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Let's get to know each other. Pick a category and I'll give you a little known fact about myself in regards to the subject. If you're feeling a little creative, you can ask a specific question about the subject.
The subjects:
-School
-Food
-TV
-Religion
-Clothes
-Books
-Family
-Animals
-TMICurrent Mood:  curious |
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I didn't do a write up for week 6, but if I have the time I will.
In the meantime, Week 7 was about working with children's materials. For this week, since I have been working with sound, I decided to do a version of a children’s song. And since for me, it is all about trying to say something with every piece, this time I tried to express my feelings about this time of the year.
Since my birthday is in early July, the week after July 4th, it kind of bisects the summer very neatly and cleanly, or at least what my perception of “summer” has always been. Once it gets to this point, particularly the end of July, I start coming to the realization that this beautiful weather, and the whole summer deal is so fleeting, and is going to be over really soon. Especially when I start thinking about school starting in a month, and the zucchini in the garden just about ready to pick (pumpkins will be soon after, in fact we already have one that has sprouted!). I love summer, and I love fall… I just wish they didn’t have to end. I know, I know, how very tortured artist of me. The song that I chose is a song called “Come Little Leaves”, and here is the text:
Come, little leaves,
Said the wind one day;
Come to the meadows
With me and play.
Put on your dresses
Of red and gold;
For summer is past,
And the days grow cold.
Dancing and flying,
The leaves went along,
Til Winter called them
To end their sweet song.
Soon, fast asleep
In their earthy beds,
The snow lay a coverlet
O'er their heads.
It is from a poem by George Cooper, and the music is by Thomas J. Crawford, although I adapted each slightly. I was going to get it recorded, but unfortunately Holden’s run in with a glass topped table, and the ensuing trip to the ER put a damper on that. Maybe next time!
Here is the link with all the other works included as well: http://workofartfollow.blogspot.com/Current Mood:  artistic |
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Things have been so busy lately that I haven't had the chance to post about the garden lately.
Things have, as I am sure you can guess, gotten very exciting in the last two months, growth wise. There are some rules that we have learned, and will try to apply better next year. For one, we cramped WAY TOO MUCH stuff into too small an area. The Cucumbers are trying to take over, and we have resorted to interesting techniques to get them to play nicely. We poled one of the plants, and tied it p so that it would grow vertically, but the other two have joined hands, and now have this bridge running between them. But we also have lots of little cucumbers growing, so that is good. The Zucchini have gotten pretty wild, too. The spinach is a lost cause, we just couldn't keep the weeds out and we lost it.
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(using that image since Jen said that I need to use it more. The story behind it is here)
So, Week 5 of the Work of Art Followers. This week, it was to write music that was inspired by where I live. This was a lot more difficult than I thought it was going to be, but I think that the piece turned out better. It is definitely on the short list of compositions that I am considering expanding into something more substantial, which for me is kind of the point. I was talking with Jen earlier, and the best thing about this competition is that it is keeping me writing, all the time, or at the very least thinking about writing all the time. I am constantly looking around, shaping melodies in my head, playing pieces over and over again trying to get them right. This week's piece may actually be very, very close to being EXACTLY where I would want a real piece to be.
Other artists who are doing this competition, please don't be offended - I don't mean to say that I am not giving my all to this competition. Quite the contrary. It just takes me more time to ruminate on something, generally. I have described my process before - I think, and think, and think some more about a piece until I know exactly what I am going to do, sometimes down to the very melodies and harmonies. And then in a furious fit of writing ("Composing Moods", to quip the wife) I get it all down before it evaporates into the creative aether. This whole thing is requiring me to think differently, to write differently. I must sit down and write, and discard, and write and discard, and write some more. It is completely shifting my compositional paradigm, so the fact that you guys are letting me keep throwing stuff out there, and seem to like it.. well, that is pretty damn cool 8)
Anywho, here are the links. The description of my piece is on there, and I don't feel like copying and pasting more, so go read it, and let me know what you think!
To the Challenge
To the Works themselvesCurrent Mood: artistic |
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OK, so this post is late. Sue me, it's the damn holidays, and it has been hotter than hell here in Maine this past week.
So this week's challenge on Work of Art was Shock Art. For one, the episode was great, featuring Andres Serrano (of "Piss Christ" fame). Seeing some of the artists really trying to take chances with their art was really interesting. As an artist, it is always fun to try to push my own personal envelope, like I did with pieces like "The Fire Sermon" or "Seven Scenes for Darkened Stage". Considering that 80% of my work is squarely post-romantic, 19% of it is modernistic, the 1% of the time that I really let myself get a littel nutty is really fun. In fact, I have been thinking about what I am going to do to lead off my Master's Recital. Yeah, you know, that concert that I am going to do in two years? Anyway, I digress.
Shock Art. Right.
The other members of the cadre of artists</a> that I am working with really did some awesome pieces. I thought that Becky Cochrane's piece on Diabetes was really interesting, and that Sean Kramer's piece was also really, really intriguing. You can click here to view them all (they are not protected, but heed the warning at the beginning). Some of you may not find all of them all that shocking, however, but let me tell you that as an artist, trying to shock people really isn't all that easy. What I find shocking, my audience may not and that rule is surprisingly applicable vice-versa. If you aren't shocked per se, be intrigued by the process.
