Music in the Digital World

I know this is a bit tangential to this class but is a bit of a commentary on the previous post about instruments and relates to some of the other class blogs. I believe that there will be a future for musical instruments in the future, even though the digital age has changed how those instruments will being used. For example, see the video below for a different way in which music and digital media have merged to tell a classic love story. In this particular example an application used through the the social networking site Facebook was used in order to connect digital animators together to construct a short film. Musical talents of Steve Vai and Ann Marie Calhoun provide the "language" for the piece and I believe this is a reflection of the use of new media, and musical talent to tell an old story. Plus, I think Steve Vai is amazing! Here is the press clip from the Steve Vai website. http://www.vai.com/News/index.html

"Mass Animation, Sony Pictures and Intel Corporation today announced that the ground-breaking animated short film Live Music, a worldwide collaboration by animators using a unique application built on the Facebook Platform, will be attached to TriStar Pictures' animated feature Planet 51, scheduled for a Nov. 20 wide theatrical release in North America.

Live Music is directed by Yair Landau, former president of Sony Pictures Digital, and produced by Landau and Jacquie Barnbrook (producer of the Oscar-winning short, "The Chubb Chubbs"). It is the first production from Mass Animation, an effort sponsored by Intel Corporation that brings together the worlds of computer graphics, Hollywood and Facebook.

The 5-minute computer-generated animated short is inspired by Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" and early CGI films. Set in a musical instrument store, the story follows Riff, a rock 'n' roll guitar, who, as Landau describes it, "falls in love to the wrong song but ends up with Vanessa, the classical violin of his dreams." The story is conveyed through the universal language of music, allowing the expressions and actions of the characters to be instantly relatable globally. The instruments are brought to life through original compositions and familiar rock tunes played principally by legendary guitarist Steve Vai as Riff and acclaimed violinist Ann Marie Calhoun as Vanessa.

Below is the clip from YouTube: