I was reading one of my favorite blogs today, PostClassic and found this video interesting. Could tracking some music to a Sarah Palin interview have an effect on the actual message of the film? At first hearing that question, most would say “of coarse!” We as composers and musicians seek to elicit emotional responses by portraying our experiences, thoughts, and emotions through sound. So when I first saw this video, I thought, “Oh Joy, somebody put some sappy Disney music to the Palin/Couric her interview.” Then when it got to Palin’s response it got a bit more interesting. The music at that point did not resemble the same film style emotional music that I had expected. Instead it is rhythmically derived from her diction and thus does not elicit the same type of emotional response that a more culturally predictable type of music would accomplish. So, does this effect your view of this in a positive or negative way or do we just say…”gimmick!” I took the time to post about it so…comments?

Upon returning from my recent trip to Italy, I was welcomed home by a horrifying NPR report. Officials at the La Scala Opera House in Milan Italy announced that composer Giorgio Battistelli has been commissioned to produce an opera based on Gore’s overated film An Inconvenient Truth for the 2011 season. First of all, a documentary as an opera…thrilling. Second, such a narrow approach to one small facet of the larger problems that humanity is faced with is such a trivial avenue to pursue. (See Good Nonsense for more.) Thirdly, Verdi, Puccini, Catalani, Gore…WTF?!?!? (Or maybe he would be the librettist? Would they use text from the script…or maybe statistics set to music…well Glass did something distantly related to this…) Don’t get me wrong, global warming is serious issue that every human being has a responsibility, yes even Christians, to address and take action individually. However, when such a monumental and historically iconic to engage in blatant support of propaganda and then labeling it as art, makes me ask what has happened to art. I guess I just think that art shouldn’t reflect culture if it forces you to become a epic tool box.