Tuesday, October 27, 2009

The Role of Art in My Education



Art is one of the only things I looked forward to going to school. It was a place in my education that at least let me feel like I couldn’t go wrong. Ideally, art shouldn’t have to seem like the escape from a day of soul sucking structure, but it seems like that has been its place in my life. The only bad experience I can think of would be taking an art class at a community college and seeing that even a topic I took refuge in could be sullied by stringent regulation. My teacher there was an interesting enough man with some unique ideas on the way art should be viewed and created. Unfortunately, he believed his ideas were the only ones worth following and imposed those visions on my own. I hated it. I would work so hard on a drawing and he’d just slap a B on it along with a list of methods I should have applied or executed incorrectly. This bothered me a lot and made me get worse and worse as the class progressed because I felt smothered by his expectation. I believe a lot of students who have restrictions imposed on them on any subject will grow to loath and avoid it altogether. That is why it is so important for creativity in art and every classroom to be present and accepted even when it happens to be outside the realm of outlined standards. Art is a vital tool in bringing about passion which is necessary in any subject studied. This was its role in my education. It allowed me to know that my ideas and my work, good or bad, are uniquely mine and aren’t something to feel afraid or ashamed of.

Fuchs & Friends Faculty Recital



The concert I attended at Milne Auditorium was great. The auditorium itself is beautiful and helped set the mood for the cultured experience that it housed. I loved the paintings on the back of the stage with the columns accentuated by shadows. For the first piece of the performance, there was a violin, cello and piano. After a beautiful beginning the cello player broke a string and there was more waiting to be done. Once they started up again things went smoothly. The music was great, but it was hard for me to focus entirely. Usually I really like small groups of strings, especially since I used to participate in a quartet in middle school playing the bass. In this performance however, my mind focused almost entirely on the piano and the violin players odd breathing pattern that made me drift off into my own head. Also, I sat next to someone who accidentally had a noisy water bottle and a few times I was just trying not to laugh. But the players were very talented and when the viola took the stage for the second piece it rounded out the sound of the other strings better and was easier for me to follow. All in all a pleasant experience and a great opportunity to appreciate he faculty and their talent.

Roger Sessions "The Composer and His Message"


There are over 500 emotion words in the English language. I think this guy wanted to use them all. He speaks of music as a specific form of art which includes cognitive thought processes of a deeper emotion which harnesses the essence of the unknown that dwells inside us all. An emotion is defined sociologically as a mental state that arises subjectively, rather than through a conscious effort, and is often accompanied by psychological change. I can for sure see music as being a catalyst or a production of this definition. Emotions are affected and molded to an extent by societal standards, however, and can produce many unified feelings concerning the same situations. So when a piece of music plays a downtrodden tune, most people will be unified in feeling a sad or dark feeling since this is what we are expected to feel. This author speaks very passionately and soulfully and his views are ones I agree with mostly. Human beings do have a way to be “inspired” or struck with these “ideas” that can help us mold and shape them into concrete productions and that in itself is always awe inspiring. I also agree that we are in a primal way attached to and affected to sound and movement and seems to be something that is natural to comprehend. The author also says that he believes art to be the activity of the inner nature and not just the reproduction of it which I thought was profound and affecting. At the end was a quote from Beethoven which read “Emotion is fit only for women–for man, music must strike fire from his mind”. I just thought this was interesting from a sociological point of view and how it reinforces the idea that the inner nature and thought process can be hugely affected by societal standards and teachings. For women, expressing our emotions is considered natural although it also implies we are the weaker gender. For men, emotions are something to be harnessed and used for other means. This quote is mildly irksome to my feminine side, but Beethoven apparently couldn’t weep openly so he substituted tears for ink and drops for notes. Interesting stuff.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Idea for Improvisation Presentation


These are not the exact dialogues of our characters or anything. Just a weird little outline!

Welcome to the 2009 Zombie Beauty Pageant at the beautiful Tranquil Gardens Cemetery. Our contestants are freshly exhumed and ready to go! Please put what remains of your hands together and welcome our first contestant, Tomb-marker 78!

Go through the contest like a real pageant.

Question Portion: How do you feel about global warming and its effect on the ecosystem?
Reply: Growls and gurgles
Announcer: Interesting, you don’t see a lot of people taking that stance these days....

Talent Portion: One contestant juggles her body parts, another does singing only making creepy noises etc.

Finally they announce the runner up and winner. They receive a prize of a free lifetime supply of embalming fluid.

