I’m uploading two videos today, one of Dylan Carlson’s first piano recital, the second of Alejandro Hernández’s first recital. The brothers were happy, as were all of their extended family. They both started piano lessons in Salt Lake City in September, 2009. Their teacher is Kristin Bolinger.
zipTimer: an app for pacing your piano practice – or any practice!
Elegy for Glen (click for full score)
Elegy for Glen, a composition for two cellos, dedicated to my father, Glen Carlson (August 15, 1923 – March 30, 2009).
Computer rendition. One day there will be a human performance:-)
Why circle and square? There is really no good reason, except that these are simple, classic shapes beloved by mathematicians, artists, and children. The circle appears everywhere: in the sky, as the face of the sun and moon; in children’s drawings as a primitive shape to which eyes, mouth, nose, ears, arms and legs are later added; in philosophy and Greek science, as the perfect form; in mathematics, as one of the principal shapes treated in Euclid’s elements; in art, as an element of composition; in music, as the circle of fifths governing harmonic movement. A good starting point for a blog whose purpose is at yet undefined. (This is an experiment).
Exercise 2
A simple art project, after Delaunay: draw lines and curves to cut the canvas into shapes. Paint the shapes. Step back from time to time to get a feel for balance. Distribute colors across the canvas Use some color variation, e.g. green and yellow-green. I learned this exercise in Marlena Bocian’s abstract painting class in Brookline, Massachusetts.
The color difference exercises 1 & 2 is not so great; it is the lighting that is different. I think I like the composition of exercise 1 better, though i’ve been thinking that I need to “kill the white,” either by bringing one color all they way to the other or by painting in black, as if it were a stained glass window. Hmmm…. what do do?
Comments to self: (1) How about just getting the brushes and paint out and doing something new? This is 2011! (2) I think exercise 1 is better than exercise 2: more interesting pattern of shapes an colors.
Exercise 1
Circle and Square 