Music

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

I’ve heard this piece before in the old movie “Dracula” and also in “Phantom of the Opera”. The mood this piece creates is frightening and eerie. Listening to it gives me chills and sets a very mysterious mood. This music sounds like if it came out of a horror film. The beginning of the piece seems very difficult to perform but is nicely executed by the musician.

Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.

I’m pretty familiar with this piece. I’ve heard this piece at church after mass. I also remember this piece from watching movies with church scenes in them. The instruments involved in the melody are an organ and a trumpet. The mood this piece creates is happy, gentle and in some ways calming to the soul.

Brandenburg Concert No.2.

The instruments involved in playing the individual melodies are flute, violin, harpsichord recorder, cello, base, trumpet, and an oboe. Counterpoint plays an important role in the development of this piece because the relationships between two or more rhythms are harmonically independent.

I Love Lucy-Latin Playerz

The instruments being played in this piece are tenor sax, trumpet, drum set, congas drums, bass guitar, piano, and a trombone. This performance is constructed by The Jazz Cycle. This is when all the musicians being on the same page at the start of the piece. Then the sax starts to improvise and it harmonically blends. Then the trumpet begins to improvise, after everyone improvises, they start the melody over again.

San Antonio Museum of Art

I recently visited The San Antonio Museum of Art. The Museum contained many extravagant works of art including sculptures, Asian Artifacts, American Paintings as well as Antique Silver Collections. I am a big fan of Paintings. I enjoy looking at canvas paintings, weather its pastel or oil paints on canvas, they are just beautiful to look at. A couple minutes in to the tour I became quite impatient. I had already gone through three exhibits and had not come across one painting. It was not until I walked down to the other end of the Museum where I saw so many breathtaking paintings. There were portraits, paintings of everyday life, fantasy, and even ink jet printed pieces. Looking at all the wonderful art works it was difficult to try and choose only two of all my favorites. The two pieces I chose were Dark Heart (Candy Tray Series) by Chuck Ramirez and Flesh to Earth by Lloyd Walsh. The Dark Heart is an ink jet printed piece. I noticed the ink right away; it was not colorful like a painting. It was plainly printed in black and white. The print was the inside of a large, Hershey’s chocolate heart shaped box. The interesting thing about this print was that the sections where the chocolates belong were empty. The plain colors gave me a sense of possible sadness or feelings of the end of something. That interpretation of the print is sort of dull, but if you look at the print you will not get a sense of happiness or excitement. Usually, prints like these or all artwork in general, make the viewer wonder or raise questions pertaining to the story or dialogue behind it. I wonder “Who ate the chocolates?” “For what occasion were they given for?” “Was it Valentines Day or an anniversary perhaps?” These are questions that I will not receive answers for but it is always nice to wonder and put your mind to think. I assume that not knowing the background on the print draws me more to it and find it more interesting than others. The second piece I chose was oil on canvas painting. It was Flesh to Earth by Lloyd Walsh. Like the first piece this one was also in black and white with many shades of grays for shadow and contrast. The presentation of this piece was unique. It consisted of one medium sized canvas with a large rose painted on it. Alongside of it was another medium sized canvas with a woman painted on it. This is called a diptych format used to compare contradictions between the two paintings. The rose, which had once bloomed, was slightly wilted. The woman was naked with her arms folded over her chest. The woman’s expression articulated sorrow and grief. Both of the paintings are symbols of life, but the colors, the expression on the woman’s face, and also the wilting, lifeless pedals of the flower darken the meaning of life. Again, I drew interest towards these paintings because of the mysteriousness of them. I wonder what the artist was thinking when he painted this. “Had he experienced a life changing event which he used this painting to express his inner thoughts and feelings?”

Botanical Gardens

The Bald Cypress Tree

Monarch Butterfly

I visited the Botanical Gardens this morning. It took my boyfriend and I took a while to find the entrance, which in fact was right beneath our noses the whole time. On our way in we grabbed a couple of maps just in case. The maps were color coded in numerical order. Every number represented a large insect that was hidden in the many areas of the gardens. 1: Praying Mantis; 2: Lady Bug; 3: Assassin Bug; 4: Damselfly; 5: Ants; 6: Dragon fly; 7: spider; 8: Grasshopper. Walking the path of the gardens was breath taking. There were so many different plants from The Globe Amarenth whose beautiful shades of pink contrasted with the bright green leaves of The Coco de Mer (double coconut) Tree. The scenery was amazing. All the different ecosystems had there own exhibits. I got a chance to walk the trail of The East Texas Pineywoods. I can honestly say that the environment along the trail left me speechless. I was at a loss of words when I saw the most beautiful tree I have ever seen, The Bald Cypress. It was extremely tall with nicely grown branches that lay horizontally across the stem. The leaves on the branches were brightly colored with a very light green base color which blended well with mixtures of orange and yellow shaded leaves that surrounded them. The orange and yellow are both hues of fire which gave me a sense of warmth as I walked along side them. The very natural and earthy trail formed a wide circle around a large pond. The pond looked smooth and calm except for a couple of white ducks swimming along the banks. In the center of the pond was my number 6 insect on my map. It was a large Dragon Fly floating along in the center of the pond. Overall my visit to The Botanical Gardens was not only great but educational as well.