Bryce Bolick 2014 TMA 112 blog: The Blue Marble to Rachmaninoff Prelude in g minor op. 23

Rachmaninoff Prelude in g minor op. 23 #5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QB7ugJnHgs

I shut my eyes and listened to the prelude for the first time. Through my temporary blindness, I focused on what my mind's eye instinctively produced. I attempted to envision what Annie Dillard described as "the Eden before Adam gave things names."

The rapid tempo, and the up and down of the notes in the beginning put butterflies in my stomach. They were the sort of butterflies that have come to me as I've drifted on waves of the ocean, or driven over the top of a hill pretty fast. The bouncy, bright thought of bobbing around in the water influenced the image of the Blue Marble soaring around in a sea of wavy blue lines.

The Blue Marble sails randomly

through wisps of blue.

As the song progresses, musical phrases compete with one another. Most of the notes move cheerfully up the piano, but heavier, more ominous notes interrupt the musical progression and drag tone down an octave or two.

To illustrate this abrupt contrast, I introduced a second character to the story: the Red Icosagon. The Icosagon is made up of rigid, intentional, angular lines. This create a more intense, less whimsical appearance than the happy little Marble that sails through rolling blue curves, and emphasizes the conflict in the music.

The red lines blocks the Blue Marble's path

as well as drawing the viewers' eye to the

Red Icosagon.

As the conflict continues, the contrast between

lines and colors become more apparent.

Eventually, the music becomes more lethargic, dark, and subdued. No soaring images came into my head. Instead a mournful little Marble whose dreams failed hom sat isolated on the ground.

If this were Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, these mournful echoing notes would be played in the “belly of the beast”. To represent the dejected and defeated tone of the music, I created images that showed our curved hero weighed down in a polygonal prison. As the occasional high note resonated amid the lower keys, I became aware that the hero of this story must be very wistful. To illustrate this, I continued to use the curved lines, which the Blue Marble has an affinity for, but put them beyond its reach.

After its defeat, our hero looks back upon better days

while trapped within an unfamiliar world. Eventually,

it must find its way to finish the fight.

Gradually, the music regains its original tempo, tone, and vigor, and the Blue Marble finds its way out of the psychological maze. It regains its ground and after many musical clashes, the Marble spirals upward victorious on a brighter note.

Straight and curved lines battle ferociously as

the different musical phrases compete for the spotlight.

Finally, to represent the outcome of the battles (the Marble's defeat, and then triumph) I employed the use of the Golden Mean. The Golden mean is an aesthetically pleasing ratio (approximately 1 to 1.62) that the Greeks observed. It’s commonly used in architecture and found naturally in the world around us.