My music-as-color paintings are hitting the road again, this time appearing at InLiquid @ Crane Arts. Opening reception will be Thursday, April 13 from 6-9pm, and the show will run through May 28. I’ll be exhibiting my “Well-Tempered Clavier” and “Mikrokosmos” series; Bach’s first Cello Suite, Fugue in C Major, and Chaconne; several Chord Progressions; and a large-scale textile work of a Two-Part Invention. Hope to see you there!
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Melinda Steffy
The Score Is Not the Music
April 13–May 28, 2017
reception April 13 from 6-9pm
InLiquid @ Crane Arts, The Hall
1400 N. American St., Philadelphia, PA
inliquid.org
Artist Statement
The maxim “the score is not the music” suggests that music notation printed on a page is a poor substitute for the sound of the music itself. Printed notes are sterile, an alphabet that allows a musician to produce the right pitches, but which must be interpreted and expanded to be meaningful. If the score—a visual tool—lacks some necessary quality of the music, how else might music be visually conveyed that might better capture its essence?
As both a visual artist and musician, I have long been fascinated by this question and have been seeking ways to connect visual and musical languages. In this series of work, I have matched the 12 notes of the chromatic scale with 12 hues on a color wheel. Using mathematical constructs like grids and pie charts, I have translated masterworks by composers J.S. Bach and Béla Bartók into vibrant color patterns. The music, usually time-based and heard in sequence, becomes spatial, able to be seen all at once. Unexpected patterns emerge, revealing the complexity inherent in the music.
In the way that live performance has richness that recorded or computer-generated sound does not—with variations of tone, dynamics and energy—I have chosen to work with deliberate, often tedious hand processes. The inevitable imperfections contribute to the feeling that this is music, rather than merely a printed score.
