Playing a little bit of Bach for Edna. She wants to get a piano soon too.
MAKING OF TITLE LETTERS
Title letters for MUSICOSMICA. I get them out of their quarry for this video. It is combined with some making-of photos and comments about my approach to perspective in the stop motion animation, which contradicts expectations towards a virtual 3D-world.
Making-of … oder better … baking-of stars!
Making-Of SPEHERE HOUSE & OASIS
Building up Edna’s little world. With a glimpse into the making of her Sphere House with the Map of Stars on her floating Oasis.
Making-Of SOUNDING TREES
Made from cardboard, wood and modelling clay, the loudspeaker trees have round and angular shapes - they represent the sounds of nature and civilisation in the journey to the SOUNDS. They also seam Edna's flying oasis around her spherical house.
Making-Of EDNA
Even Edna was made one day. Her hair is crocheted around a wire spun with fibres. So it can also be animated. You can see also a making-of the ball-and-socket armature.
Making-Of EDNA PLAYS PIANO STOP MOTION
Now Edna has a piano, but she can't play. A little stop motion making-of from her first tinkling. Nevertheless, even the first plonking takes you into the musical universe.
Making-Of WHITE CHUNKS
Illustration for Edna’s plonking. The making of the White Chunks.
Making-Of COLOURFUL CHUNKS
Illustration for Edna’s more “chromatic” tinkling. The making of the Colourful Chunks.
Stop-Motion Setup & STEPHEN FERGUSON CHAOS IMPROVISATION -1
I asked Stephen Ferguson to improvise for Edna’s first attempts on the piano. Well it turned out as interesting art music pieces, I chose one of five variants, and took the live action video as template for stop motion. Here you can see him together with Edna, a few photos from the stop motion setup, and the finished sequence. Part I from III.
Stop-Motion Setup & STEPHEN FERGUSON CHAOS IMPROVISATION -2
Part II from III: I asked Stephen Ferguson to improvise for Edna’s first attempts on the piano. I chose this one of five variants, and took the “live action video” as template for stop motion. Here you can see him together with Edna, a few photos from my working table with the piano planet, and the finished sequence.
CHAOS-Objects & STEPHEN FERGUSON CHAOS IMPROVISATION -3
Part III from III: I asked Stephen Ferguson to improvise for Edna’s first attempts on the piano. I chose this one of five variants, and took the live action video as template for stop motion. Here you can see him together with Edna, a few photos from making and animating the CHAOS objects, and the finished sequence.
Making-Of Objects & STEPHEN FERGUSON STARDUST WALTZ
After all this tinkling and plonking, the massive cluster sequences, we deserve Stephen’s wonderful waltz composition. It is combined with a detail where the CHAOS turns into the ORDER of the Musical Celestial Bodies. I’m adding some photos from making the objects for this part.
Experiment with Bottles LOW — HIGH
Bigger things sound higher than smaller things – I tried to illustrate this principle with the first and simplest “musical celestial body”. Demonstrated here using blown bottles. Try it for yourself! Neither the bottles nor the celestial body are tuned in any way. The bottles can be tuned by filling them with water.
Vorvertonung & Objekt HOCH — TIEF
Making-of the pre-recording with Stephen, the construction of the object and the animation of the first “musical celestial body” for High-Low Small-Large.
Experiment Monochord OBERTÖNE
Edna helps me here to build a triad with a self-made monochord. All you need is a box, a nylon string and a bit of maths! 1:1 = fundamental note, 1:2 = octave, 1:3 fifth, 1:4 next octave, 1:5 third ... I have installed a tuning peg to tune the monochord to C. But this overtone / harmonics experiment also works without it. I used a long allen key as a bridge. Try it out!
Pre-recording & Object OVERTONES
Overtone Celestial Body: Making-of the pre-recording with Stephen, the construction of the object and the animation.
