Absolutely fantastic essay! I have read through once and will read again (and again!). I have read John O’Donahue’s, “Beauty: The invisible Embrace” and am re-reading “Beauty: A Very Short Introduction” by Roger Scruton. Your essay weaves together fundamental ideas and belongs with the writing of all of the great minds who ponder Truth and Beauty!!
Wow. I am humbled that you would compare me to those two. Thank you. I told someone while I was working on it that either that this essay was genius or complete bullshit, which, I guess is true depending on what the ultimate truth is!
I read your essay and it’s something I realized I’ve been looking for . The topic …. I can’t claim a priori knowledge of much of it but I understood more of it than I thought I would. But lately I’ve been messing around in the edges or hedges of your postulations and there’s another adjacent construct with which I’ve been playing with for a couple of years as an artist and somewhere in all of what you wrote ( and I was able to understand)is a similar thread . But the connection eludes me as it has done for 3-4 years. I guess my search began in the realm of beauty but it has ended up in a mix of science and beauty I guess.? It started with a product of almost timeless beauty and that would be the phenomenon of rainbows. Which lead to very old charts of color/sound or energetic expressions that result in color /sound perception.
Rudolph Steiner: (many things to many people or maybe too many things to too many people) is historically placed at an interesting juncture of time and knowledge and whatever the storyline becomes/became , the result was the establishment of an entity called the Pond Institute for or about the concept of harmonious vibrations.
Fast forward to Oliver Sacks and his neurological accomplishments and explorations into the mysteries of the adjacent connections of Mind/brain and eventually music.
Then accidentally encountering my own interests and path dragging this mixed bundle of mental detritus like a comet string of space garbage I was experimenting with painting chords .. for now just a particular chord of D major. Utilizing color/ sound chart produced by the Pond institute, i postulated that if something sounds good to your ear ( an individual preference to be sure) it will look good as well. So fast forward again to 7 paintings selected from 20-30 pieces over the last 3 years, which I felt best illustrated what I suspected, plus two more taking a further step into another key, and I have a show . And I also have a major question as a result. Probably more than you wish for but you just got elected to answer because I can’t find anybody who can. Stick with me here Clint.
I am a hobby pianist who loves music. My typical pattern is to select either a known piece of classical music which I played in my younger years or a new piece which I’ve heard played and want to learn. And then I use it when I begin a new painting. It allows me to sit down and play as a break in my typical fashion of standing to paint. Ok this sets the stage.
Over the course of the last 3 years of painting and organizing my efforts into this upcoming show this has become apparent to me. The music I have chosen to practice during any particular painting has influenced my painting palette. Or vice versa. While I was painting the 7 pieces of the primary D chord, I was learning the music to meditation on Thais… an 18th century operatic production by Jules Massenet. Key of D Major.
While I was painting 2 other pieces, a large oil painting entitled “We Are Running Out of Time”, I was practicing a Chopin Nocturne in C# minor …..decoded using the Pond scale as a palette corresponding to C# minor and lastly, or at least all I know at this point , a small oil painting of 2 young musicians practicing a piece (a cellist and another on the violin while Mary was revisiting an old favorite the 2nd movement (Adagio) from Bethovens Pathetique Sonata.) As I practiced and painted it got to be so that I could here the musicians playing at a particular measure. As I began refining the painting it seemed inherent that I would have to alter the gaze of each of the players so they were glued onto each other’s eyes so they could get that measure precisely. And you’ve probably guessed the outcome. They were painted in the palette of Ab major and it reflects the Adagio signature of the 2nd movement. The particular “moment” referenced above is 11 measures from the final melodic phrase which concludes the movement.
Now to the question. How does this happen? I can’t play twinkle twinkle little star with out sheet music. I am NOT a musician. I play for enjoyment. I paint because I think I have an ability to transmit emotional content. But Can only in the final analysis report back Sack’s findings that the human brain has more space (neurons) dedicated to music than to language . Significantly more. In the social sciences/ medical world Alzheimer’s patients frozen in catatonic postures with no recorded movement or speech have been “rescued” from their state with music played from their past— the years they were 18-30 approx., and not only movement returns but speech and language, laughter and memories.
So what if music is our future language?science has already determined that the black hole in our known universe vibrates at Bb … the key signature for many of the monumental works of our major composers.
What if beauty in sound or the vibratory rate can produce art that supports rather than fights the energetic expression of beauty?
I’m not a recognized artist but I am a curious one. I painted seven pictures across 7 genre of paintings based on harmonic vibration ( the energy wave of the chord D, F#, A matches the corresponding colors on the pond institute scale ) that’s the science. and the paintings are as pleasurable to look as they are to listen too regardless of the genre. And from here on out I’m stuck. There is a piece missing. I’m at the outside of my ability to think. But I do “ feel “ the need to find the resolution chord… you know it in any key .. it’s the 3rd chord that makes you want to go back to the beginning again. 😉. it feels so close. See what you can make of it.
