guitar + pipe

02021-03-05 | Art, Music | 8 comments

This is the audio portion of a video I created for the Dallas Museum of Art. The video was commissioned for an exhibit called Cubism in Color: The Still Lifes of Juan Gris, which runs 3/18 – 7/25 of 2021 at the museum. One of the paintings in the exhibit is Gris’ Guitar and Pipe.

My piece starts with an intro that I was shown more than thirty years ago. The guitar player who showed it to me said that for him it was the essence of Flamenco. In the way that Juan Gris uses a guitar as a location marker for Spain, I performed that intro to start the music.

For me, Cubism is about multiple angles and points of view and the many different ways of looking at and interpreting an object. I translated this into sound by recording a guitar rhythm, then playing the recording back at half-speed. I also reversed some of the guitar sounds and removed the string attack from others.

Many of my favorite cubist pieces include collages. The mid-section of the music is from an altogether different piece, (((Butterfly Dream))) which is also in a different key, to which I played a new melody. When this section ends, the rhythm guitars return, still at half-speed, and upright bass and cajon now play along while new guitar melodies are added. The music ends with the same chord with which it starts. 

8 Comments

  1. keith

    love it! always fantastic and interesting… chills per usual..

    Reply
  2. Will

    I’ll have to go check this out! Pretty cool!

    Reply
    • ottmar

      You live in Dallas, if I remember correctly? I heard today that they might move the opening back one week to 3/25. They probably find it difficult to find a monitor and speakers large enough to do my piece justice. ;-)

      Reply
      • Will

        I do indeed! I will let you know what the set up looks like and any viewer reactions…most definitely need some serious speakers lol. This is a really cool idea and it is great to see the DMA and the arts district getting back into the swing of things.

        Reply
  3. JaneParhamKatz

    Work of genius!

    Reply
  4. Chris

    Sublime !!!!! AWESOME!!!!

    Reply

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