YPGTTO: Kingdoms Of Sound Speed Paint Challenge #3 The Woodwind City / The Oboe District

Kingdoms Of Sound Speed Paint Challenge #3
The Woodwind City / The Oboe District

Oboe: a double reed instrument in the woodwind family, is one of the most beautiful, important, and unique musical instruments. With a long history dating back as far as ancient Greece, it has developed through the centuries into one of the most challenging and distinct instruments in the modern orchestra.

The oboe can be found in many types of musical ensembles, including the orchestra, symphonic band, woodwind quintet, and other chamber music combinations. It is often heard in movie and television soundtracks and can even be heard in jazz and popular music. In the orchestra, the oboist plays a very important role. The oboe section sits in the center of the orchestra next to the flute section. It is the job of the principal oboist to tune the orchestra to an A at the beginning of each concert. The other key role of the oboe is that it usually carries the melody with its lyrical and mournful color, often heard as the solo instrument in the most emotional sections of music. Composers like to use the oboe in more exotic passages of music, as the nasal tone of oboe can give it an oriental quality that lends itself nicely to this type of music.

The sound of an oboe is a distinct, nasally sound which can be smooth and lulling, or short and whimsical. The tone of the oboe is distinct from the texture of all the other instruments in the orchestra, which makes it a popular solo instrument.

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.

We do want to get a sense of spaces and places - of being 'within' these various districts of our Kingdom Of Sound.

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 3 : The Oboe 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 oboe: clear, bright, penetrating, acerbic, keen, biting, rasping, reedy, powerful, robust, full, insistent.

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

Need more inspiration? Visit the original YPGTTO brief here.

YPGTTO Kingdoms Of Sound Speed Paint Challenge 1 & 2 / Showcase

The Flute District / Dee Crisbacher

YPGTTO Kingdoms Of Sound Speed Paint Challenge 1 & 2 

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.

YPGTTO: Kingdoms Of Sound Speed Paint Challenge #1 'The Map'

The Kingdoms Of Sound Speed Paint Challenge #1 The Map

This first section of the music introduces the main theme of Britten's YPGTTO, which is later revisited - and broken down -  by the various different instruments as the piece continues.  In this way, the first section introduces us to the foundation of the work that follows - the complete terrain we will later explore in more detail.  It is rather like being shown the complete schematic of our 'Kingdom of Sound' - the overall blueprint or 'city-plan' or outline, which will be 'built' and explored as the animation continues. We don't want to get into the specific details too much here or show now what we'll be showing later, so your job as concept artists is to listen to the music and visualise dynamic and creative ways of introducing audiences to 'the map' of our 'Kingdom of Sound'.

The sheet music for YPGTTO - is this 'the map' for the Kingdom Of Sound?

An orchestra in plan form...

A compass?

A map?

An orrery?

The starchart from Prometheus

Holographic schematics from Iron Man

'The Map' word cloud

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 1 : The Map

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. It is more than likely that your paintings will be exhibited as part of the ongoing collaboration with ONE.

Now let the music itself 'art direct' your response.  Does the music suggest something grand and regal, something glorious and triumphant?  Maybe you'll need to create a sequence of speed paints to best capture the way the music is making you feel at different times?  I can't wait to see what you're seeing as you listen to this first musical extract!  Have fun and be creative.

Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra Op 34 / Theme / Benjamin Britten

FAO CAA Yr 1, 2 & 3: YPGTTO Kingdoms Of Sound Speed Paint Challenge / Briefing

Cast your minds back to the beginning of term one when you were introduced to Rose Lowry, the Orchestra Network for Europe, and Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra. Britten's YPGTTO is a guided tour of the musical instruments comprising an orchestra, and CAA has been challenged to create an animation to be screened live alongside performances of Britten's piece.

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

We don't know very much yet about this project (that's where you come in!), but there is one thing that has been clear from the beginning; the idea of the orchestra as a 'Kingdom Of Sound'.

Orchestra layout

Soane Office Royal Academy Lecture drawing plan of the colosseum, Rome

Eliel Saarinen / Tallinn City Plan

Britten's YPGTTO breaks down into 15 separate sections:

1. Theme
2. Flutes
3. Oboes
4. Clarinets
5. Bassoons
6. Violins
7. Violas
8. Cellos
9. Double Basses
10. Harp
11. Horns
12. Trumpets
13. Trombones & Tubas
14. Percussion
15. Fugue

For the purposes of this project, we're going to break things down a little further.  We're going to imagine that YPGTTO represents a 'Kingdom of Sound' and its various individual movements represent different provinces or realms.

1. Introducing 'The Map' Of The Kingdom Of Sound

'The Woodwind City'
2. The Flute District
3. The Oboe District
4. The Clarinet District
5. The Bassoon District

'The String City'
6. The Violin District
7. The Viola District
8. The Cello District
9. The Double Base District
10. The Harp District

'The Brass City'
11. The Horn District
12. The Trumpet District
13. The Trombone & Tuba District

14. The Percussion City

15. The Kingdom Of Sound.

Game Of Thrones opening titles

Metropolis / Fritz Lang 

New York City / The Fifth Element / Luc Besson

Coruscant / Attack Of The Clones / George Lucas

Animusic

Over a period of a few weeks, you will be challenged to produce concept paintings in response to segments of music featured on the CAA group blog and the accompanying influence maps.  These tasks will take the form of 'Speed Paint Challenges'.  We're not expecting you to lavish hours of your precious time on these paintings; we're after your impressions.  Essentially, we're crowd-sourcing the art direction for the YPGTTO animation and we want to be spoiled for choice!

Look for the YPGTTO Speed Paint Challenge icon on your blogger dashboard, check out the visual references provided, listen to the musical extract accompanying it - and then respond visually through the creation of an original digital painting - or paintings. 

La Création du monde Speed Paint Challenge / ACT / 2013

You can listen to the extract as many times as you like. We want you to respond instinctively, quickly and fearlessly. 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 each instrument group - and the moods evoked by the music extract itself.

You might want to think of the relationship between the group of instruments and the musical extract in the following way: the structure, shapes, mechanisms and movement of the instruments give you your vocabulary of architectural components, and the music extract is giving you the art direction (i.e. the mood, colour palette, composition etc.)

Keep the idea of the 'kingdom of sound' in your mind while you're listening and visualising - the idea of the orchestra as a vast realm of connected cities, and the instruments as architecture or architectural, and/or associating with components of the metropolis.

Remember, cities are busy, dynamic places, so where appropriate, consider how your responses might reflect the activity of the instruments themselves; the plucking of strings, the strident back and forth of the violin bow, the impact of the kettle drums.  How might these actions align with our expectations of a busy city? Consider, for example, the work of the Futurists, who sought to convey the excitement of metropolis though colour, repetition and the pictorial impression of movement and speed.

The Revolt / Luigi Russolo / 1911

 La Forza della Curva / Tullio Crali / 1930

Espansione Dinamica /  Giacomo Balla / 1913

The key thing we're looking to create is a sense of the epic, of scale, and immersion.  Note: we're not going for photorealism, but we are pushing for a sense of the cinematic.

As acknowledged, our exact methodology for creating the required seventeen minutes of animation is yet to be determined, but we're interested in exploring the possibilities of perspective projection mapping as a means to create this fully immersive experience - i.e. using your digital paintings themselves as imagery within the final animation.

Perspective Projection Mapping / Ethan Shilling

So, watch for the YPGTTO icon to appear on the group blog: your first Kingdoms of Sound Speedpaint Challenge goes live on Sunday 21st February.  We're very excited to see how you respond.