Dr. James Schmidt

Dear Friends at Bjork.com...

I was so happy today to read a quote of Bjork in Index Magazine concerning the
importance of pictures and visual stimuli when linked to music. She said
something to the effect of "most people’s eyes are much more developed than
their ears..."

This couldn’t be any further from the truth. I am a 29 year old professor of
piano at a music school in northern New York, and teach undergraduates in both
private and group piano environments. I am aware that most of us are extremely
sensitive to the visual happenings around us, and try to teach my students the
process of transferring what they see on the page (in black and white) into a
gesture on the instrument. This is very difficult however, because music in
both touch and sound is not as tangible to the human senses as it is when found
in print.

I am very happy that Bjork finds it necessary to appeal to the visual
capabilities of her fans in order to further express the emotion in her music.
Hopefully this process will encourage her fans (and my piano students) to become
more aware of their aural surroundings and ultimately realize the possibilities
of emotional depth through sound.

I attended her concert in New York City last October and became well aware of
her musical capabilities. I was simply mesmerized by her ability to display a
wealth of human feeling with the timbre and volume of her voice alone, not
including the wonderful choir, orchestra and electronica. I truly believe that
musicians of all disciplines can learn much from Bjork’s songs and vocal
techniques, and look forward to many more albums and concerts...

Sincerely,
Dr. James Schmidt
Crane School of Music
State University of New York at Potsdam
Potsdam, NY <

Dr. Schmidt himself, via email 17 sept 2002