What thrills me first about cheap thrills is the time saved when I only need to cut out circles to represent the artwork’s notation. And even more important thrill is I like what I see on the canvas that hangs the artwork. That eight by twenty-four inch canvas has multiple layers of spaghetti like words that appear to be a word salad of semi-abstraction. I place words on an artwork from the lyrics of Cheap Thrills to help bind the music to the artwork. That is why on the main canvas, my clumsy cursive writing is fairly legible.

For this mini artwork to accommodate my attention rule for mini artworks, the cover music length must be under one-minute. This requires extra shrinking down of a song, while retaining as much catchy melody as possible. The Cheap Thrills cover is 51 seconds. I compose, modify, and adjusted this cover on my desktop computer using a quality Bose speaker system. With it I can hear all the subtle differences in the sound, especially when I turn up the volume. This range of volume of the Bose system helps me to create a decent sound track for each artwork. But apparently, installing the cover music on a small 2-watt stereo system powering 4-inch 2-way speakers wastes much of the effort. I found that the 2-watt system’s lack of volume range weakens all the subtleties of the original cover sound heard on the Bose. Even the effort to maximizing the volume, no clipping, the 2-watt stereo system has no punch compared to the 20watt systems on my large artworks. On these small artworks the cover music plays out to the listener at around 60 decides. That is comparable to light conversation. Although disappointing to listen to as music, these mini works, besides their boutique portable size, play their cover music at a volume level that should not offend any listener’s ears, and be enough for most moderate sized rooms.

Not irrating the listener I found has been an issue with this art. For example, when I was picking up a large artwork after an exhibition, the curator told me that my music echoed loudly in the gallery. Obviously, this is a gallery that prefers its art to be seen but not heard. Then recently my volume issue came up when setting up the large Beatles triptych at another exhibition. That curator asked me to turn down my powerful 20-watt music boxes to conversational levels. She tested it while I adjusted the volume. The Beatles’ music lost much of its bite, its presence, and its purpose. I did not like that, but had little choice. I understood her requirements but disliked the idea of big artwork having little sound. The balance is all wrong. The good news for these mini artworks is that my volume issue should never be an issue with them until it is. Their meek sound is okay if it balances well with the dinky artworks and the stupid standard of a visitor’s conversational levels.

Okay, after watching that YouTube video, I think I have had my fill (actually emptiness) of the audio from a 2watt stereo. The music that was playing in order to sound more normal sounding awful, I doubled the volume (increase was 10.37 decidable). I had first tried to increase the output in the software for more volume and a deeper sound, but found I had already reached the system’s limits. That is when I realized I had also reached my limit. I will update the audio on both this artwork and the other mini artwork, A Day in the Life, to the much better sounding, 20 watt system used in all the major artworks. I have another reason for this change.

I limit the cover music length on mini artworks to under one minute. The issue I found was my effort on these mini artworks audio is as time consuming and detailed orientated as the longer cover music I create for major artworks. That is because I care deeply and respectfully the music I am portraying. Therefore, why should I listen to my hard earned cover music sounding weak, tin can like, and totally lacking depth? I cannot justify that compromise any longer. I am done with 2watt audio systems. Once updated, these two mini works will have the option of actually have a range from soft to loud. This allows me to balance the sound and the art in its space. It is a good feeling that I can finally let reality return to the surface. I am eager to ride the next available wave to see if these mini works can truly float by themselves.

Scott Von Holzen