching) and the dreamy-stuff and all, but I think it was just a given that of course you would tailor your editing to these song changes. The song dictated it and you followed it and developed it into saying what it wanted to say. It felt extremely holistic to me.

*g* boniblithe and I are using "Cold Cold Water" in our Using the Music panel for precisely this reason. Come! Share!

[sdwolfpup.livejournal.com]

Half the time I really don't know what is going on and the other half of the time, I am faking that I know what is going on.

I'm glad that's not just me, then.

I realized that I took it entirely for granted that you were varying style according to the different musical structures in the song

And in fact I was taking it for granted, too. Up until recently, at least. I never used to analyze my songs at all. I analyzed my ideas and planned them out and storyboarded like crazy, but I never really paid much attention to the song. Which seems ridiculous when the music is so important, but I think I'm just such a left-brain vidder that I constantly was thinking in story-telling, not emotional, terms.

It was "Coin-Operated Boy" that actually made me pay attention to my music, because while I had an idea, the song was jagged and edgy and made me uncomfortable and I had to figure out why. Of all the things I've learned about vidding, paying attention to my music is one of the most important.

I still could do better at it, honestly. I'm a very instinctive vidder and I'd say at least a quarter of CCW resulted from that state where you lay clips and all of a sudden it works, and there was no analyzing or planning involved. That instinctiveness makes me feel like a fraud sometimes. Heh.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

I still could do better at it, honestly. I'm a very instinctive vidder and I'd say at least a quarter of CCW resulted from that state where you lay clips and all of a sudden it works, and there was no analyzing or planning involved. That instinctiveness makes me feel like a fraud sometimes. Heh

Everything that I've ever done that was more than a teeny bit good is cause of this. I am not exaggerating. One day you will all realize this and I will be ousted! Eunice even gives me credit here by making it all subconsciousy (and maybe it is - my favorite thing about vid-farr is just stopping my brain and everything falling into place like magic). I'm not saying there isn't planning - cause there is. And there is paying attention to the music. But most of it tends to feel like this really happy accident that suddenly starts to make sense. Like penicillin only in vid-form.

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

I firmly believe I vid in my sleep. I believe this because I gave up on my Firefly vid (like, totally gave up on it), went to bed, then woke up an hour later and made it brown.

I think talent is having good instincts, and skill is learning how to follow those instincts.

[sex-and-tea.livejournal.com]

To answer your question you've managed to write 1195 words.

Why doesn't my subconscious compose Depeche Mode songs while I sleep? Am very jealous.

"Too late to fix it. I don't care anymore. I deleted the source off my computer. I submitted it to the con. I will stop stressing. I will."

I feel for you. Every time I finish an essay or a project I will go into a state of complete and utter paranoia for a while:)

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

Why doesn't my subconscious compose Depeche Mode songs while I sleep? Am very jealous.

If only I could remember the melody, you know?



I feel for you. Every time I finish an essay or a project I will go into a state of complete and utter paranoia for a while:)

We have a saying in my art class -- "Nothing's ever done. It's just due."



I listened to the song you posted! I could not think of any vidbunnys that would be properly creepy, though the song did make me think of Stargate (the movie, not the tv series).

[sex-and-tea.livejournal.com]

I'm going to have to rewatch Stargate.Thanks for the tip!

[permetaform]

::wry grin:: dude, I don't know any more if I'm micro-managing or macro-managing.

In any case, I'm sorta befuddled why peoople don't just open up the waveform reaaaally big...

well. Perhaps with the exception of Chemicals Between Us.

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

You macromanage. And then you nitpick in a way that is *like* micromanaging, but without the managing part, as your nipicking is not organized so much as it is thorough.

:)

[permetaform]

in a way that is *like* micromanaging, but without the managing part, as your nipicking is not organized so much as it is thorough.

XD can live with that.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

In any case, I'm sorta befuddled why peoople don't just open up the waveform reaaaally big...

Because we use the decibel indicator instead! (:

[permetaform]

o.0 there's decibel map? or...wait, are you talking about the bar that flashes to red?

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's the one! It goes red at the downbeats and also the points of greatest volume, so it's a great way to track dynamics as well as downbeats.

But I still mostly just use my body's natural rhythm to tell me where the beat is.

[permetaform]

::nods:: that makes sense, I might have to try that sometimes.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I just found that looking at the wave form was a) confusing me, and b) taking up way too much screen real estate.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

*Listens to the song carefully*

Hah! Damned if it ain't!

I'm not actually terrified to VID it. I am just planning to arrange my life so I never have to do lighting for it again.

It influences me greatly that I learned all this stuff in a context where you have to work live and real-time -- picture if you will running a lightboard, which is basically like throwing up 'clips' that are coloured light, in real time, during a not terribly good cover of that song, and the singer's slightly tanked and therefore slightly off AND THE DRUMMER BREAKS A STICK and you're supposed to make it look like it never happened.

It's been 15 years, I'm over it. OK, I'm not over it. I may never ever be over the dog's breakfast I made of that song.

I reread that post I did now and think, man, *I* don't do it that way anymore, who the hell did I think I was?

But it was never meant to be so much a guide for vidding for all time as just a guide for the visually-oriented to getting to that spinal stage in the first place, if that makes sense. I don't think it's much use for people who already have an instinctive sense of rhythm.

Mostly I throw clips by instinct and they stick, these days, but when I get stuck, when it just looks OFF and I don't know why, I still go back to the chair-dance and the leg-drumming.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

*is moron*

Actually, I think it's 7/4, not 14/8. I THINK.

I am fairly sure that's what I meant in the first place, but my brane had a little spaz attack.

*goes off to edit old post*

[crowie.livejournal.com]

Ooo this is really interesting. Ive got well over 10 years of classical musical training, play violin. I learnt to read music at the same time I learnt to read normally (around 6 years old).

However I never mark out beats or count things out when vidding. I go with the phrases. I see the song almost as a musical conversation. Where the singer and the various intstruments are all talking together. And there are phrases, rythm and texture. I think the analogy to dancing is quite good. I do feel the beat in my body. However when Im playing my violin I also feel the beat in my body and tend to phrase the music in the same way I experience it when I want to vid.

I mean there are some bits that pop out of the song somehow and make me want to emphasise them, the music is all entwined together, all the different strands and I want to follow some of the phrases. I try to cut on the beat but internal motion in clips is very important for this sort of emphasis too.

Im very right brained now (in the middle of vidding after having been playing my violin + drawing) so I feel like Im lacking words. This sort of thing is very hard to explain.