One young adult student described his senior project for graduation from the School for Visual Art: an animation lasting two minutes or less.

Animation and music have always been closely allied as art forms. In case you have any doubt, Bugs Bunny was cited as a reference at the Musical Ear conference I just attended.

Two minutes represents a lot of music. Just looking at the first beat of a Beethoven slow movement we could not imagine how many animation frames it would take to depict the acoustical activity. That would represent only one aspect of what is happening, another being the internal activity of the player.

A musician experiences countless nanoseconds of decision making during every tone. Try to hear them on a recording. You can't--even I can't. But try to play as if they are not real. You will be bored and so will your audience. Maybe it is electricity. Whatever it is, it is admirably suited to animation.