A VIsual Reference to the Sounds of Bradley Baxter III

For my final project I have decided to portray a visual reference of the video I recorded of my dog, Bradley Baxter III playing the piano for the first time. I decided to use pen and ink for my interpretation. I listened to the one-minute video of Bradley playing the piano and closed my eyes. I wanted to portray a way to view the notes he was playing, how long he held each key, etc. I decided to go about this project by using the method of blind contour. I listened to the notes he played about twenty times and closed my eyes. Then I got a piece of paper, put my pen and ink to the page and with my eyes closed I began to move my hand across the page, up and down as I listened to notes he would play. By doing this, I exercised my ears to correspond with the movement of my hand (without the knowledge of my eyes) in response to Bradley’s melody. I found the video very interesting to watch how he reacted on the piano and the sounds he made, however I also wanted to specify the actual notes he played and how exactly he played them. The song tended to be based off of the lower tuned chords, which was interesting since of course those chords are the deepest and most dramatic of all. It was a bit difficult however interesting to make an art piece based off of the sounds of a dog on a piano for the first time. I demonstrated the blind contour drawing about six different times and each time when I opened my eyes after the song was done, I noticed a particular frequent pattern. As similar as the lines on the paper look, they are each unique in their own way. It was very therapeutic to portray art solely based off of the sounds of my pet. I felt a connection with him that I have never felt before. A deeper one, depicted by our senses of sound and art. The visual imagery was only unleashed after I opened my eyes each time. By using the blind contour method, I was able to completely focus on the sound and I simply let it take my hand wherever it decided to go across the page.

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