I am not musically inclined, I don’t understand musical terms, I have never played or tried to play an instrument, and I don’t sing.
I danced, I took many years of ballet and I was a high school gymnast. When I hear music I think of movement. When I listen to instrumental music I always imagine lines dancing off the instruments and the musicians.
While working on this piece, the music radiates off of the musician as he plays as well as off the strings of the violin.
As I work I listen to a Spotify violin solos playlist. I imagine the horse hair drawn bow stroke the strings up and down, back and forth – sometimes like a painfully slow waltz and sometimes with the sharpness of a quick step.
Spotify violin solos
I examine each movement of the bow and the wire that comes off the violin. I decide whether it should end quickly or with a gentle twist or turn, or whether it should linger and fade away gently, like a murmuration of birds flying south. I securely attach each note of wire by stitching it with another piece of wire to a sturdy part of the piece. The functional piece of wire has to add to the composition. It can not look like a wire there for the sole purpose of holding another wire, it has to express the movement of the figure and energy of the music. The work is a meditation of sorts. It feels really good to work.