Marc Cohn

S_V_H Walking In Memphis Final

/ Scott Von Holzen

88″ Length by 33.5″ Height by 4″ depth

My start date was July 17th for Walking in Memphis.  I finished on the 20th of August. Most of my final thoughts on this artwork are in the YouTube video, but I will add a few more comments.

The piano and strings in this arrangement are the interactive parts of this artwork created using the software MuseScore.  In my video, I mentioned that the strings are the voice of the music.  I’ll add that the piano part of the arrangement connects Marc Cohn’s video to the artwork.  I now see sound as a transformational tool.  I once viewed adding music to my artworks as a selling gimmick for art fairs.  Nothing sold.  At less the non-paying public enjoyed it, although saying “Push the button to hear the music,”  grew tiresome.  What changed where the enthusiastic comments at ArtsWest’s Africa, and Mozart’s Turkish March at the Trout Museum.  A staff person at the ArtsWest library, at pickup,  asked to play Africa on our way out of the library.

My first serious music notation software, Noteflight. For years I used it only to create the arrangements of the music I painted.  My first added sound came with my little Beethoven 5th first four notes artworks.  I had found a recordable small plastic battery-operated soundbox with a half-watt speaker within an extension wired push button.  In 2018 using the software, Musescore, and soundbox enhancements, the music from this 1inch flat speaker sounds good on The Turkish March, and 2019’s ArtsWest artwork Africa.

My first Sound Box

After Africa, in early 2019 I created the jazz artwork Giant Steps whose style came from  2017’s Miles Davis artwork,  So What (Which I agree).  Giant Steps I believe I never considered adding music because of the limits of the soundbox and MuseScore’s synthesizer to replicate this Jazz masterpiece.  After Giant, I painted Over the Rainbow another experimental work based on the So What style.   From the blog entries adding music was a low priority.  That changed with Schindler’s List.

The largest in a long while, and a statement piece, I knew this music needed a higher quality sound to match its size.  Through research, I found a two-watt stereo amp that I could store and play a music file.  Instead of a flat one-inch speaker I now can power two, three-inch speaker placed inside their own custom made speaker boxes.  It required soldering.  I am getting better.

Adafruit Audio FX Sound Board + 2x2W Amp 2″ in length

Next up came Mercy Me, a self-inflicted obligation project that I saw as a long shot for a local environmental exhibition.  The song Mercy, Mercy Me was my first choice for this show.  My choice of music and time restraints made adding sound only a consideration.   Mercy, Mercy Me,  did not show.  I never created a sound file.

With The Blue Danube, I returned to doing artworks for me.  From the start of Schindler’s List, I knew I wanted to add a music file.  In fact, this artwork is a turning point.  From Blue Danube and Walking In Memphis onward finding the right music for a sound file is as important as finding what music to portray.

One final thought on Walking in Memphis: this music by Marc Cohn is the first song on Spotify’s playlist, One-hit Wonders.

Maybe this artwork will someday be a wonder on its own playlist of Greatest Hits.

Scott Von Holzen

 

S_V_H Walking in Memphis image 3

/ Scott Von Holzen

This Artwork, Walking in Memphis, has a constructed look similar to the previous project The Blue Danube (2001 Space Odyssey), and is a continuation of a style trend that first appeared in Giant Steps.  In this image I have added features to separate Walking in Memphis from previous music.  Examples are the obvious Elvis image (public domain).  It looks to me that this image is from the song Jailhouse rock.  In the video of Walking in Memphis it shows the gates of Graceland opening.  I was hoping to find a free-to-use image of Graceland music gates, but could not.  I found several interesting images like this one with Elvis in front of the gates.   Being also a photographer, I am uncomfortable using any images in my artworks that are not copyright free, or public domain.  For this artwork the high-resolution image of Elvis in action looks great and covers the mentioning of Elvis in the song.

26 April 1957: Elvis stands in front of the gates to Graceland, his mansion in Memphis, Tennessee
Picture: Everett Collection / Rex Features

Just below the Elvis image, on the bottom section is another public domain image, but this time it is of W. C. Handy.  Marc Cohen mentions him early in the song.  According to Wikipedia he is the Father of the Blues, and was too first to publish Blues music, and who wrote the song Beale Street Blues in 1917.

