Simultaneity describes events existing or happening at the same time. This describes precisely what happens when we play separately packaged music and movie with an overlap of occurrence. A documented simultaneity (simo for short) can be reliably repeated by other experimenters of the simo craft.

Music seems to have always been played with other events like festivals, theater, or a romantic date. In June 1810, Ludwig van Beethoven produced the Tone Poem “Egmont”. A Tone Poem, also known as the Symphonic Poem, is an orchestra music movement where an extramusical event provides the narrative or illustrative element. This event may be a painting, a poem, a story, or something else. ¹

This musical style was later championed by many composers like Richard Strauss who wrote the 1896 Tone Poem “Also sprach Zarathustra” to musically illustrate Nietzsche’s writings by the same name. “Also sprach Zarathustra” is known to us today as the theme music for Kubrick’s movie “2001: A Space Odyssey”. ²

Experimental and innovative politics, art, and culture came to be called Avant-garde (French for advace guard). Avant-garde culture challenges the static norm.

Continued after the break...

Impressionist art was considered Avant-garde in 1860’s Paris but finally got its name from an insulting review of Claude Monet’s 1872 painting “Impression, soleil levant” calling it vague and that this impressionist art left no lasting impression. Impressionism used unmixed primary colors in small brush strokes meant to strike subjective and sensory perception rather than recreate the objective reality in picture perfect form. Impressionism was soon experimented with in other art such as literature and music. ³

Vincent Van Gogh (1853- 1890) and Louis Fortuney (1878-1950) were just two of many dream like Impressionist painters who paved the way to Cubism in 1907. Pablo Picasso and George Braque developed the radical Analytical Cubism in France. This inturn led to surrealism. In 1924, Andre Breton wrote the “Surrealist Manifesto”. Surrealism challenges and alters perspective in unexpected ways. Understanding psychology helped connect art to the audience’s perspective. ⁴

At the turn of the 20th century, certain aspects of science, art, and culture occurred in simultaneity which would take a century of development before it reached the general public in the form of the simo and audience participation.

On 28 December 1895, the Lumiere Brothers presented the first public projection of the silent movie. They brilliantly recognized that movies need sound. A live pianist played for that first event, forever intertwining music with movies. It is interesting to note that they chose music over language for the first movie, though the human brain treats music as language. Durring the “roaring” 1920’s, silent movies were the largest source of employment for instrumental musicians in some countries. Film musicians kept “Fakes” or rough notes/books on how to improvise music to movies. ⁵ It is funny that current movie theaters ask veiwers not to add their own sound track to the movie.

Our mind simultaneously combines sight and sound for every moment. Gestalt Principles describe how our brain self organizes separate perceptions from even incomplete messages into a “Complete” configuration. The brain creates a whole event which is more than the sum of its parts. Max Wertheimer (1880-1943) is credited as a founder of Gestalt Theory. In 1912, Wertheimer published “Experimentelle Studien uber das Sehen von Bewegugn” (Experimental Studies in the Perception of Movement). ⁶

Gestalt Principles are at employed in both music and movies. Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 silent film “the Battleship Potempkin” is an early example Gestalt in movie. There are disconnected film images and the veiwer has to infer the connection between one event and the next event. And understanding the importance of music, Eisenstein wanted a new music score written every 20 years for the propaganda movie to connect with changing audiences. ⁷

Artistic experimentation continued throughout the 20th Century. John Cage (1912-1992) is most known for his music composition “4’ 33”” which first played in 1952 Woodstock, NY, USA. It is 273 seconds of silence where the audience perceives the sounds of their environment (273 is coincidentally absolute zero Celcius). Mr. Cage is also known for artists drawing on chance and audience participation for performances which later Allan Kaprow coined as “Happenings”. Back in the 1960’s, I remember reading about Picasso hosting “Happening Afternoons”. These “Happenings” were later a source of Fluxus. ⁸

With the development of home entertainment systems, it was not long before audiences dabbled with playing alternative music to movies. This would begin audience particpation without the artist. The earliest report of simo is by SimonID4. He reports that he attended a “Dark Side of Oz” party in 1976 Great Britain. At the party, Pink Floyd’s 1973 “Dark Side of the Moon” music was played as a sound track for Fleming’s 1939 “The Wizard of Oz”. We have had another report of a “Dark Side of Oz” party in 1978 California, USA. I myself heard about “The Dark Side of Oz” about 1982, along with other movies to play other Pink Floyd music to. And It was presented to me as intentional on Pink Floyd’s part.

