Tag: art

Painting Update

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Last week was our big Fine Arts Festival at school, and part of the festival included an art showcase.  The Fine Arts Department Head invited me to submit my little paintings for sale, which I happily did—all nineteen of them!

On the last night of the festival, I slashed the prices of all of my paintings, and ended up selling four that evening (“Ghostopus“; “Springtime“; “Feelin’ Froggy“; and “The Elixir of Life“).  As such. I’ve lowered all of the paintings on Bandamp to $15 accordingly (“Valenween/Franketine” is at $20, but just because I like that one so much).

I haven’t had time to work on too many paintings since the festival, but I do have a few newer ones that might be of interest to readers.

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An Acquired Taste: German Expressionism and Arnold Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire”

The Portly Politico3 Comments

In a move sure to incite riots akin to those that accompanied the premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, I’m dedicating today’s post to the bizarre German Expressionist music of Arnold Schoenberg’s atonal vocal work Pierrot Lunaire.

Before my musically conservative readers begin rioting in the comments section, let me hasten to add that, as a rule, I do not like German Expressionism outside of film.  The art movement has its moments, and I appreciate weird absurdity, but the movement is, at its core, nihilistic and anti-Beauty.  It seems to be the bitter wellspring of postmodern art, much of which is meaningless trash.  But at least the German Expressionists had technique; they knew how to make good art, but chose not to, largely as a reaction to the absurdity of the First World War.

I’m also not much of a fan of Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve-tone composing system, and the organized atonality it represents.  I just love a good chord progression too much, and generally think there is more fun (and musicality) to be had tinkering with music inside the limits of traditional tonality, rather than abandoning them entirely.

In spite of all of that, I kind of like Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire.

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Supporting Friends Friday: Son of Sonnet’s Poetry Community

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My good buddy and regular poetry contributor Son of Sonnet has some exciting news:  this Monday, 14 March 2022, he is launching his new Locals page at https://sonofsonnet.locals.com/.

Locals is a bit like SubscribeStar, but it’s more robust in terms of features, and the focus is on building up a sense of community between subscribers and the content creator.  SubscribeStar allows comments, for example, but Locals has built-in incentives to encourage more engagement, such as certain users gaining additional posting privileges and the like.

Son is going full-in with Locals, hoping to build up a community of supporters who appreciate good poetry and the culture-renewing possibilities it offers (you can read all about his mission on his “About” page; appropriately, it’s presented in the form of a poem!).

Son is setting his sights high, as he should:  he’s kicking off his foray into Locals with a special promotion he’s dubbed Race to 1000K.

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Even More Little Paintings

The Portly Politico8 Comments

I took a bit of a break from painting last week to finish up Péchés d’âge moyen, my short collection of twelve original piano miniatures, but by the time “More Little Paintings: Hearts and an Octopus” posted last week, I’d already churned out a total of fifteen of these little guys.

Rather than subject you to week after week of bizarre paintings, I figured I’d dump them all into one post:

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More Little Paintings: Hearts and an Octopus

The Portly Politico2 Comments

I’ve kept plugging away at my little paintings, and have a slate of new paintings.  This post does not feature all of them, but some of the highlights from my recent forays into primitivist doodle-painting.

I really do paint the way that I draw—poorly.  But my distinctly grotesque style seems to hold a certain charm, as I’ve already sold and/or committed to gift two of the three paintings in this little post.

Like last week’s paintings, these are done on small, 5″x7″ canvasses.  They’re very thin canvasses, but of a good quality, and they hold the acrylic paints I’m using well.  All of the materials are very basic, including the cheap brushes and paints (which are leftover from the TJC Spring Jam), but they work perfectly for what I am doing.

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Little Paintings

The Portly Politico12 Comments

As last Tuesday’s post suggests, I’ve really been getting into small forms of art:  miniatures.  Short musical pieces are fun to compose, and can be dashed off (and, hopefully, recorded) in mere minutes.

