Day 284: The Electronic Music Studio TV shoot
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day
284 — The Electronic Music Studio TV shoot
12-May-1972
(Freitag–Fri.)
TRANSCRIPT
Well, today was the Big Day. A television session
about the Electronic Studio and my work used as an
example—of what, I don’t know.
Well, it sounded like a good idea, but it turned out
to be junk. Mainly because it was all “business” and
nothing to do with Art and Music. So after all of my
work on Fantasy on Broken
Glass, the two minutes or so
of music they used will probably be used as a
backdrop for talking. Everything we were told to do
had no real connection with the music, just a bunch
of work-backdrop scenes. In one section, while
getting an example of a “loop,” they were satisfied
with any loop going around, regardless of the sound
quality. When I offered a better sound suggestion, he
said, “it’s not really important.” Well, if that’s
the kind of attitude they have, they can.... With the
different interviews and the whole mess, I can
imagine what “justice” it’ll do the music
examples—considering they are using only two minutes
out of 22 minutes of music. I hope it’s not a
complete mess.
REFLECTIONS
We’re
going to be on TV. I start
out today’s post with a sentence that sounds like
it’s going to be a great thing—we are going to be on
TV. It is some type of documentary about the
electronic music studio. I should be happy. After
all, my music is somehow part of the planned program
idea. This is going to be a great thing. Surprise.
John
meets the press (media). I’m
calling the entire television shoot a piece of junk
[edited]. What happened to make me so upset? I have
no idea. Looking back, I suspect that perhaps I
wanted them to experience “the music” (my music) in
it’s best light and sound quality. In the meantime,
the TV crew is running around taking all kinds of
background shots and seemingly not caring about the
music. They are all business and not caring about
“Art” and “Music.” Again, I was young. The young have
strong and emotional ideas and feelings. I was upset
and wrote about it when writing my journal post.
Youth, naivety. I do sound
like the temperamental artist, don’t I? I know that I
did not show any disrespect or disappointment to
anyone. I just don’t do that. I suspect that I was
just naïve. That I didn’t understand how TV producers
go about making their programs. That I thought they
didn’t care about what selection of my music they
would put on air. That they were running around not
caring.
I needed to remember that the program was not about
me but about the electronic music studio.
Ah, youth. Ah, passion. Ah, naivety.
John
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