The advent of movies on tape for the home entertainment system allowed everybody the opportunity to simo. Mr. Deconno calls them revelations and he writes. “About this time (1978), the first (and then extremely expensive) VCRs came into the household. Being a fan of “Horror” movies, I quickly noted a similarity in the pacing and lyrics of many songs to one of my favorites “The Exorcist” (which later would be coined the phrase “synchs” or “synchronicities” by some source) but of course kept it a secret until now.” ⁹

Similarly about 1980, Galactic Hombre recounted how he and his buddies would talk about how certain rock and roll music would be perfect for certain movies. And how in the 1980’s, he stubled upon his first simo while playing some heavy metal music and having the VCR silently play “The Wall” movie by Pink Floyd. In the late 1980’s I myself noticed it common to have rock and roll music playing at a party while a muted movie played on the television. The party crowd laughed at the amazing number of times the stero music seemed to match the TV movie.

This seems to go counter to the prediction that industrialization, mass production, and world wide mass media connectivity would create a global cookie cutter monoculture. We would all become clone dolls who think and act the same. We would become thoughtless robots who think what somebody programes into us. It is true that we all have become globalized in various degrees, but internet connection has allowed us to specialize and form new cultures with others across the globe. Take for instance the few hundred of us who match music to movies. While “The Dark Side of Oz” has become an urban legend, we who meet at the synchronicity sites now come from all over the earth. Not from any specific location on the globe.

In 1995, the United States of America joined the world wide web in force. At first Pink Floyd fans discussed matching Pink Floyd music to movies on the internet chat rooms and message boards. Arkiver writes on his web site that “The Dark Side of Oz” also know as “The Dark Side of the Rainbow”…”has been a favorite of the Pink Floyd newsgroup, alt.music.pink-floyd, at least for as long as I’ve been reading it. The name, “Dark Side of the Rainbow”, is even something I first saw on the newsgroup. As far as I’ve ever been able to trace back, it’s been mentioned on the newsgroup since at least 1994. I heard about it in 1995, which is about the time I first put up my site. At the time there were two other sites already in existance.” ¹⁰

The creation of these Pink Floyd music to movie matchup web sites led to the creation of message boards which quickly strayed from Pink Floyd to other a musical artists. That is when the music to movie synchronizing culture was born and took over the simo-realm from the Pink Floyd fan clubs.

This new culture believes it is practicing synchronicity and called matching music to movie, a synch/sync. And called the act of it, synching/syncing. “Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which occur in a meaningful manner, but which are causally un-related. In order to be synchronous, the events must be related to one another conceptually, and the chance that they would occur together by random chance must be very small.” ¹¹

The concept of synchronicity was developed by psychologist Carl Jung. Jung was a psychoanalyst who worked with Sigmund Freud from 1906 to 1912. “Carl Jung's unique approach to psychology was influential in countercultural movements in Europe and the United States in the 1960s. He has emphasized understanding the psyche through exploring the worlds of dreams, art, mythology, world religion and philosophy.” ¹²

In matching movies with music, both synchronizing and meaning are both highly subjective and debatable. The Synchronicity Arkive claims, “Although the majority of examples listed here cannot really be considered synchronicities in Jung’s terminology, the term seems to describe the emotional state evoked better than anything else.” ¹³

