Maestoso Section C

Before I forget, yes, the foot is continuing to get better. The ankle and leg are getting stronger. I am slowly becoming more independent. I hope soon to finish the painful part of rehab.

Now, on to more lovely things.

Round 2 C

As soon as the organist lifts the hands after finishing the third phrase of the B theme, we hear a lovely melody in the woodwinds. It soars. The strings support it nicely, but don’t have much to say; just a murmur of thirds establishing a wash of key center. I struggled for weeks with whether I should represent this melody in beads or with something else. I decided that the simplicity of the melody should be represented in the simplest motif. So, no beads or fancy thread. Just the DS, Ma’am. 

I’ll confess to using the melody while exercising. It soars so nicely. If I complete the movement while singing it to myself, I go slowly….like I should. If I work through the entire section, I do just the right number of reps and even have the bridge section to change legs…..like I should. I still lose track of what number I’m on occasionally. Musicians count best to 4. Anything past 4 and we can get lost quickly.

Tomorrow we return a bit to the fugue….sort of.

Saint Saens Maestoso B section

At this point of the movement, Saint-Saens gets down to business. He gives the melody to the organ. Of course some of the orchestra is playing also, but the theme is all organ. We hear the syncopation hinted at in previous movements. There’s a strong sense of going somewhere harmonically as well as rhythmically. And before you know it, we’ve moved on into the next section. Whoosh!

B section motif without border

I had fun stringing beads to use in the rings. I wanted them to look strong and uneven. The first few samples didn’t work for me until I correlated stitch count to rhythm. Again, the visual fell into place as soon as I let the structure of the music drive the design. That brought a smile to my face.

Tomorrow, I will be looking at the pretty melody coming up in the next section.

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.