Art Gallery turned video
I took it upon myself to film, edit, and write music for two art galleries held at my school.
An experimental video with a short piano improv behind it. All artwork/paintings are by Raquel Alvizures and Ross Chaney. Filmed at the 'Always Room for Rain' art exhibit at MTU.
Music piece was performed and recorded on an old Gulbransen upright piano inside the film studio, a thin, felt-like material was placed between the hammers and strings to achieve a more mellow, haunting sound.
A special thanks to ATBR (Above the Bridge Records) for letting me borrow recording equipment and helping me set it up.
Katie Hargrave explores our symbols of landscape, land use, and competing land interests in this exhibit at Michigan Tech. “It’s nothing personal (space)” touches on our private, personal, and public feelings about land. Inspired by a road trip to visit the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, which was the site of militia protests during the winter of 2016.
Music and extra little sounds all produced by an old Gulbransen piano at Tech (except for the intro and ending sounds). Special thanks to Jamie Bennet for setting up the recording equipment.
"The only people for me are the mad ones: the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who... burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles." Jack Kerouac
Narration by Will Patton
The sound behind it
At first, the piano had a nasty tinge from some of the hammers hitting the strings. Even with my foot on the damper pedal, the sound was too jarring. To fix this, I grabbed a thin fabric and placed it between the strings and the hammers. This, combined with the damper pedal, allowed for a very mellow, haunting sound.
Below are some photos of the recording session we had of an old piano. Combining the sounds of this old piano with the art that was filmed in the art-gallery came to an interesting result.
I loved this piano so much I decided to make a short solo-piano album from a 2-hour recording session. Which you can listen to here.