Another feature of this artwork, I mentioned in a previous post, has to do with my notes painted in a color similar to Elvis’s Blue Suede Shoes.  I added to the look of those shoes even further by placing five little drops of gold paint on each note to signify a row of the five golden grommets on his blue suede shoes.  One last obvious mention are my musical ties painted to look like a piano keyboard.  That design represents the dominant piano heard and that Marc Cohen plays at the Hollywood throughout the music video.

Next up, adding the last of the artwork features and words, which are always difficult to do.

 

Scott Von Holzen

 

S_V_H Walking in Memphis image 2

/ Scott Von Holzen

Artwork over 80 inches in length.

For this image of Walking in Memphis I have used a spacer boards so I can display the two sections together.  Right now the length of the artwork is eighty-four inches.  My music for Walking in Memphis is all in place and portrays the ending of the song, where it repeats the beginning.  Here are those words:

“Put on my blue suede shoes And I boarded the plane.  Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues In the middle of the pouring rain
Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues In the middle of the pouring rain.”
-Walking in Memphis Marc Cohen
The video for Walking in Memphis is in black and white.  I painted many of the shafts black and white with shades of gray in between.  I also picked a color to represent the Blues and painted the remaining shafts blue.  I arranged all the shafts into the two sections of the artwork.  To show my appreciation for Jackson Pollock, I clamped all the shafts from each section together.  Then I chose four different colors of fluid acrylics and pour each color into syringe like small plastic bottles.  I then squeezed out the fluid paint across all the wood pieces.  I chose the colors red, blue, yellow, and green for they appear in many of the Beale street neon signs.  Here is an example:
My version of Pollock’s style of drip painting when first applied mimics his style: swirls of paint.  My twist is that I then separate all the shafts.  This spreads the flow creating more movement and drama.
Finally,  I chose for the notes a mixed blue to resemble the color of the only pair of Elvis’s blue suede shoes:

In the four corners I have eight by ten canvases that I have covered with digital canvas night images of today’s Beale Street.  Later on I will add some much older black and white images of Beale Street, and other interesting items Marc Cohen sings about.

 

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H Walking in Memphis image 1

/ Scott Von Holzen

Walking in Memphis first image shows the prep so far for this sculpture.  My work sheet has a start date of July 16th.   Since then I have spent much of my mornings, afternoons, and evenings cutting, sanding, and painting pieces of wood.  Now the fun part, putting the artwork together.

I have always liked this song.  One connection to this music is that I visited Memphis around the early nineties and toured Elvis’s home and the grounds.  My remembrances are that the house was not ‘big’ for a mansion, and I could not go up the long stairs to the bathroom where he died.  It shocked me to look at the Google Street view of Graceland today.  It now looks like a theme park.  During my visit I don’t recall many other visitors being there.  I remember walking through the gates and into the house, no guide, and then wandered the other buildings and his grave.  The house with its unique theme rooms are still the coolest part.

After choosing this song I spent days doing research.  I read up on Beale Street and searched for images both new and old.  The past pictures I found several copyright free images.  As for current images, because of the neon everywhere, finding night pictures was difficult.  Most of the Beale Street images I found had copyright requirements for their use.   After more exhausting search, I found three free use images by Heidi Kaden only asking, if you wish, this photography credit:  Photo by Heidi Kaden on Unsplash.   I looked at Beale Street using Google Street view.  It is almost being there without worry about parking.  Beale Street was where the Memphis Blues style developed with the help of great musicians like Louis Armstrong, Muddy Waters, Albert King, B. B. King and other blues and jazz legends (Wikipedia).   To my surprise, they performed on a short two block stretch of blues clubs from 4th to 2nd street.

Here is the music of Marc Cohen who sings and wrote the 1991 song Walking in Memphis:

 

Coming up more ideas on the many ways I will connect this artwork with the music, and the street.

Scott Von Holzen