Grace Notes Music Studio

Music affects me keenly and intensely. I am always looking for ways to experience music on a deeper level; ways to bring the aural and visual together.

We often describe music, an aural art form, using visual descriptors. We talk about the texture created by a particular instrument group. Or perhaps the colors the key generates in our mind’s eye. Have you ever noticed how major keys tend to prompt bright colors, compared to more subdued colors of the minor keys. And then there is the shape of the music. We describe the phrasing and the form in physical terms.

The natural extension of describing music in visual terms is to draw it out! That’s what today’s ezine will show you how to do.

Pictures At An Exhibition

Do you know the story of Mussorgsky’s composition, Pictures At An Exhibition? He wrote this suite in honor of his artist friend, Viktor Hartmann, who died suddenly at the age of 39. The stunned Russian art community organized an exhibit of over 400 pieces of Hartman’s work. After viewing the collection, Mussorgsky composed Pictures in six short weeks.

There are other examples of musical compositions inspired by art. Franz Liszt wrote Hunnenschlacht (The Battle of The Huns) based on art of the same name by von Kaulbach. Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky were no strangers to this practice. The more contemporary composer, Stephen Sondheim, wrote the musical, Sunday in The Park With George inspired by Seurat’s 19th century painting Sunday Afternoon on The Island of Grand Jatte.

Music-Inspired Art

And what about the reverse? That is, art that is inspired by music. There is plenty of that too. Searching for examples of music-inspired art (MIA), I found the RedBubble website. They have a whole section of the site devoted to MIA. That’s where I saw this painting by Susan Kimball, Dream Mambo that she drew while listening to a recording of Nica’s Dream by Horace Silver.

Making Music Art

This morning, I listened to Branford Marsalis’ Creation cd. This 2001 release is a beguiling collection of music by French composers. Marsalis performs on soprano and alto saxophones with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. I got out my sketch pad, colored pencils and ink pens; and began to draw while listening to Darius Milhaud’s La Création du Monde as performed by Marsalis and Orpheus.

As I listened to the opening sounds by Marsalis’ alto saxophone, I let my pen glide across the page. As the music crescendoes and jumps in greater intervals, my pen reacts. The trumpets and percussion enter and the jazzy theme is developed. Some of my pen markings are abstract, other marks resemble objects in the world.

I listened and drew through two hearings of the seventeen and a half minute piece. On the first listen, I used pens of various point sizes. Second time through, only colored pencils were in my hands.

Surprise Learning

What a fantastic way to listen to a piece of music! What started out as an exercise linking art and music became an enjoyable way to learn. While focusing solely on the act of drawing, the music seeped deep into my soul. The various themes of the music came to life before my eyes.

The flowing “birth” music at the start shows up as curving parallel lines. The music intensifies and a colorful volcano-like structure appears in my drawing. Then feathery phrases from the alto and lower strings manifest feathers on my drawing. A musical uproar produces what could be seen as a cityscape, complete with a sax player under a streetlamp!

Go Deep

Is there a song or piece of music that is on your mind? Do you wake up with phrases from a song on your lips or a melody in your ear? That song is a good candidate for this drawing exercise.

• Draw out your song using different media; crayons, acrylic paints, or a lump of clay.
• Divide your paper into equal-sized grids and draw each 30 seconds (or other appropriate time period) in each grid square.
• Create a drawing in the morning and compare it to a drawing made in the evening of the same song.

What other ways can you think of to experience music more deeply? I’d love to hear from you and see any art you create. Contact me via email or share your comments on my blog.

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Did you know the Portland skyline is music, just waiting to be played? Yes, it is! And it is beautiful music.

It all started on Sunday afternoon when I received a link to a story about a short song written by birds. You’re intrigued, aren’t you? I was, too.

Are you familiar with the cellular phone commercial in which all sorts of scenery, buildings, and people are positioned from shortest to tallest to represent the symbol of good phone reception? It’s a clever way of ’seeing’ phone reception everywhere. In a similar vein, today’s exercise will have you ‘hearing’ music everywhere you go.

I’ll start with the bird story. Visualize your everyday power lines running overhead. There are 5 of them running parallel to one another. And birds like to perch on them. You’ve seen this countless times. Now, imagine the 5 parallel power lines are the lines of a musical staff and the birds are notes on the staff. Voilá! It’s music.

Birds on the Wires

Here is what Jarbas Agnelli did with his image of birds sitting on power lines.

What a great idea! As I was taking my daily walk on Mt. Tabor the next day, I looked for birds sitting on power lines. Didn’t see ‘em. But I did see a great view of downtown Portland, with its tall skyscrapers, short department stores, and medium-sized buildings.

In a flash of insight, I imagined laying a musical staff over the city skyline and hearing the pitches represented by the tops of the buildings.

Composing Begins

At home, I googled “Portland skyline” and found this image. Thanks Colgate Alumni of Portland for use of the photo! Printing it out, I penciled a staff over the buildings, then I circled the tops of each building to notate the musical pitches. Check out the images of the skyline before and after it becomes music.

I played around with key and quality (major, minor) and settled on F minor. First listen to the melodic line as played by my midi flute.

Here is the finalized music in 4-part harmony as played by my midi marimba.

Try This At Home!

This was fun! I invite each of you to try this exercise at home. There is no right or wrong answer. Only your perfectly-personal fun result! If you don’t have a pitched musical instrument like a keyboard, guitar, or clarinet, use your voice and make your own best guess at the pitch.

You don’t need perfect pitch to hear the music all around you. Find the music everywhere you look. Here is one place I saw and heard music on my walk today. See all 15 shots on my Flickr photostream, tagged as ’seeing-music’.

I’d love to hear any music you come up with. You can also send me an image in which you see the music. I bet we come up with different songs!

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