Grace Notes Music Studio

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!