Announcer: Well that was a swell time folks, good clean fun, and be sure to join us next week when Miss Zombie ‘09 breaks ground on the full moon to murder the innocent, don’t want to miss that! Thanks for watching and we’ll see you then!

D.H. Lawrence: "Making Pictures"


I loved this essay. I completely agree with the authors sentiments in the joy of the creative process involved in painting or drawing. I have never considered myself an artist since I lack that primal compulsive desire to draw that I deem necessary for anyone pursuing it as a way of life, but when I do come upon moments of inspiration, that is when I can actually make a picture. An image worth being proud of and taking joy in. The author said at the beginning, “everything that can possibly be painted has been painted, every brush-stroke that can possibly be laid on canvas had been laid on. The visual arts are at a dead end. Then suddenly, at the age of forty, I begin painting myself and am fascinated”. This is an amazingly beautiful statement. Humanity has many gifts but our creative functions, perpetually fascinating with the unexplored and individual nature of them, are the most impressive. We can overcome ourselves with awe at the way something inside can flow into context, built through conception, creative construction and completion.

Friday, October 9, 2009

"Composition in Pure Movement"


Right away this article caught my attention. In the first sentence, she says she is frequently charged with ‘“freeing” the dance from music’. I loved this description and the images it brought to mind. From the start you can tell the author is not just a girl who dances in front of her bathroom mirror; but rather her art is an extension of her life and soul. I always have great respect for people who can take something so creative and make it their essence. She describes how she sees the world of music and dance and how organic it must be in its fluidity. This is what she is constantly striving to achieve in her compositions and choreography. In her mind the movement and the sound are one in the same and in order for them to work they must be created simultaneously and as a singular unit. I have never really heard of someone creating and performing in this manner, so it was very interesting to see how the author would feed off her everyday emotions and become inspired to move and then to call upon an instrument to form a partnership with that movement. I would love to see a performance like the one she spoke of, where the musicians and dancers changed spots and integrated seamlessly with one another. I think that Mary Wigman has a fascinating creative process, very much ahead of her time. It really is insane and beautiful how many levels of movement, emotion and sound she felt and expressed from ground up.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

An Evening With the University Symphony Orchestra




Attending the UNC University Symphony Orchestra concert at Union Colony Civic Center was a great experience. This was a far cry from the high school orchestra I was a part of. I loved the full orchestral sound made up by all the string and brass instruments which was something we didn’t get to do at that level. I was excited to see so many string basses on-stage, though I didn’t see any girls, since that was my instrument. When I’m just listening to orchestra music, it is difficult for me to pinpoint technical aspects to judge. Theory was never my strong point. But apart from one or two violins making the ‘oops’ face it seemed like every instrument was on point throughout the performance.
I liked that the pieces chosen were all from conductors who had very different styles. It gave me the feeling of well rounded sounds and giving the audience a full of experience.

The Mozart piece was much more of what I expect to hear when attending an orchestral performance. It was neat to learn about and then to hear the three beats repeated on the horns as a hint towards Mozart’s involvement with the Freemasons. After that they played the Overture to ‘The Wasps’. I was impressed by how quick the music could get and how seamlessly they transitioned into softer tones from this momentum. Then the tone switched to an overture by a much more modern composer, Bernstein. His composition was focused around more peppy, joyous sounds and seemed to capture the audience the most out of the four. When the red headed composer strolled awkwardly onstage, me and the friend I brought with let out a collective coo. He was adorable and his flowing locks captured my heart. But really, I enjoyed his style of conducting more than the older conductor, I mean compare those pictures and tell me who you’d rather hang out with. He seemed to really have a youthful exuberance for the music and his lanky build actually looked quite graceful in its execution of the movement.

The players themselves were remarkable. Watching that many people all come together to create this flawless sound as a single organism is awe inspiring. The replication of the wasp sound was very impressive and eerily realistic. I believe it was a piccolo that I kept hearing, and every time it played it just captured my attention. The brisk, high pitched tones dancing over the strings were great.

When it comes to drawing meaning from classical music while listening, I’m slightly ADD and the sound sweeps me into a frenzy of images and thoughts that probably have no resemblance to what was intended. Classical music, for me, is the perfect background to whatever is going on in my own life. The tone of the music matches something inside me and that’s where my mind goes, then it changes and my thoughts change with it. It’s hard for me to focus on just the music. But that’s why I love classical music so much. I agree with every sentiment stated about it being pure emotion and beyond what words can describe.

It was a treat to see these very talented players playing a great mix of music and I enjoyed it all.