I’ve also always been a lover of bric-a-brac—little tiny figurines and collectibles and the like—and am drawn to them in part because of their tiny size.  I have a random assortment of such bric-a-brac on my desk at this very moment—an R2-D2 figurine; a little pumpkin finger puppet; a LEGO Han Solo; a little ghost—and have other little figurines in various places in my home.

Not surprisingly, I’ve also come to really enjoy small paintings.

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Supporting Friends Friday: The Birds of Mariella Hunt

The Portly Politico2 Comments

As I’ve noted many times before, one of the joys of blogging is discovering other writers’ work.  As I’ve steered this blog in an increasingly arts-and-culture-focused direction, I’ve stumbled upon some excellent creators of all stripes—writers, musicians, illustrators, poets, etc.  What I’m beginning to realize is that we’re all part of a wider network (I mean, besides the Internet), and the connections were just there waiting to be made.

At least, it feels like that sometime.  That’s certainly how it feels with the subject of this week’s Support Friends Friday, the talented artist Mariella Hunt.

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Supporting Friends Friday: Andrea the Illustrator

The Portly Politico9 Comments

As I’ve surely mentioned elsewhere, one of the joys of blogging is the opportunity to discover the work of other bloggers.  There are a lot of blogs out there, and in the few years I’ve been writing daily, I’ve been fortunate to stumble upon some real gems.

One particularly adorable gem is children’s book illustrator and writer Andrea Benko‘s blog, Andrea, Children’s Book Illustrator.  She very smartly obtained the URL “edoodless.wordpress.com” (yes, there is a second “S” in the URL; some scoundrel took “edoodles.wordpress.com” and is doing nothing with it), and that’s what she does:  doodles.

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TBT^2: Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony

The Portly Politico4 Comments

One of the many benefits of teaching music is (re)discovering beloved favorite works.  During last week’s round of distance learning, I had to pull out some of the classics.  If we’re going to sit on a Google Meet call, let’s listen to some music, not just talk about it.

I really love programmatic music—instrumental music that tells a story, often accompanied by program notes explaining (usually very briefly) what the listener is supposed to hear in the musical “story.”  Students often like to imagine their own stories when listening to instrumental music, which is great, but I find that programmatic works give students (and myself!) some guideposts to follow.

Fortunately, Ludwig von Beethoven provided some handy ones for us in his Sixth Symphony, quite possibly my favorite symphony, and certainly my favorite of Beethoven’s.  It’s the so-called “Pastoral” symphony, as it depicts a pleasant trip to the country (besides the roiling thunderstorm in the fourth movement).

It’s also unusual in two respects:  instead of the standard four movements of the classical symphony (a fast opening movement, a slow second movement, a dancelike third movement, and a fast fourth movement), Beethoven includes five; and the third, fourth, and fifth movements all flow seamlessly into one another, without the customary pause between each.

It is also long, especially by the standards of the classical symphony (the Romantics, however, would have easily matched Beethoven for runtime), clocking in at nearly forty-five minutes (the typical classical symphony averages around twenty-five-to-thirty minutes, but forty-five would have been the upper limit for the time).  But that length is in service to Beethoven’s vision, and he fully explores every theme in this symphony.

Here is a particularly excellent performance—the one I showed, in part, to my classes last week—by the Berlin Philharmonic, under the direction of Bernard Haitnik:

https://youtu.be/9ORsinmqm0M

With that, here is 4 February 2021’s “TBT: Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony“:

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December Bandcamp Friday

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Yep, it’s my monthly Bandamp Friday post!  I know it’s not the most exciting post in the world, but, by God, I’ve gotta try.  Can you blame me?  It being the holiday season, there’s never been a better time to buy my music, my merch, or my book.  Read on.

It’s the first Friday of December, which means it’s another Bandcamp Friday! That means it’s the best possible time to purchase my music.  Indeed, my entire discography (seven albums!) is just $19.98, a whopping 35% discount (just £15.01 as of 30 November 2021, according to Bing, for my British readers).  That’s $2.85 (£2.14) per release, the kind of deal you only get on cassette tapes at the gas station (or from yours portly!).

