Tag: Music

S_V_H Martha my Dear image 3

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
Martha my Dear on the table. Behind left is J S Bach Minuet in G major, followed by You were on My Mind, followed by a self-portrait date 1975, and up against the wall is Schindler’s List.

In this photo I am showing how the artwork could fit laid across the metal frame that I created to hold the six-foot canvas that is up on a canvas support. Behind this canvas is my previous artwork, Chopin’s Prelude.

The 20Watt Stereo system I developed for this art with more wiring left to do.

This is the stereo system that I put together to power the two four-inch speakers that will be mounted on the sides. All the parts to this amplifier have to be soldered and wired together. Each time I put together this stereo system, it is an emotional and tense operation. There are a lot of small precise soldering to be done. I have gotten better over time but each solder I attempt is a touchy moment. Hard to do considering my steady hand could use a hand. What allows me the opportunity to make such small connections is my near sightedness. To solder I remove my contacts, and put on my glasses. Then when soldering, I remove my glasses, put on protective lenses. This then allows my nearsightedness to focus clearly on what I am attempting to do. Even though I do not have the steadiest hand, I get it done. Much of yesterday involved planning, soldering and placement of the components on a board that will be installed on the backside of the artwork.

After using my original Blog Template for the last eleven years, I was told by this site’s support that my theme, Chaotic Soul, was no longer supported. After some research I found one free theme, Hemingway Rewritten, that was a glove fit with my original theme. I forgot that switching themes requires a bit of CSS (a program’s style sheet) to bring a theme up to the operational level I need it to be. I made some quick strides and will tweak this site’s look and functionality over the next few months. So it goes.

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H Martha my Dear first image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen1 Comment

This first image of Martha my Dear is of pile of music that I carefully built. Laid end-to-end the music is, oh! That measurement came to twelve feet, seen in the image below. Hum? From the start of this project the plan was to control the amount of music and therefore its length, knowing that the canvas was only 72 inches. Hum?

Warning! All the next stuff is kinda geeky. The main purpose of this blog is to document this art. Any entertaining value is strictly accidental. Besides, I would never want this art, these blog entries, or my videos to-go “viral,” This is out of fear of becoming a one-hit-wonder and/or bad timing for my eventual 15 minutes of fame option.

Anyway, what I have to work with is a roll of heavy primed canvas the length of six feet and my choice to cut the canvas at twenty inches in width. Luckily, I have two options, with one being building two connected six-foot canvases frames. Seems like a lot of work. Or, what I will do, which is to reduce the length of an artwork by meshing the music together.

Here then are three basic sketch ideas. Each of these resulted in a project length of around 102 inches. That is easily workable with the addition of the two speaker boxes attached on both ends of the canvas frame. These boxes will also be out front of the canvas, with music attached allowing the music on the canvas to slide under, reducing overall length. An example of this would be the left side of the last image of the Chopin Prelude music box.

This next image is my about time to move-on-lets-work-on-the-canvas-next.

But first here is my final “sketch” for this next music box. To add documentation, I rarely have done any drawing of any preliminary sketches for my music projects. I have several sketchbooks I used when I first started out as a portrait painter back in the 1970s. Since then, I have simply preferred photography over the pencil.

This last preliminary image shows I can attach all the music to a measured six feet by twenty-inch canvas, along with the added speaker boxes.

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H Martha my Dear musicBox project

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

I am posting early to document this process. The image below is part of the sheet music I put together. I am using the notation software Notion that is a part of StudioOne, the DAW used for the final soundtrack. This worksheet is dated November 20th. By putting in the hours needed I found to my surprise that the draft of this music was done after a bit of tweaking today. This sheet music will then be my template to create the visual part of the artwork. The circled parts of the image below show the music that I will build. The choice of notes was made the same as it has always been: I look for an interesting part of the arrangement that has a good start and finish that will fit the artwork. Today’s projects, I no longer am concerned about the fitting the music to the artwork. That is because I don’t want the artwork to fit anymore. Moving the music outside the canvas makes for an open and improvisational look. This is art without borders.

Page 2 of 3 of the Martha my Dear worksheet date 11/2012021

The sheet music is what the artwork samples. To explain, I create and when required; I pay for the right to create a cover for the music. From that cover I then choose a sample and that is what the viewer sees. I then import the sheet music notation from Notion into StudioOne. With a few days of work the music will be finished. Notion works great to produce a musical draft. StudioOne then takes that Notion file to a professional level. Its only limitation is the skill of this artist.

Notation software draft of Martha my Dear

I am not trying to overestimate the quality of this shorten by a minute cover of this great Beatles song from their White Album. The same White Album that I stood in line on a November day at the record store on State Street in Madison, Wisconsin, the day of its release. Nor am I trying to denigrate this fabulous piece of music by chopping it up into smaller pieces visually and in the performance. No, this project and the others like it, which I now refer to as musicBox instead of Interactive Constructive sculpture, are challenged by the typical viewer’s attention span.

A lengthy piece of music can lose a viewer’s interest waiting for the song to end. They can simply walk away, not comprehending what they are looking at or what is being heard. There will be many viewers, especially younger ones, and listeners who have never heard of this music, or do not connect to the music. Shortening helps, but the music, no matter the quality or the length, means more to me than another cover song. No, this music exists as a voice of an artist extending a finger forward. I am a bright shiny object. If you ever get the chance Push the button. I do.

Scott Von Holzen