Making-Of Object INTERVALS – NEW
I have always been fascinated by the intrinsic tonal symmetry of intervals within an octave. With the development of the INTERVALS object, I wanted to do justice to this as far as possible, but found my old solution inadequate. So now a new one has been created. Unfortunately, these marvellous cardboard hemispheres are no longer produced, so I had to rely on what I could still find in my material collection. As you can see, I always fixed the glued areas with the tough but slightly elastic cotton wool balls.
Experiment INTERVALS
I have always been fascinated by the tonal symmetry of intervals within an octave. With the development of the INTERVALS object, I tried to do justice to this visually. Here are a few examples of the sounding symmetry - an octave divided into perfect unison and octave, empty sounds as it would seem; divided into minor second and major seventh, with strong friction perceived as dissonant, and divided into minor third and major sixth, two sounds perceived as consonant.
Experiment CIRCLE OF FIFTHS
∞ Circle of Fifths ∞
Pre-recording & Object CIRCLE OF FIFTHS
Making-of circle of fifths – I was incredibly excited to see whether Stephen would be able to conjure up something musical from these piled-up fifths ... here is his first improvisation, which immediately became the valid one for the film. He only briefly memorised the object beforehand, almost like an instrument. I have added some photos of the work table when it was created.
Making-Of Object SOUND CHARACTER
Making-Of sound character object. Each tone is characterised by its chromaticity – successively rising – and by its pitch – rising in octaves. I will also try a sounding experiment on this object on tonality-brightness. The colours in this object are taken from the circle of fifths, see previous postings.
I owe ideas for this and some of the following special objects mostly to information from Prof Christoph Reuter, Institute for Musicology at the University of Vienna.
Experiment SOUND CHARACTER
Sound character object on tonality-brightness experiment, with the help of Edna. Each tone is characterised by its chromaticity – successively rising – and by its pitch – rising in octaves. The colours in this object are taken from the circle of fifths, see previous postings.
I owe ideas for this and some of the following special objects mostly to information from Prof Christoph Reuter, Institute for Musicology at the University of Vienna.
Making-Of Object TONAL NET
Tonal net: Two circles of fifths twisted against each other produce diatonic major scales at their intersections. Here is a making-of of the object, with rattan (cane), hollow cardboard balls, gesso and acrylic paints.
I owe ideas for this and some of the following special objects mostly to information from Prof Christoph Reuter, Institute for Musicology at the University of Vienna.
Experiment TONAL NET
Tonal net experiment: Two circles of fifths twisted against each other produce diatonic major scales at their intersections, arranged circularly around the respective central tone.
I owe ideas for this and some of the following special objects mostly to information from Prof Christoph Reuter, Institute for Musicology at the University of Vienna.
Experiment & Objects CIRCLE OF THIRDS
Circle of thirds: An octave can also be divided regularly with other intervals. Here are two objects for minor and major thirds. The minor ones stacked on top of each other divide an octave into four parts, the major ones into three. This is the only group of objects for which styrofoam was used, as torus basic shapes – probably for making wreaths – are available ready-made. They are laminated and encased in paper.
I owe ideas for this and some of the following special objects mostly to information from Prof Christoph Reuter, Institute for Musicology at the University of Vienna.
Experiment SPIRAL OF FIFTHS
BUT: The circle of fifths, and therefore everything that relates to it, originates in the human mind. It is based on a ‘detuned’ a bit lower fifth, otherwise the circle could not be closed. Only this compromise makes a keyboard instrument such as the modern piano possible.
The stacked natural fifths would result in a spiral of fifths! I am trying to illustrate this here with keyboard versus monochord.
Making-Of TEMPLE of MELODY
Cut out of large square HDF boards with a jigsaw, the melody temple was originally supposed to have 12 steps. I thought it was too bulky and steep, so that it is now diatonic and Edna and her star friend go up a major scale. This is the only place in the film where staves appear. I happened to find this grid, probably a cake rack, with five rings for it and bent the treble clef out of wire. The ‘notes’ can be hooked in so that they touch steps and corresponding staves at the same time.