I also really liked, and found that I had it far easier than most because of this, that so many of the people put themselves directly into their art. That is something that has to be commended. Art for me, at least, represents some dark psyche that boils and churns and bubbles and gets regurgitated out to the masses, leaving me exhausted in its wake. But I am also not seen in it, necessarily, or at least not directly. Those who know me may see me in, for example, the Piano Concerto, but only in some abstract way, I think. These folks put themselves into their art visually, took their weaknesses, their own personal prisons, and splayed them out on the walls for all to see. All true "Here I am" moments. I wonder how I would write myself, if I had to? I wonder what personal torment I would show? Would others understand it?
On to my piece, Lakehurst. Pretty simple, really, this time. I have always been fascinated by the explosion of the Hindenburg. The radio call, the famed radio call featuring the often parodied but chilling call "Oh, the Humanity!", is an epic piece to experience. I prefer experiencing it without the video, you really get a sense of what he is going through by closing your eyes and letting the lush description of the events pour over you. I have always wanted to do SOMETHING with this, and while at first I had thought of doing another setting of an "extreme" poem*, I opted instead to pull this radio call out and fulfill this project. I hope you enjoy it!Current Mood: artistic |
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Week three of the Following Work of Art challenge was to design a book cover. My initial feelings could be summed up very easily.
Well, shit.
I mean, I am all about doing the abstract sound mass as art as representation, but there is a certain boundary that, no matter how good a piece is, it loses a sense of tangiability. In other words, how the hell am I going to write a piece that could be a book cover?
I would like to say that I sat down, picked a book from "the list", pictured what I would want the ideal book cover to look like, and then began writing some tone poem based on that still, immovable image that I pictured in my mind. In truth, I just started writing, got some basic musical comments in the computer, then started trying to pair them with one of the books. That's right, I worked backwards. Once I had some basic structure, I used the tone of the book to give the piece more roundness, and and currency, but really... I started with the music. Even though I called it "Treasure Island", it could just has easily have been "Moby Dick". Or any other high seas adventure for that matter (OK, maybe not "Old Man and the Sea"), with the ever looming threat of pirates and the associated scurvy.
I also switched up the medium this time. Instead of a reflexive piano piece, I opted for strings. I think that the openness of the timbre really helps give that "ocean" feel to the piece, and the string sounds are just so damn good in the GPO.
Next week is Shock Art, and boy oh boy, I can't wait!
Jun. 29th, 2010 @ 01:39 pm
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| » Following Work of Art Week 2 |
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Here is the blog post for this week's challenges Some seriously awesome stuff up there!
So, this week was an interesting week for me. As you can see from the challenge, and if you watch the show (which you should be), this week had to incorporate used technology. What the frell am I going to do with that as a musician, and one who isn't recording acoustic (at least for now)? So I decided to try "found sound" type stuff. Once I had the medium figured out, I had to decide on a subject, and my friend ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/user_ontd.gif?v=92) oceancurrents had a post about the East Asian belief of red string connecting people who are destrined to be soul mates and get married. Wow! COOL!
OK, so I took that, wrote some music to that theme, and combined it with some thunder, a reading of this poem, and it became this: http://www.newtonmusic.com/work_of_art/invis_red_string.mp3 (you will have to click, I can't be bothered to embed today ;-)
Hope you enjoy! I can't wait to find out what is next!
Jun. 21st, 2010 @ 11:48 am
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| » A New Series of projects |
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So artists among you, of all shapes and varieties, if you have not started watching Bravo's new series "Work of Art", you should. It is a judged reality show, a la America's Top Model, but all for art. As Jen put it, it is just as good as ATM, only about something that we give a damn about. This series seems like it is going to be fun, and there is a great combination of fresh, doe-eyed artists and crusty, pretentious ones.
But, what is even cooler is that the very talented ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92) smoness has started a blog, here where a collective of artists, seven of us in all, are following the challenges weekly. The first challenge was for portraits, and I did one of Jen (awww). I am both excited and scared shitless (I will use the big boy word here) about the more exotic challenges. Like next week's, I think, is going to be art from recycled garbage. WTF do I do with that musically? Themes from some Mozart sonata? Late Beethoven? Vivaldi? The Smothers Brothers? These are the choices that impact my art on a daily basic.
Jun. 14th, 2010 @ 05:04 pm
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| » (No Subject) |
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Today, the song birds sing
Lullabies to you, while you slumber.
I hope they stay, and share their songs;
That the crows don't mercilessly chase them
And replace the sweet chorus
With brutal cawing.
If these lullabies were not for you,
If your dreams were not suspended
In a web of gossamer lyrics,
Then I would wake you and
Share our birds, our tomatoes.
But they are, and so you sleep;
My coffee in hand, and the birds
And our son belching "shit", while I laugh
At the utter ridiculousness of it all;
That somehow, given everything,
Earth has given us a corner of herself
As a beautiful present.
May. 23rd, 2010 @ 09:39 am
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