“Sound exists only when it is going out of existence.
It is not simply perishable but essentially evanescent . . .“
W.J. Ong, 1967, The presence of the word: prolegomena for cultural and religious history.
What is Sound Insight?
Sound Insight is all about experiencing timeless moments. At its core, it is an immersive experience, a rich tangible multi-sensory perception of a moment of creative imagination. Sound Insight re-envisions what television can deliver to the casual viewer and the music aficionado. As we delve into musical spontaneity on the threshold of creation it creates a participatory experience, a multi-perspective, and multi-modal, immersive experience. Sound Insight is a confluence of music, vision and dialogue as it breaks down the barrier between audience and performer.
Spontaneous artistic collaboration can provide access to the infinite reservoir of human potential. Sound Insight recognizes and supports the creative tension inherent in musical collaboration. We create an environment that nurtures imagination by inviting a diverse constellation of respected musicians to explore their creative process together, in conversation and improvisation.
Sound Insight facilitates not only participation in music making but in each other’s meaning making. Sound Insight explores the culture of meaning making and the meaning of culture making through music and dialogue. By intentionally welcoming diverse view points on subjects as far ranging as religion, politics, science, technology, the environment and, of course, the arts, Sound Insight will probe behind commonly and adamantly held opinions revealing a greater understanding that is possible through shared creativity. Artistic expression can convey deeper, more nuanced meanings thereby facilitating better communication.
Through innovative surround sound technologies, Sound Insight will provide listeners with new perspectives in music. Sound Insight will offer the audience a glimpse into what its like from the point of view from different instrumentalists and vocalists. Together with informative commentary these perceptual shifts allow for a more intimate experience of music creation and performance.
Sound Insight facilitates emotional creativity through music and invites the viewer/listener into an experience of the creative process itself.
Why does music touch us so deeply?
Music conveys emotion beyond words and language. Through language we communicate ideas, concepts and information; through music we communicate emotion. Music is a multi-modal representative medium for conveying the significance and meaning of our emotions Music and the arts in general provide us with an opportunity to lose ourselves in an experience. This experience is inherently healing for our fragmented thinking. We feel in sync and in tune with our environment, our culture and ourselves. This creative coherence is a kind of a holistic reunification. Divisions between Individual listeners can disappear in a flood of shared meaning.
How does Sound Insight help people communicate?
The deepest communication between individuals and cultures has to happen at the level of emotions. Emotions help people perceive meaning. Through the collective meshing that is possible with active listening participants are able to share meaning at a fundamental level. From this perspective of an emerging, awakened emotional intelligence, we can more easily question, challenge and suspend our own and each other’s often rigidly held assumptions that can inhibit and limit the free flow of meaning. Through music and creativity, Sound Insight will create a space where these assumptions can be displayed and examined and new learning can take place leading to better communication and inter-cultural understanding.
How can we open floodgates of creativity, imagination and communication?
Our world is experiencing a conspicuous lack of creativity and emotional intelligence. As a culture we are experiencing the atrophy of artistic imagination and the subsequent marginalization of the arts. The momentary allure of instant gratification is eclipsing the more meaningful merits of delayed gratification. The resulting consequences include superficiality, isolationism, incoherent thinking and the diminishment of collective intelligence. We are plagued with cultural divisions, conflict and war.
Being reliant only on language often breeds misinterpretation and misunderstanding. Emotionally charged “triggers” can ignite people into over-reacting both offensively and defensively. Rants and diatribes prevent people from listening. This is a commonplace occurrence when one feels threatened by having one of his or her fundamental assumptions challenged. During these dramatic outbursts, participants are largely oblivious of how their internal emotional climate is influencing and shaping their thinking and speech. Consequently, we see so much misunderstanding and suffering as a direct result of incoherent communication and thinking.
Sound Insight is learning, creativity and imagination through music and dialogue. “Dia” is through and “logos” is meaning. The importance of sharing and making meaning with other cultures cannot be overstated. Music transcends ideological and cultural differences. It allows participants and the audience to experience a new kind of harmony together.
