Sounds You Can SEE

Welcome to my world where sight and sound intersect as one!  I am embracing film medium as a source of inspiration and experimentation combined with my original music. The result is unique and is a merging of visual magic and music. I am delighted to present Sounds You Can SEE!  

What initially attracted me to this process were the musical movements of dance. My video choreography has a dance like quality derived from a variety of rhythms and cultures. The visual grew out of the music, showing how tightly in sync they are as one informs the other.  Sounds You Can SEE encompasses multiple spokes: Dada Reimagined is inspired by Dada masters Hans Richter and Viking Eggling and includes my original creations. The abstract visuals are matched with musical gestures that create an audio and visual medley. Wisdom features music, spoken word and universal wisdom as cultures weave and communicate, and Performance Collage experiments with a swirling of abstract realizations capturing some of my live performances.

The conceptualization of images in tight choreography with music is one frequently witnessed in a sophisticated music/dance performance. A combination of over fifteen  different instruments creates a dialogue and link between instruments, sounds, movement, and images. In combining visual and aural elements there are frequently instrumental and “visual leitmotif”, all corresponding in tandem: pitches low and high, images moving left and right to correspond to stereo panning as well as circular and angular passages. Specific gestures and techniques on an instrument are also visually mimicked.

My collaborator, audio and visual engineer, Jim Robeson is an invaluable component of this creative work and it could not exist without his contribution. My international travels have greatly expanded my “world view” both literally and figuratively.

I sincerely hope that you find enjoyment in this new direction of my work as it finds a home in galleries, performance art and other multi discipline collaborations.

Please enjoy this EPK that describes my work combining my music with video art!

Sounds You Can SEE:

Video Choreography and Music Composition by Tom Teasley

Tom Teasley

World Percussionist, Multi-instrumentalist, Multi-media Artist, Composer,

Tom Teasley is embracing film medium as a source of inspiration and experimentation with his original music composition. The result is unique and a merging of visual magic and music. It is an artistic certitude described only in part by the name Sounds You Can SEE. Generated in the brilliance of all the elements, united by the guiding hands of the artist – the composer and video choreographer  – shows textured compositions we can immerse ourselves in.

With lightening-speed agility and fluency of regional musical ideas, from tribal traditions to electronics, this gives Teasley the creative means to go just about anywhere. The choreography of film is a new direction in his music and art. Working in tight coordination with videographer and Grammy Award®

winning engineer, James Robeson, Teasley creates new works of performance art through video in a journey of world music, innovative percussion techniques and visual entrancement. He has found that these films create a visual form that is perhaps more abstract than a traditional song form, but there are also many similarities. Teasley describes the process in his own words, “What attracted me to this process was the musical movements of dance. My video choreography has a dance like quality derived from a variety of rhythms and cultures. The visual grew out of the music, showing how tightly they are together as one informs the other.” Sounds You Can SEE encompasses multiple spokes: Dada Reimagined influenced by Dadaism with an audio and visual medley, Wisdom featuring music and spoken word as cultures weave and communicate, and Performance Collage experimenting with a swirling of abstract realizations capturing Teasley’s live performances.

Teasley is a multi-dimensional performer and composer, crossing the boundaries of solo performance through the use of instruments from the world over, cross-pollinating techniques from diverse traditions, and combining ancient percussion with digital technology. He is equally renowned as a theatrical composer, sound designer, and performer. His work has earned him two Helen Hayes Awards plus four nominations for outstanding sound design for productions at several Washington DC theaters including the Constellation Theatre and the Folger Theatre. Teasley’s signature approach is to isolate a few key musical components and recombine them in new ways. He may spontaneously take an instrument or a rhythm pattern in its original style, like blues or jazz, and play it alongside traditional sounds from Brazil, the Middle East, ancient Mesopotamia, Persia, Africa, or India. This concept is informed by his multiple tours abroad as Cultural Envoy for the U.S. State Department. Another approach is to use a technique original to an indigenous instrument (such as a doumbek) and perform it on an instrument from another place and time (such as on a hand drum synthesizer). Suddenly, limitless possibilities for new music and cultural interaction emerge.  Teasley continues to evolve and explore future concepts of film and music involving objects of meditative concentration with binaural beats, ambient sounds, and therapeutic music.

Always a creative and restless explorer, Tom Teasley’s new multi-media project Sounds You Can SEE merges music with visual exploration.

Sounds You Can SEE by Tom Teasley with assistance from James Robeson, Video and Audio Engineer and curated by Cindy M. Petersen, Ed.M. This exhibition is sponsored in part by the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Artist Statement – Tom Teasley

Teasley is embracing film medium as a source of inspiration and experimentation with his original music composition.  He creates new works of performance art through video in a journey of world music, innovative percussion techniques and visual entrancement. He has found that these films create a visual form that is  more abstract than a traditional song form, but there are also similarities. Teasley describes the process in his own words, “What attracted me to this process was the musical movements of dance. My video choreography has a dance like quality derived from a variety of rhythms and cultures. The visual grew out of the music, showing how tightly they are together as one informs the other.” The visual images frequently have a motif that corresponds to a specific instrument, sound, and/or rhythmic pattern. Furthermore, images will frequently move up and down to correspond with pitch variation as well as left and right to correspond with stereo panning.  Sounds You Can SEE encompasses multiple spokes: Dada Reimagined influenced by Dadaism with an audio and visual medley, Wisdom featuring music and spoken word as cultures weave and communicate, and Performance Collage experimenting with a swirling of abstract realizations capturing Teasley’s live performances.