Music for Writing 0 Album
So, it’s been a long year of endless nights and hard work, daughters and sons and families, and obligations, and life, life, life, but somehow the sun rises every day, passes and the night brings peace. And writing. And painting. And music. And the stars. And the fight against sleep!
Still, over the holiday, between shopping and family visits, I did manage to make a short music video, Fibonacci 0. It combines, music, footage, iPhone video, graphics and science, and all through the fabulous, forgiving medium of Youtube.
It’s hard not to be fascinated by the implications of Fibonacci sequences and the golden section. All around us, in the movement of the stars, the growth pattern of molluscs, plants reaching for the sun, the pleasing proportions of a Renaissance painting, the spiral staircase of the Sagrada Familia. There does seem to be grand pattern, at least a logical one, depending on your philosophical views. So, here’s the video:
The Music
I decided last year to carve some tiny spaces and make some more music, but without featuring the guitar sound that dominates my musical landscape. Probably daft, but interesting. So, I stuck to keyboards and drums. I’ve been exploring flamenco for the last few years. Although it’s not my tradition I love the passion of late-lamented Paco de Lucia and his compatriots, the colours and the textures of a music that has its roots in Arabic quarter notes, transported through North Africa to arrive transformed and blinking in the Spanish sun of medieval, Arabic Spain. And that has broken my old songwriting brain, forced me to abandon verse / verse / chorus / verse / chorus (in 4/4 or 6/8) for a more fluid expression of set pieces, more instinctive and organic.
So, Fibonacci sequences gave me another, different way of creating music. In early 2013 I wrote a few pieces, in D Major and E major, using Fibonacci progressions: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 (that’s where I stopped). In this video, the music emerges from nothing, into a single bar with a musical shape, followed by a different one, then two others, and building into 3, 5 bars and cycles of 8s and 13s. Ultimately the piece is compromised by repetition, but hey, in the natural world, repetition is good!
The Video
The images were easy, lots of shells and flowers, staircases, all bursting with Fibonacci significance, swirling up and down, followed by some great footage of fleeing highways, underground tunnels, disappearing back into the structures of the universe and ultimately disappearing into smoke. It’s not meant to be profound, just interesting and explores some of the themes expressed in the fiction and paintings I create.
More to Come
It’s going to be slow on the music front but I have some other a Fibonacci sequences (and flickering images of apparitions in forests…), so they’ll come out as a video sometime. And there’s an album too, which will take a good while.
So, I hope you enjoyed this exploration. I have some new posts on the painting, fiction, SF and Fantasy films, more on the Only Connect thread (here), on William Blake, Concepts of Time, Celtic Mythology, Philosophical Dialogues, and others coming too.
In the meantime, please feel free to look around and explore These Fantastic Worlds.