Reflection

The process has been quite different from other experiences because of the nature of the piece itself. We discussed about the idea of what we wanted the piece to be and from the first moment we wanted to explore the relations between music and video. This idea has changed over time both in concept and in its technological form. This changes have occurred through jamming with different setups, trying different video editions, different color effects, and different controllers. We took inspiration in a set of 2 chords from a prelude composed by Messiaen, we've been jamming using those chords as a starting point, and experimenting with different sound effects that relate with the video images through resembling tank shooting sounds, or effects that make you feel like floating or flying as the combat jets. The challenges have been that neither of us had worked with editing video or playing it with a controller before and personally I had never worked with a piano player in this type of setting. So basically our process has been developing the piece through trial and error, listening to recordings of rehearsals, watching videos and reflecting on where we are going. Many of our initial ideas have changed, at first we wanted to make a piece involving different themes through images and with more screens but we found that this military footage worked well by itself. We would need more time and iterations to explore using more screens and controlling them, however through this experience I was able to learn more about video editing with Final Cut and video playback with Max/Msp, which is something I would like to keep using in future projects.