This summer, I spent a lot of time watching and filming insects in my garden. (A short excerpt is below).
The part I enjoyed most was scoring the 15 second sequence of a fly on a flower, playing marimba. First it is approached by another fly (ominous French horns over a pedal bass). It raises its wings defensively (tremolando violins), fends off an attack (timpani roll), wipes its feet (hands?) together gleefully (violin pizzicato), then resumes its marimba playing while also continuing wiping its hands of its attacker.
A few years ago, I was searching YouTube for a video to practise scoring music to. In particular, I was looking for expressive visual movements that could translate into music, a little bit like a dancer might move spontaneously to music, but the other way round.
This connection across the modes is at the heart of how non-verbal interactions between a mother (or primary care-giver) and child might occur, for example, in the way a baby’s excited arm waving might be matched in the mother’s excited tone of voice. These sorts of connections move me, it feels very human, recognising expressive connections across the modes.
The video I eventually found was called ‘Dancing leaf in the autumn forest’ and was posted back in 2014. And there’s a story behind it being filmed….but first the video.
It has a perfect set of random and natural movements; sometimes the leaf is gently swaying in the breeze, suspended presumably on a strand of spider’s web. Sometimes the breeze causes the leaf to appear to dance, sometimes the twirling and spinning speeds up, then it slows down again and starts gently rocking.
From an emotional point of view, it also carries a certain sadness to it: the leaf looks fragile, it’s a brown, dead, autumn leaf, in a damp looking forest, caught on a strand of spider’s silk….dancing alone.
I scored the music by watching it a few times, then improvising at the piano, in one take, as I watched it on screen, and responded to what I saw. Then I added some strings and woodwind (I’m a flute-player). The resulting music received, for me, the highest accolade I can get – a group of professional and student composers (on the ThinkSpace course in Chichester) said it made them want to cry. (Yes! This is my life’s ambition – to make people cry).
But the fact is, it’s a gorgeous video. Beautifully framed, filmed by someone who obviously has an an eye for the artistry of what they were witnessing. Which is why it came as no surprise that when I approached “GullwingPhoto” (who posted this video) to ask for permission to post it here, I discovered that he is a professional photographer who specialises in photographing musicians!
Guy Carpenter, the photographer, remembers filming it, saying “I…just shot with my phone while out on a run in the woods, years ago! It was rather a beautiful sight though, spinning away”.
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