For many artists, music serves as a source of inspiration. It is an art form that shows how a musician combines several factors to produce a single creative work. Elements like vocal and instrumental sounds, words, rhythm, melody, harmony, time, and even silence are joined together to make a listener pause and make a brief escape from reality.
The Allure of Retro Music
The purpose of playing music varies from one person to another, from one group to another, and from one culture to another. Aside from providing entertainment, music is played for other reasons. It can be a part of an individual hobby that makes people sing or dance. In contrast, others use it to ponder about their lives, relationships, and the world in general via journal writing or simple daydreaming. It can also describe the nature of gatherings, ranging from birthdays and weddings to burials and political rallies.
Compared to new or contemporary popular tunes, retro music carries a well of memories for its listeners, including the sound and recording technology used in producing it, as well as the fashion and dance moves of an era. This kind of music includes popular and classical pieces of previous decades, reliving the sociocultural environment of each period. It affects the consciousness of people, such as those involved in the visual arts.
Retro Music’s Influence on Visual Artworks
Creative outputs that capture the human eye define the visual arts. Some of these artworks are used to celebrate a song or to show its meaning. Thus, an old music video exemplifies the merging of retro music and the visual arts.
Besides music video directors, visual artists may include sculptors, painters, drawing artists, architects, designers, filmmakers, photographers, and performers, among others. They may produce multidimensional pieces of applied, fine, and graphic arts, such as figurines, jewellery, murals, mosaics, sketches, comics, houses, commercials, postcards, stage plays, quilts, etc.
Listening to music may inspire a visual artist in creating his or her masterpiece. For instance, one can use retro music as a theme in designing wallpapers aimed at enhancing the interiors of a private family room or a recording studio. Such wallpaper can feature various aspects of retro music.
Objects of Retro Music in Wallpaper Designs
Wallpaper designs, such as those created by Familywalls.co.uk, may derive inspiration from retro music by using images or objects associated with it. These wallpapers may feature the following symbols or figures:
- Musical notes to represent the sound of different musical genres
- Silhouettes of dancers and/or concert-goers to depict enjoyment
- Musical instruments add material imagery to the production of retro music
- Jukeboxes highlight the role of technology in promoting retro music
- Song lyrics reintroduce old music
- Drawings of singers, composers, or bands pay tribute to the contribution of certain music artists
- Written musical labels may describe the dominating sound of various eras, including 70s disco, 80s new wave, 90s grunge, etc.
Indeed, retro music can influence wallpaper designs by recapturing in visual art form the sound of yesteryears. A wallpaper may serve as a medium to celebrate human talent.