YPGTTO: Kingdoms Of Sound Speed Paint Challenge #2 / In The Woodwind City - The Flute District

Kingdoms Of Sound Speed Paint Challenge #2

In The Woodwind City - The Flute District

Flute: a wind instrument made from a tube with holes that are stopped by the fingers or keys, held vertically or horizontally (in which case it is also called a transverse flute) so that the player's breath strikes a narrow edge. The modern orchestral form is a transverse flute, typically made of metal, with an elaborate set of keys.

As well as being capable of extreme virtuosity the flute can create beautiful sustained melodies. It also blends perfectly with all instruments and spends much of its time providing background colour to foreground activity elsewhere in the orchestra.

The flute is the highest pitched instrument of the woodwind section.

"Of all the wind instruments, the flute can do the most things the most easily. A fine performer on a flute can dash up a scale and down again so quickly that our ears cannot separate the notes. A flutist can skip and jump from note to note so lightly that the music reminds us of the quickness of a rabbit or of a gazelle. He can swoop and turn and trill the notes until we think that we are hearing a bird. Musicians say that a flute can do anything!" Jean Craig

The Flute word cloud

You can listen to the extract (below) as many times as you like. We don't want literal images of the instruments associated with the extracts, but we do want your concept paintings to associate with the shapes, forms, structures, mechanisms, colours and special characteristics of the specific instrument - and the moods evoked by the music extract itself.

Think of the relationship between the instrument and the extract in the following way: the structure, shapes, mechanisms and movement of the instrument gives you your vocabulary of architectural components, and the music extract gives you the art direction (i.e. the mood, colour palette, composition etc.)

In regards to setting up your speed paints in Photoshop - a few basic rules: can you ensure you're working at the following settings: 2560 pixels x 1440 pixels / 300dpi.

Feel free to go even more panoramic if your vision demands it and feel free to flip between landscape and portrait as your imagination requires.  Once you've completed your digital painting(s), can you upload it to your blog entitled YPGTTO Speed Paint Challenge, and include the number and title of the challenge too:  YPGTTO Speed Paint Challenge 2 : The Flute District

Please can you keep all your original Speed Paint files safe and sound in a folder, as I'll be collecting them in as an archive of the project at the end of the challenge. 

"The flute resists your breath in a necessary way; the whistle offers no resistance and the breathing is very different. But, gradually, you start to get a buzz. You learn to 'fill' the flute. You feel the flute vibrate when it is warm, and the little coin-columns of air stacked beneath your fingertips dance up and down like mercury thermometers, all registering different bouncy volatiles of temperature. The sound begins to carry, to lift and it's surprising how a flute carries... it's the voice you hear above the box and fiddles and pipes and guitars." Ciaran Carson.

Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra, Op. 34 - Flutes / Benjamin Britten

Need more inspiration? Visit the original YPGTTO brief here.