by C. Medeiros and P. Yu (click link to download the mp3)
In a museum gift shop, you often get the opportunity to purchase a souvenir or momento of your visit. Shelves are filled with novelty items such as fridge magnets, key-chains, collectible mugs, posters, post cards, miniature figurines, and other small items that visitors are often happy to buy. As you bring home these items, they become memory keys that unlock your time spent at the museum. As time goes by, souvenirs gather dust in your kitchen counter or living room display case. Layers upon layers of dust form, and collect, concealing the object, and eventually if untouched and unmaintained, render it out of sight. “Out of sight, and out mind” is a cliche but, in a similar way, memories fade and eventually gather dust in the corners of the living room display cases of our minds. Images become blurry, and elements of the visual stimuli are unclear. However, what seems to stand the test of time are the vague, yet strong feelings and sensations that get triggered by a momento. It’s true that you may not recall why a certain feeling visits you in contact with a momento, but you feel it’s pressence. Though you cannot grasp at the intangible phenomena, you are aware of its existence, the moment or momento. The memory evoked by the momento can be different for everyone, as everyone’s perceptions vary in any given event. They reflect the person’s life experience and nature. The momento could trigger a memory anywhere from being in the long line up at the gift shop that you stood in, in purchasing it, or remind you of a certain artifact that you saw in the museum, that brought you to memories of looking at your uncle’s travel album from his twenties. The quality of these momentos are that they are fleeting and impermanent, and being altered every time they are visited. However, the core, and the essence of the memory seem to be ingrained in our minds. Underneath the dust, the core of the momento is still present. In those moments, the intangible and fleeing sensation of nostalgia occurs.
In our fascination with moments and momento, Cat Medeiros and I became especially interested in the sort of nostalgia or momento embedded in songs. It began with stuttering questions such as, “what is that thing in a song, that you feel, that makes it a thing in the song and in time?”. It was difficult to verbalize what we were trying to define. Eventually, we decided to classify that “thing” as a “moment”. But no ordinary moment, as in a space in time, but in the context of a song. So we had to consider what a “moment” was as well, and through our exploration we also hoped to better understand the place of lyrics, vocals, melody, and rhythm in the making of “moments” in a song. Though not yet cemented, we created a working definition of what a “moment” is in the context of a song. A “moment” was a portion of the song that makes one moment in time stand out and more significant. It lives inside the song until activated. In a “moment”, an eruption of sensation, whether it be positive, negative, or neutral, is released. Again, different elements in a song will move everyone differently. True, often times people will like the same songs, or be moved in a similar way. For example, in my experience, I have found that Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” can make any group of people release tears. Same goes for Vitamin C’s “Graduation Song”. Those seem to have obvious reasons for being songs that make people emotional. The movie, “Titanic” was a hit movie, and everyone who saw it cannot deny shedding a couple tears in it, and of course, “Graduation Song” make some former students cry, in memory of leaving high school. However even when there seems to be commonalities in hit songs or one hit wonders, a different “moment” will move people in a variety of unexplainable ways that go further than the simple emotions of happiness, melancholy, excitement, and anger. Some of these moments will release feelings of self-conscious emotions such as pride or guilt, or more complexed emotions. It may be even almost random, because the “moment” isn’t due to the form of the song. We also found that, once these moments are explained, they are no longer the magical thing they once were. Once we verbalize the reason behind classifying a moment, as moment, it is not longer the magical moment it once was. Perhaps once language can describe the intangible phenomena, it has been restricted and altered. Moments don’t necessarily have to be contained in words such as happiness and sadness. Often times they cannot be captured. Like seeing a sunny day’s projection of a rainbow in a lawn sprinkler, no one can physically grasp it, and even though child may not understand the mechanics of light, it’s subtle beauty can be admired by all. Attracted by it’s allure, we began our exploration of moments evoked by songs in childlike curiosity in pursuit of understanding the phenomena of “moment”.
Though moments with nostalgia or momento embedded were fascinating to us, we found that another kind of “moment” is also interesting. In these moments there is an element of what we call, “epicness”. In the context of a song, “epicness” is a very overwhelming sensation. It is easier to grasp and explain than the more individualistic type of “moment”. This type of “moment” is very different in the way that the more people one listens to it with, the more enhanced that feeling of “epicness” is. It is usually positive, creating excitement, happiness, and almost euphoria. When shared together with a group of people in the same state, it can be a very communal, and a shared experience. For example, singing a national anthem together with a large group of people has the ability to unify them. There is a grand feeling of “epicness” in that. Even something on a smaller scale such as listening to a song with a steady beat, in a car with a group of friends will can elevate the mood and emotion to that level. This type of “moment” has a lot to do with the form of the song. Many songs such as songs in the genre of electronic music or classical music, that begin either softly or slowly, evolve into a more complex-ed, elevated tune, and have the ability to make a “moment” in time more significant. In one conversation with Cat, she revealed that she often enjoys listening to opera in her car, as she cruises the city, with the windows up. She observed that, while listening to that particular soundtrack, events outside the car seem to be much more dramatic, which would make her car ride more entertaining, and almost humourous. Evidently, certain songs, and moments in songs breed excitement and anticipation.
Music seems to have the universal ability to evoke memory, emotion, and significant sensations. It makes us want to move, cry, smile, remember, and feel. With our project, we wanted to create an audio compositional archive or collective “moment” that samples clips of what people consider to be a “moment” for them. Without a solidified thesis, we constructed a general plan to follow in the process, hoping to learn and discover more about the notion of “moment”. On that vein, the project naturally progressed and evolved. The song clips that we gathered vary from electronic music, to alternative rock, to hymnal orchestration, carefully timed and arranged in the way that Cat and I thought would amplify them. This was to be the most challenging part. To select the chosen clips,we went around to our workplaces, friends, family, and strangers, conducting dialogue around the idea of “moment” and songs. Although we came up with our definition of what “moment” in a song is, we left the idea of moments open to interpretation, but suggested that moments found in a song can be evoked from anything, from certain escalation in tone or momentum, activities done during listening to the moment, that reside in the mind and solidify it as a moment.
We asked each person to name a song, and a specific part of the song that they considered to be a “moment”. I found that it was difficult to classify what exactly was “moment”, since there are obviously so many different types. Some people named their favourite song, and a part of the song that they liked. Others considered a “moment” to almost always have to be “epic”. Still other related better being attached to part of a song that they felt were unexplainable “moments”. I was more interested in that scenario. One person commented that sometimes the explainable “moments” in songs are actually just a part of the song that shares a certain quality as another song that has been heard before. For example, say an individual in his teenage years listened to a song with a fast drumming pattern in the beginning during a traumatic heartbreak, a song with a similar percussion style, heard a decade later may still cause him to experience a “moment” that is unexplainable.
Playing it by ear, the challenge in placing together the “moment” clips was in making the songs flow one after another. The songs varied in tempo, rhythm, and momentum, so ordering the songs in a way that none were disruptive to the collective “moment” was difficult. We wanted the piece to be connected. Since not everyone was able to specify a particular moment in the song for us to use, we had to listen to some of the songs numerous times, to figure out what part we thought was a “moment”. This, we observed became our own “moment” and not theirs, since their relationship with the song is different and exclusive. Though we are using the same momento or souvenir, they don’t trigger the same memories or sensations. It became increasingly more evident as we collected the clips that, “moments” do vary for each person. For the songs, without a specified moment, how were we to determine when a “moment” began and when it ended? The decisions we made were made completely through intuition. We didn’t want it to be arbitrary but, at the same time, allowed our senses to choose where to cut, and where to begin. These decisions were crucial to the piece, and we had to consider the integrity of our project, as well as what we initially planned. One difficulty we had was in placing the clip from Dead Moon’s, “It’s Okay”. That one was chosen from a stranger. Firstly, neither Cat or I liked that song very much. In fact we hated it. What we needed to and eventually came to realize was that a “moment” is not synonymous to “clip I like”. We struggled with that clip so much that we almost decided to discard it. However, to that stranger, the clip was a “moment”, and the fact that we could no relate to it amplified the whole idea that each owner of a “moment” has their own personal experience with it, that nobody could ever fully understand. In a way, these clips house a series of exclusive and anonymous sensations that won’t mean anything to the majority of those who will listen to it. It is a glimpse into a historical narrative of each chosen “moment’s” owner’s life and mentality. Though isolated, and perhaps only meaningful to a single person, each “moment”, when placed together as whole, presents a story in a fragmented way. If it is your souvenir, you will find value in it, until you forget the value in them. But if it is not your souvenir, you will not be able to relate to in the same way. After all, museum souvenirs often find themselves at the bottom of a cardboard box at some garage sale.
Ultimately, our audio composition which we titled, “A Study in Momento: Intangible Archive” is a long, extended singular “moment” in the way that they are a compilation of clips linked together. Some of these selected “moment” clips are easily recognizable as being “epic”, and mood-elevating. They have certain formal qualities that contribute to it’s significance in a song or moment in time. The other type of moment is more unexplainable. It is more fleeting and personal. The essence of the feeling cannot be grasped, and it is more of an individualistic experience, that cannot be shared fully with other people. All these “moments” act as keys to retrieving particular sensations. They can either cause one to feel very alone or very unified in their sensation. Our composition mixes these two combinations into one long “moment” for an experience that reminds us that all our experiences in life are subjective. Yet, through these subjectivities, commonalities can be found in a unified experience within music.
