Music Mosaic

Little Numbers by Lambert

Careful observation let Dillard find things that surprised and moved her. She then painted a beautiful picture of what she saw and felt through her writing. Reading Seeing helped me to think deeper about things and become more present. It also helped me consider wider possibilities related to the instrumental song.

The piano rework of Little Numbers by Lambert made me think about a love story (of the same name) I read a few years ago. It reminded me of their journey as individuals and as a couple. I could see different scenes play out in my head while I listen to the song. The more I thought about it the more I related it to more fictional couples stories which is where I got my inspiration for the art.

The song starts out mellow and melancholy. It is very basic with not much going on but I think it is expressing a lot. The solo piano gives a very longing feel to the piece. This to me is each couple before they are together. Each person is alone, and feels like they are missing something. Eventually the song starts to pick up and becomes sort of a dialog between each of the parts. This is when the couple meets and gets together. Everything is happy go lucky and great but then something always happens. The music becomes melancholy and discouraging, almost more then at the beginning. Ever couple goes through their rough patch(es) but eventually decide they want to be together which is the end of the song. At this point it takes a more hopeful and upbeat tone again.

I chose to take pictures of different couples and overlay famous simple quotes each said. Even though each couple has a very different story, they all follow a similar story structure and archetype. To me, at it's simplest, it just comes down to love. The song reminded me of a more natural, muted color palette so I chose to make the pictures fit that. I felt like the basic nature of the images worked well with the song. Just because the song and the images are simple doesn’t mean they don’t say a lot though. Just like in Dillard’s writing, you can get a lot out of simple stories.