Well done. This essay is a work of art.
Absolutely fantastic essay! I have read through once and will read again (and again!). I have read John O’Donahue’s, “Beauty: The invisible Embrace” and am re-reading “Beauty: A Very Short Introduction” by Roger Scruton. Your essay weaves together fundamental ideas and belongs with the writing of all of the great minds who ponder Truth and Beauty!!
Wow. I am humbled that you would compare me to those two. Thank you. I told someone while I was working on it that either that this essay was genius or complete bullshit, which, I guess is true depending on what the ultimate truth is!
I read your essay and it’s something I realized I’ve been looking for . The topic …. I can’t claim a priori knowledge of much of it but I understood more of it than I thought I would. But lately I’ve been messing around in the edges or hedges of your postulations and there’s another adjacent construct with which I’ve been playing with for a couple of years as an artist and somewhere in all of what you wrote ( and I was able to understand)is a similar thread . But the connection eludes me as it has done for 3-4 years. I guess my search began in the realm of beauty but it has ended up in a mix of science and beauty I guess.? It started with a product of almost timeless beauty and that would be the phenomenon of rainbows. Which lead to very old charts of color/sound or energetic expressions that result in color /sound perception.
Rudolph Steiner: (many things to many people or maybe too many things to too many people) is historically placed at an interesting juncture of time and knowledge and whatever the storyline becomes/became , the result was the establishment of an entity called the Pond Institute for or about the concept of harmonious vibrations.
Fast forward to Oliver Sacks and his neurological accomplishments and explorations into the mysteries of the adjacent connections of Mind/brain and eventually music.
Then accidentally encountering my own interests and path dragging this mixed bundle of mental detritus like a comet string of space garbage I was experimenting with painting chords .. for now just a particular chord of D major. Utilizing color/ sound chart produced by the Pond institute, i postulated that if something sounds good to your ear ( an individual preference to be sure) it will look good as well. So fast forward again to 7 paintings selected from 20-30 pieces over the last 3 years, which I felt best illustrated what I suspected, plus two more taking a further step into another key, and I have a show . And I also have a major question as a result. Probably more than you wish for but you just got elected to answer because I can’t find anybody who can. Stick with me here Clint.
I am a hobby pianist who loves music. My typical pattern is to select either a known piece of classical music which I played in my younger years or a new piece which I’ve heard played and want to learn. And then I use it when I begin a new painting. It allows me to sit down and play as a break in my typical fashion of standing to paint. Ok this sets the stage.
Over the course of the last 3 years of painting and organizing my efforts into this upcoming show this has become apparent to me. The music I have chosen to practice during any particular painting has influenced my painting palette. Or vice versa. While I was painting the 7 pieces of the primary D chord, I was learning the music to meditation on Thais… an 18th century operatic production by Jules Massenet. Key of D Major.
While I was painting 2 other pieces, a large oil painting entitled “We Are Running Out of Time”, I was practicing a Chopin Nocturne in C# minor …..decoded using the Pond scale as a palette corresponding to C# minor and lastly, or at least all I know at this point , a small oil painting of 2 young musicians practicing a piece (a cellist and another on the violin while Mary was revisiting an old favorite the 2nd movement (Adagio) from Bethovens Pathetique Sonata.) As I practiced and painted it got to be so that I could here the musicians playing at a particular measure. As I began refining the painting it seemed inherent that I would have to alter the gaze of each of the players so they were glued onto each other’s eyes so they could get that measure precisely. And you’ve probably guessed the outcome. They were painted in the palette of Ab major and it reflects the Adagio signature of the 2nd movement. The particular “moment” referenced above is 11 measures from the final melodic phrase which concludes the movement.
Now to the question. How does this happen? I can’t play twinkle twinkle little star with out sheet music. I am NOT a musician. I play for enjoyment. I paint because I think I have an ability to transmit emotional content. But Can only in the final analysis report back Sack’s findings that the human brain has more space (neurons) dedicated to music than to language . Significantly more. In the social sciences/ medical world Alzheimer’s patients frozen in catatonic postures with no recorded movement or speech have been “rescued” from their state with music played from their past— the years they were 18-30 approx., and not only movement returns but speech and language, laughter and memories.
So what if music is our future language?science has already determined that the black hole in our known universe vibrates at Bb … the key signature for many of the monumental works of our major composers.
What if beauty in sound or the vibratory rate can produce art that supports rather than fights the energetic expression of beauty?
I’m not a recognized artist but I am a curious one. I painted seven pictures across 7 genre of paintings based on harmonic vibration ( the energy wave of the chord D, F#, A matches the corresponding colors on the pond institute scale ) that’s the science. and the paintings are as pleasurable to look as they are to listen too regardless of the genre. And from here on out I’m stuck. There is a piece missing. I’m at the outside of my ability to think. But I do “ feel “ the need to find the resolution chord… you know it in any key .. it’s the 3rd chord that makes you want to go back to the beginning again. 😉. it feels so close. See what you can make of it.