36 Years Ago

36 Years Ago, Vienna 1971—A Student Journal

Day 284: The Electronic Music Studio TV shoot

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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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