SONIC NOTATION PROJECT
Welcome to the Sonic Notation Project page. We are an ever-changing group of professional musicians and visual artists who are doing an experiment to create a body of work and deepen our individual practices by crossing art forms. We interpret music visually and we interpret art musically. Music/art crossover is one of the themes in my practice, along with music/art/science crossover. You will find more of my projects by visiting tiavellani.com.
Thus far the "SNOrchestra" has included the following artists:
Ingrid Anne - fine artist, musician
Julie Cusack - fine artist
Monica Dunne - mixed-media artist
Vicki O'Donoghue - fine artist
Dan Schreiner - composer, musician, visual artist
Jennie Wren - visual artist
Tia Vellani - visual artist, musician, scientist
Ingrid Anne - fine artist, musician
Julie Cusack - fine artist
Monica Dunne - mixed-media artist
Vicki O'Donoghue - fine artist
Dan Schreiner - composer, musician, visual artist
Jennie Wren - visual artist
Tia Vellani - visual artist, musician, scientist
If you are interested in joining the SNOrchestra, you may download the November 12, 2018 brief here.
| brief_12_nov_2018_tia_vellani_sonic_notation.pdf |
To kick off the project, Dan Schreiner wrote a piece of music with the awareness that it was going to be interpreted visually. It is a lyrical 4-minute piano solo called Espresso Shot (we had chosen the unifying concept of "coffee" for this part of the project). On the suggested date of Sept. 21, 2018, Dan uploaded to SoundCloud a live recording of Espresso Shot with himself on piano.
Subsequently, the visual artists each created, in private, a painting inspired by Dan's piece. We were to focus on a few elements of Espresso Shot that spoke to us to create a piece of visual art, knowing that someone would be writing music from it. I was explicit in saying that it wasn't meant to be graphic notation as such; we were not meant to try and represent the music so that someone could play it, but simply with the awareness that someone would be playing it. The first unveiling took place on Hallowe'en, 2018, and more will occur in the months ahead.
Interpretive paintings by Monica Dunne, Vicki O'Donoghue, Ingrid Anne and Tia Vellani based on Dan Schreiner's piano piece, Espresso Shot.
I am now opening the project to composers who would like to write music inspired by one of the paintings. I ask that they compose a piece of any duration, without lyrics, in private, without having listened to Espresso Shot (ideally). The piece should be inspired by a few aspects of their chosen painting that have captured their attention, and will be used to inspire visual interpretations. They may record it, provide a MIDI-generated file or anything else, as long as we can hear it. The suggested premiere is 31 December, 2018.
The ethos of the project is to play, mess around, experiment, go nuts, shake off the shackles of social inhibition and dig deep until we find our most open-minded selves. The sense of play is a key component in keeping this project going; it will only work if it feels good.
The ethos of the project is to play, mess around, experiment, go nuts, shake off the shackles of social inhibition and dig deep until we find our most open-minded selves. The sense of play is a key component in keeping this project going; it will only work if it feels good.
WHAT'S THE POINT OF THE SONIC NOTATION PROJECT?
The goal of Phase I is to understand our work at an extremely profound level so we have more control over our choices when creating our art. The project is meant to spark a lifetime of invention and exploration.
The big one for the musicians will be finding informative patterns in our work that are more easily recognised when they are visible. Composers will have, forever, the ability to see our work in the primary properties of visual art, like colour and shape. See the downloadable brief for a definition and examples of "primary properties" of art and music.
The big one for the visual artists is similar. We will find informative patterns that draw our attention to the flow of our work and how it is read. We will have, forever, the ability to think about our work in terms of the primary properties of music, like pacing and phrasing.
The goal of Phase II (which I haven't released yet) is to help us recognise and clarify the stories we're trying to tell with our art, and moreover, how to create an emotional journey that will guide our audience through them.
The Sonic Notation Project will allow us to learn from and share with the Other Side, that is to say, the artists working in a medium other than our own. Incidentally, I have no answers. This is an experiment for me as well.
The big one for the musicians will be finding informative patterns in our work that are more easily recognised when they are visible. Composers will have, forever, the ability to see our work in the primary properties of visual art, like colour and shape. See the downloadable brief for a definition and examples of "primary properties" of art and music.
The big one for the visual artists is similar. We will find informative patterns that draw our attention to the flow of our work and how it is read. We will have, forever, the ability to think about our work in terms of the primary properties of music, like pacing and phrasing.
The goal of Phase II (which I haven't released yet) is to help us recognise and clarify the stories we're trying to tell with our art, and moreover, how to create an emotional journey that will guide our audience through them.
The Sonic Notation Project will allow us to learn from and share with the Other Side, that is to say, the artists working in a medium other than our own. Incidentally, I have no answers. This is an experiment for me as well.
THE SONIC NOTATION PROJECT WILL ENABLE US TO...
-experience our work through senses we don't normally use for that purpose,
-explore music and visual art side-by-side to find the astonishing similarities,
-discover things, other than what we've been doing, that make a piece of art meaningful,
-discover more primary properties of our own medium,
-find new tools and better ways to convey whatever meaning we are trying to convey,
-discover the elements that are holding our pieces together,
-discover additional ways we could be imparting coherence,
-recognise the language we have been using to tell our stories up till now,
-find additional elements available for us to manipulate,
-see what is explicit and what is implied in our work,
-think about the large-scale structures we've been using and the structures we could be using,
-discover the motifs we've been using and find more ways to use them,
-create new ones, entirely different from our habitual set,
-discover creative ways to use motifs and variations from the artists working in the other medium,
-choose the degree of simplicity and elegance we want to use to convey our messages,
-discover how to make our art easier to read with things like repeats, references and relationships.
-explore music and visual art side-by-side to find the astonishing similarities,
-discover things, other than what we've been doing, that make a piece of art meaningful,
-discover more primary properties of our own medium,
-find new tools and better ways to convey whatever meaning we are trying to convey,
-discover the elements that are holding our pieces together,
-discover additional ways we could be imparting coherence,
-recognise the language we have been using to tell our stories up till now,
-find additional elements available for us to manipulate,
-see what is explicit and what is implied in our work,
-think about the large-scale structures we've been using and the structures we could be using,
-discover the motifs we've been using and find more ways to use them,
-create new ones, entirely different from our habitual set,
-discover creative ways to use motifs and variations from the artists working in the other medium,
-choose the degree of simplicity and elegance we want to use to convey our messages,
-discover how to make our art easier to read with things like repeats, references and relationships.
Thanks for your interest in our project. Feel free to share this page and the brief with others who may be interested.
-Tia Vellani, 2018
-Tia Vellani, 2018