Looking at the development

For the next round of the pattern, I decided to create motifs for each section. I found the piece easily fell into 8 sections that drew on 4 different ideas. This is very common in symphonies and the ideas or themes seemed to suggest 4 different motifs. As I mulled over this realization for several days, I came to the conclusion that just like nature exhibits complimentary color schemes, music exhibits complimentary rhythm and melody. Who’d a thunk…….

All this made such great sense, except I didn’t have a clue where to attach them all and how to arrange them and…..

So, I made some arbitrary decisions that are just my way of keeping things flowing visually: the 2 beads in the center ring will sit on the “horizon” of the design; the sections will be joined with tatting in a thinner thread that provide a background of sorts; even though the melodic ideas repeat in the sections, I made two of each of the 4 motifs thus making visual duplicates. I’m pleased with creating this little bit of balance. I pray the indulgence of all those musicians and tatters out there. Forcing this little bit of visual order onto the structure of the music and this little bit of chaos onto the structure of the tatting has led to interesting discoveries. Tomorrow begins our romp through the motifs.

Of feet and knees and melodies

The saga continues with the foot. Now, I’m more concerned about rehab of the knee. I’m learning far more about anatomy and how the human body is supposed to work and how my body has been accustomed to working than I ever wanted to know. I’d prefer to just get from point A to point B without thinking about it all. Sigh. The good news is, I’m making progress at the 3 steps forward, 1 step back rate.

Before I share pictures of the second round of my interpretation of the Saint Saens movement, I wanted to share a bit of how I have been thinking through my design.

There are elements of design that all artists deal with. Sometimes it drives the whole project, other times, things just fall into place. Changing facets of each element change the art. That’s all I’m qualified to say on that. I’ve only scratched the surface learning about all that. I don’t feel it’s necessary to spend a whole lot of time on deciding how I’m going to tat, but I am basing my art on the thought that it is important to spend time looking carefully at the music and assigning visual cues to what we hear.

If that’s clear as mud, don’t feel bad. I’m still striving for a way to express my process.

For this composition, I’ve decided to correlate the color of the beads to what section of the orchestra has the “melody” or whatever we recognize as a theme. Each element of tatting (ring, chain, etc) roughly correlates to phrases or sections. Finally, I’ve decided to use only 1 color thread. And I’ve decided a circular “doily” overall structure suits the composition.

If you glance up at yesterday picture, you see some green thread. That’s a metallic sewing thread added using the “daisy picot” technique to represent the piano part. There are 4 phrases to the melody lifted out for the movie. The strings and pianos play it first, then the organ and brass. I ignored the brass frequently in this version. I felt guilty until I really looked at how he composed the 2^nd movement and then made that call for this movement. When I create something representing the 2^nd movement, I’ll revisit that decision.

Tomorrow I’ll explain what I saw in the fugue subject.

Saint-Saens test no 4

Well, I finally got back to the Saint-Saens with a bit more time than just a few minutes to stare at it. I’m still working in my “muslin” thread/bead choices. I figure if I can’t see the possibilities in this, I’m headed down the wrong path anyway. I’ve got a bit of tweaking to do on the two outer rounds, but you can get the idea for the busy section.

Saint-Saens test

In the movement from the Symphony, Saint-Saens states each theme, and then begins to pull in other ideas. He restates ideas from earlier movements, mixing them up with ideas from this movement. I’m not sure if I’ll keep all the negative space, but the orchestration is pretty sparce and the organ part is really quite simple. The whole time I’ve been working on this, I keep reminding myself: “less is more” and “KISS” and “stick to the point” etc. I will be letting this sit for a day or so; then messing with a couple of ideas on the computer before putting anything in thread again.