visuals can alter our interpretation

I had thought to post this earlier in the year, but decided not to, thinking it was irrelevant. Having been inspired in class today, I thought I’d share.

If you know the group Fleet Foxes, this may pique your interest. Listen to the song “White Winter Hymnal” before reading on (or as you continue to read). As you listen, think about the images the music and lyrics evoke. What do you feel? What does this song make you think about? If you feel inclined, write these things down, and bear those thoughts and images in mind.

Next, listen to the song again, but this time watch the official video the group put out for the song. Remembering what hearing only the song called to your mind; what did this video accompanying the song do to these images you conjured? Do you feel differently about what you just heard? Did you find yourself thinking about  completely different things? Or perhaps you feel the same. In my experience, the video really alters the interpretation, and does this nearly permanently, as the prescribed images really stick in my head.  (If you want to see how much they’ve stuck, wait a few hours and listen to just the song again. what do you see, feel, etc.?) I think you’ll be surprised by the difference you experience.

This demonstrates what meaning we can derive from one type of media, and how another can drastically influence the other. To relate it to class, think about the Alice books and the Disney adaptation and how they differ and relate. Or more recently, how The Hours (film) differs from the novel.

another song you might try this with: “Montana” – Youth lagoon (video here for after listening to just the song)
Something very interesting about this track is that it’s lyrics are very difficult to understand, save a few words here and there. Thus this song , as it relates to the theme of my post, weighs in more on the sounds in the first listen, comparing that to the images from the video.

One Reply to “visuals can alter our interpretation”

  1. I was incredibly surprised as to the drastic difference between the song alone and the music video for they both invoke incredibly different emotions for me. For example, when just listening to the song alone, despite the lyrics, I still felt like the song was upbeat to some degree. After watching the video, however, the song conveyed a more depressing message: one more distinctly related to death. Obviously the lyrics are about just that, however, without the visual aid, one could still find the song uplifting to some degree due to the music.
    This drastic difference occurred to me while watching The Hours as well. I understood what was going on when reading the book, but when watching the movie, the details and themes of the story became even more clear to me. The addition of visual aids can be very beneficial and allow one to see more than they would have been able to originally.

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