It’s also a great time to pick up my debut book, The One-Minute Mysteries of Inspector Gerard: The Ultimate Flatfoot.  It’s just $10 (and available in Britain, too).  Christmas is approaching, and with Christmas comes parties—and what self-respecting doesn’t have a White Elephant gift exchange?  Those almost always call for a $10 gift, and you’d definitely have one of the oddest contributions at the party.

For that matter, why not buy four or five copies to hand out as stocking stuffers to your friends?

Bandcamp began doing Bandcamp Fridays during The Age of The Virus, when most musicians (myself included) witnessed a catastrophic drop in their revenue.  Venues closed or stopped live music; parents withdrew students from one-on-one lessons; and private parties were cancelled, meaning fewer of those lucrative gigs.  Also, fewer live performances meant fewer royalties for songwriters.  It’s only $10

Fortunately, that situation is improving, and people are eager to get out and hear live music again.  Still, pitching in a few bucks helps immensely—and you get some good music in the process, too!

So, on with the sales pitch!  Here are my seven releases, in chronological order:

  • Electrock Music (2006, $5) – Twelve tracks from my senior year of college, all instrumental MIDI tunes.  I gave physical copies to my Fiction Writing Workshop class; I wonder if they still have those little homemade copies.
  • Electrock II: Space Rock (2007, $7) – I’m obsessed with the idea of the sci-fi rock opera (I actually tried to write one for piano and vocals back in 2012-2013, but never finished it)—it’s the most decadent, self-indulgent form of musical expression.  That was the driving spirit behind this rockin’ collection of out-of-this-world jams.
  • Electrock EP: The Four Unicorns of the Apocalypse (2012, $4) – My younger brother introduced me to a song call “Biomachinery” by some melodic death metal band, and the rhythm of that word inspired the lead-off track of this four-song cycle, “Cyborg Unicorn.”  Of course, the instrumental chorus of that track is basically Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll,” so it’s true what they say:  composers swipe from each other all the time.
  • Electrock Retrospective, Volume I: Dance Party (2013, $3.60) – I had a number of tracks stored up for a never-completed Electrock III, so I thought I would begin dribbling them out as part of repackaged “retrospectives.”  This first one, Dance Party, features “Robobop,” which is also a perk for $5 subscribers to my SubscribeStar page.
  • Electrock Retrospective, Volume II: Technological Romance (2013, $2.14) – Technological Romance features “Pwrblld (Ballad II)“—with apologies to Chicago’s “You’re the Inspiration.”
  • Contest Winner EP (2015, $5) – This album is my tour de force.  I recorded it in a real-life studio, overdubbing my vocals with my piano part.  It was an amazing experience, and these tunes are staples of my live shows (especially fan favorites “Hipster Girl Next Door” and “Greek Fair“).
  • The Lo-Fi Hymnal (2020, $4) – I started playing piano at my little Free Will Baptist Church a couple of years ago, and I began taking little recordings of offertory, invitational, etc.  I compiled the four very lo-fi recordings into a short compilation.  I’m hoping to record a second volume at some point.

An easy (and free) way to support me is to “follow” my Bandcamp page and my Amazon author page.  I post updates about new merchandise, new music, and other interesting offers about once a month to the Bandcamp page, and new books will pop up on my Amazon page as they’re published.  It’s a good way to keep up with the latest news on my musical adventures.

Another free way to support me is to turn off your ad-blocker.  The site delivers several thousand ad impressions monthly, but most of those are blocked, which means they don’t pay out.  You can usually find the ad-blocker as a little widget or icon in the upper-right-hand side of your browser; click on it and it will usually give you the option to “pause” or stop the blocker from running on this site.  I know ads are annoying, but seeing a few DuckDuckGo ads helps out in an incremental way.

Even if none of that entices you, no worries!  I’m just glad to have you here, reading my self-indulgent garbage and my lengthy advertisement posts.

Happy Friday!

—TPP