Advice needed for a performance..

On the 20th (a week from today) I will be performing a piece I composed on a 'New Music Recital' at my school.

This is the piece:

http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/no-devil-lived-piano-electric-guitar-19259.html

Anyway, my comp. teacher is really encouraging everyone that is performing on the concert to come up with some sort of visual element to the performance. I am ok with the idea of having something that could enhance the experience for listeners that are not really used to hearing modern music, (this is one of the most attended concerts by general music appreciation students, many teachers require it) but I don't know what to do.

At the very least I could create a powerpoint presentation that tells about how I wrote the piece, explains serialism and the electronic methods I used, but I am afraid that if I do that it will keep people from actually listening intently.

I would rather do something more artistic, like some sort of abstract video.. but then there is the problem of getting the performance and the video to sync. This could be solved by practice, but I don't have near enough time with my pianist to work it out.

SO.. does anybody have any ideas?

Is it possible to have a video for each movement that is longer than the intended movement, and then crossfade between videos as each new movement starts? That would solve my problem.. then I could just have the person that is running the recordings for electronic movements advance to the next video when needed.

Or.. I could do something else entirely..

(Is anyone here a visual artist that wants to collaborate????? I know you don't have much time, but it might be fun.)

If you're performing it in a way that isn't exact, you're not going to be able to easily time the video. I'd say forget synchronizing and go for synchronicity, you know? 10 second clips, all run together for the length of the piece, grabbed from relevant sources might work.

Here's an idea. Get a couple of projectors and hook em up to a live feed with a video camera. You can get close-up footage of the performers.

Here's an idea. Get a couple of projectors and hook em up to a live feed with a video camera. You can get close-up footage of the performers.

I like this idea.. but I don't know if we have the technology to manage it.

If you're performing it in a way that isn't exact, you're not going to be able to easily time the video. I'd say forget synchronizing and go for synchronicity, you know? 10 second clips, all run together for the length of the piece, grabbed from relevant sources might work.

This is more or less what I am thinking...

Personally I'm extremely sceptical of "adding multimedia" if it doesn't have an actual artistic reason for it and isn't well thought through. I've heard/seen so many pieces (especially electronic ones) where a composer added some "cool visual effects", without thinking about them with the same care as about the music. All this generally achieves is to distract from the music.

Another danger of this is that composers are generally rather unexperienced with visual art, so when they combine their music with visual ideas they create themselves, the visual parts often seem clich

Thanks for your input!

I still haven't decided what to do or if I am going to do anything. I found out today that I am going to have a chance to talk a little bit before the piece.. so the visual isn't quite as important.

It would be neat.. but as you pointed out, I am NOT a visual artist and want to be careful about distracting the audience, or making the whole performance seem 'cheap' or something.

The video presentation could work. A friend of mine wrote a 4 movement piece for synth and alto sax that was about 30 minutes total length. He had monitors set up displaying an anime cartoon that he thought really embodied the mood of the piece. It was a very modern piece based on the constant vibration and movement of the planet, and how the Earth's natural Vibrations could be calculated to a specific pitch and overtone set several octaves below human perception (hence why most animals can sense earthquakes without feeling them, for example). In the piece (unwritten, but included in the foreword) he has some ridiculously low note, beating a quarter note at 60 bpm. I wanna say a C-2? which was generated by the synth. He conducted the synth and sax duet, using this pulse as the beat. Each movement's tempo based roughly on a multiple or subdivision of the 60 bpm. Using this to keep the time, it was easy for him to time his video presentation down to an exact time limit. Occasionally they would either miss a beat or add an extra(performance fumbles) but for this, he left a cushion of maybe 4-5 measures between each movement in the video, which allowed for missed timing in the music/video, in addition to allowing the musicians to prepare for the next movement, ie. swallow, page turn, deep breath, etc.

Has your teacher explained why there is a need for visual representation? Shouldn't the music stand by itself?

I agree with Gardener about keeping it simple.

Has your teacher explained why there is a need for visual representation? Shouldn't the music stand by itself?

I agree with Gardener about keeping it simple.

A poor reason.. but the school spent alot of money recently on the equipment for the recital hall and she has been urged to make use of it.

Also.. there will be alot of people at the recital who know very little about music. I think that a visual element might help keep them interested through 12 minutes of modern music.