Wednesday, July 12, 2017

When listening to composer, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's The Flight of the Bumble-Bee, use the elements of music (melody, harmony, form, rhythm, timbre,...

The orchestral
interlude from Rimsky-Kovsakov's opera The Tale of Tsar Sultan is the close
to Act III, Tableau 1. In this interlude, the Swan-Bird transforms himself into an insect so
that he can fly off to visit his father, who does not know he is alive.

In
the image above, the leitmotif of the flight (1) and the transformation (2), are, of course, the
thematic ideas that bind the work together. So, in drawing a music map, these notes could be
copied and inserted as they tie together the pictorial depiction of sound (as fence posts hold
the wire in place every so many feet). Remembering that music and art are simply different
mediums for the expression of the same concept or feeling, the student may wish to use color and
line to convey the rhythm and melodies and chord progressions of the music. (There are some
people, called "synesthetes," who experience double sensory experiences such as
hearing a sound while also seeing a color.)

Here's another suggestion: Watch
and listen to the video of the links below and try to visualize the sound in lines and imagine
into what color this sound can be translated. For example, as the conductor moves his baton,
imagine it is a sparkler in the dark that creates lines of light and draw this line which then
moves with the progression of the music (vary the thickness, color, etc.). For example, when the
flutes are being played, the line will be thinner; when the cello comes in, the line thickens,
and so forth. Perhaps, the student can conceptualize the leitmotif as the body of the bee, and
the lines emanating from him in his transformation and flight. And, what about flowers? Bees
hover over them often in their flights.

The important thing is to free the
imagination and feel, experience personally, the color and line; closing the eyes and imagining
line and color can be the way to translate sound into other senses--even dance! With regard to
the other link, the Canadian Brass rendition, the tuba has such round, bold notes in contrast to
the sharp, staccato of the trumpet that line can easily express these
sounds. 

href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_of_the_Bumblebee">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_of_the_Bumblebee
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QV1RGMLUKE&feature=kp">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QV1RGMLUKE&feature=kp
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZO5KTJTwhE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZO5KTJTwhE

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