ough not in this way.
Deems Taylor introduces the film and explains the way music will be used throughout. He also explains that the film will begin with impressions of the orchestra, as indeed it does, animating shadows with different levels of tone and color to evoke a sense of the orchestra rather than the orchestra itself, with one segment of the orchestra overlaid on other sections, with expressionistic lighting highlighting an instrument here, or outlining the conductor in a blaze of red there. The effect is to gain a feeling for the movement of the orchestra and the movement of the music at one and the same time.
This is carried through in more abstract form with splashes of light across the sky, each line of light representing the movement of a bow across strings in the string section, followed by impressionistic images of the instruments in outline. The animation in this sequence ranges from abstract shapes representing parts of instruments to realistic renderings of the outline of those instruments and then to shapes representing the fat round parts of notes, the lines of the staff, the waves of sound produced by the music, all mixed together in a way that keeps time with the music and that visualizes music in an abstract yet understandable way. The animation in this section is painterly, meaning that the effect is of a painting rather than a drawing. Some of the effects are achieved with added layers of paint on glass or plastic overlays, as when a waving line of "visual music" seems to bleed color like the aurora borealis coming down in uneven sheets. Different levels of color and levels of painting are apparent, with the background often remaining the same while colorful lines and splashes are overlaid on the image. The music for this sequence is Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor," and it lends itself well to the abstractions of the animation and leads perfectly from orchestra to animation. The "Toccata a...