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Abstract
This paper will discuss the process and creation of the musical score and essentially recreation of VAST, a three minute long short film by Maazin Kamal, of Pakistan, which is based on the above poem by William Blake. The film begins quietly with just these first four lines of Blake’s poem, “Augeries of Innocence”, displayed on screen, and is followed by a minimal story with no dialogue, only of a man pondering life on a beach, running suddenly into the ocean still wearing his complete outfit, coming up from under the water, suddenly appearing as an astronaut who is peering out at the grandeur of space. The main narrative of the piece is centered around peering out at the vastness of the word, and pondering the concept of infinity and existence, and time.
In essence, the nature of my project has been characterized by my previous studies and interest in Philosophy prior to pursuing music. In life, we find ourselves asking- why are we here? How are we here? How is anything even possible? I enjoyed taking classes which delve into these questions, and studying the history of texts over the centuries written just about this. But eventually, I knew that of course, there are no sure answers to these questions, and all philosophical ponderings only lead to more questions without ever reaching an ultimate answer.
That is life.. it remains to me an unexplained miracle. At the end of these ponderings all we are left with are feelings, that words cannot capture. And this is where music comes in. This music, for VAST, was written with the aim of capturing this feeling, of sitting on the precipice of existence. Looking out into the vastness which is on one side is: that which is, and on the other side: that which isn’t. Accepting that the answer is that there is no answer. In all aspects of analysis of the music and thoughts behind the project, this is the core idea behind every choice made throughout the process. I called it “the feeling of being”.
Publication Date
7-1-2024
Campus
Valencia (Spain) Campus
Recommended Citation
Tannen, Nicholas. “VAST.” Master's thesis, Berklee College of Music, 2024. https://remix.berklee.edu/graduate-studies-scoring/272.