Can collaborative dialogue help make interactions far more harmonious and productive. To illustrate this point and in the spirit of a learning laboratory, Sound insight will film a dialogue of the invited participants both before and after a session of spontaneous music creation. Rather than avoiding challenging and hot button issues, we will respectfully go into them while calling attention to the communication process itself. With the added dimension of musical communication, we may discover a greater common lucidity. Then we can revisit some of the more strongly held positions and see if there has been any significant change or not. The audience will be able to observe the differences in our communication processes.
Music is like water.
Multiple tributaries flow together forming one body. This body can be placid and still and unfathomably deep and turbulent all at the same time. From crashing tsunamis to powerful waterfalls, from cyclones to silent ponds, from ice to steam, water’s transmutable forms allow it to morph into a myriad of shapes and systems. Water seeks out the lowest place only to evaporate into clouds and cast stunning rainbows over the sun. Like meaning, water constantly finds new forms of rejuvenate beauty.
In the context of the process of merging and dispersing of music we are all transformed. Both the audience and the participants of Sound Insight will share an experience through active listening. Sound Insight will traverse the vast watersheds of meaning, forging upstream until we reach the wellspring and fountain head of creativity and in so doing, we will all be inspired. Sound Insight aspires to quench the thirst of its listeners leaving them with a profound sense of wonder and aesthetic awakening. Sound Insight transports the viewer out of the normal states of consciousness into a realm of musical communion and infinite potential, a realm of unlimited and unpredictable creativity.
Music has the ability to transform both listener and performer and unify us in one process like the water cycle. Music can connect disparate peoples and cultures like water connects the Earth, the sky and the elements. Sound Insight invites different streams of music, as personified by various artists, to converge and flow together for a moment in time. Sound Insight is a confluence of meaning.
Summary:
Sound Insight will be a ten part television series that explores the fundamental, magical and mysterious nature of music. Sound Insight introduces the audience to both new and old music. It honors music's historical legacy as one of humanity’s greatest accomplishments and explores the realms of inspiration and passion that is the basis for musical creativity.
Executive producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Colin Farish will host the program. He will guide guests in lively conversation and spontaneous music creation. The audience will experience the beauty, commonality and complexities of musician's shared language. They will be introduced to new ways of listening to, perceiving, and thinking about music. With program elements similar to current shows with Elvis Costello and Charlie Rose, Sound Insight will not shy away from challenging subjects. Video segments will provide additional context, history, talking points and behind the scenes action.
Designed to appeal to a wide-ranging audience, Sound Insight episodes will have well-defined story lines featuring “Improbable Groupings” of guests, for example:
- Instrumental Virtuosi: From the era of wine, women and song to sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, soloists have always played a powerful role in shaping music. We talk to them about their lives and love affairs with their instruments.
- Breath into Sound, the Voice: An opera diva, a pop star, a throat singer and a jazz chanteuse compare and contrast their styles while sharing their stories and their passions.
The programming will be entertaining, serious and approachable, fast paced and often edgy while it informs and inspires. It will emphasize the spontaneity of musical improvisation with a fluidity that cannot be scripted.
Sound Insight owns an extensive, complimentary body of work produced by Colin and the Sound Insight team at locations including George Lucas’s Skywalker Sound studios in Marin County. This work includes a video library and several albums of original music featuring Grammy award winning artists. This material is ready to be incorporated into the program.
We anticipate that the scoring stage at Skywalker will be the home studio and primary set for Sound Insight. We also plan for added dimensions of the program by live performances at local venues. As Sound Insight guides its audience on a journey of exploration into the fascinating world of music and the people that create it, there are also logical tie-ins to educational components, such as “the Mozart Dice Game”.
These extensions build on the diverse talents, interests and expertise of the guests and make Sound Insight a unique voice in the musical universe.