Many of the current web sites incorparate synchronity terminology. There are: Arkiver’s “The Synchronicity Arkive”, Baker B’s “Ultimate Pink Floyd Synchronicities”, Michael Allen’s “Synching Ship”, 2%David’s “Synch Site”, Andrew Wendland’s “Pink Floyd Movie Synchronization Story”, TL’s “Cinesynchs”, Rachel’s Synchronicity Site: The Dark Side”, Mike Casey’s “Synchronicity and Digital Art Page”, Kenny Dreamx’s “Synchronicities of Pink Floyd in Space”, Smack Jack’s “Syncbiz”, SimonID4’s Pink Floyd Synchronicity and Backmasking Site”, and Leighton’s “Alternative Synchs”, and ScOoGuY’s “Saucerful of Synchs”. VJ DMCA “The Dark Side of Oz”, and Carlo’s “AV Room” call them synchs. Stegokitty’s “TheDefinitive List”, Dave Bytor’s “Rush Wonka Project”, DeVille’s “SyncMovies” call them syncs. There have been, are, and will be many other sync sites but I just will not list all those marvelous sites.

I predict that the general public will become more involved in simos, or putting their favorite music to any kind of video bit or vice versa. Now with the digitalization of music and movie and the improvement of audiovisual programs, it is very easy to match any music to movie or any movie to music in many shapes and forms. And that places like Youtube and Myspace will overwhelm and absorb the synchronicity culture. Unless the music and movie attourneys put a legal end to internet simos. In which case, the culture can easlily go underground by use of the home computer. I have one favor to ask. Please do not devise dirty audio matched to children’s video scenes like Seasame Street or Bob the Builder. Many elementary school children ages 5-11 years old have access to the internet without adult supervision. And these kids just type in their favorite kids show only to discover Seasame Street and Bob have gone triple X. My descendants have already encountered this problem.

A favorite perennial debate on the internet is about intent on the part of musicians and movie producers to secretely match music and movie. With out any public confession by musicians or movie producers, there is no definitive proof. I do not expect there ever to be an agreement on the intent issue for one simple reason. Art appreciation is subjective. Because it is subjective, everybody has an alternate perspective. Even if somebody was to publicly confirm that they intentionally matched music and movie, there would probably still be dissent amoung us. In the movie “Back to School”, Rodney Dangerfield’s character has Kurt Vonnegut write a term paper on one of Kurt Vonnegut’s books. After reading the term paper, the class professor tells Dangerfield his report (secretely written by Vonnegut) knows nothing of Kurt Vonnegut. Whether it is intentional or not, we still enjoy matching music to movies.

If musicians are not currently writing music to movies, I predict that they will in the future. It is the inevitable possibility. I believe “The Dark Side of Oz” is an intentional simo and that artists write music to movies all the time. Even so, “The Dark Side of Oz” may just be an accidental coincidence since we have no definitive proof either way. Then could it be a self fulfilling prophecy? There is a rumor of musicians covertly writing music to movies so future artists do write music to movies because they percieve that it has already been done. Rich Aucoin is the first musician I know to admit he wrote his 2006 music “Personal Publication EP” to the Dr. Seuss’ 1966 movie “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. I heard that it was a pretty good simultaneity.

And for the future, I wish you all some happy hunting for that next magical combination!

1. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphonic_poem,
9 Apr 2008.

2. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Strauss,
9 April 2008.

3. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism, 9 April 2008.

4. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubism, 31 Mar 2008.

5. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_film, 31 Mar 2008.

6. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Wertheimer, 31 Mar 2008

7. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battleship_Potemkin, 31 Mar 2008.

8. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage, 31 Mar 2008,

9. Deconno, “The Deconno Report”, 2002, p iii.

10.Arkiver, “The Synchronicity Arkive”, http://www.synchronicityarkive.com/node/18, 6 April 2008.

11.Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity, 31 Mar 2008.

12.Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung, 31 Mar 2008.

13. The Synchronicity Arkive, http://www.synchronicityarkive.com/. 6 April 2008.