Beethoven was invariably angry when asked to explain the meaning if his music: first, he thought and hoped that the meaning was perfectly clear, and second, he was afraid that his poetic idea would be misinterpreted as a program of which the music was a mere description.

This does not mean that a composer's feelings are nebulous: Mendelsohn wrote in 1842, 'the thoughts which are expressed to me by a piece of music are not too indefinite to be put into words, but on the contrary too definite.'


*and here is one of the subject from my dissertation.. I will have one year to write about the communication in music. Of course, that was my choice. This subject is something that I was absolutely convinced before about how hard was to explain in words what I said with music, know I will have the whole year to depict little by little for finally confusing more and more what is obviously pretty clear.

Guitare à crayon

Guitare à crayon (close-up) from psc patrick sébastien coulombe

The idea behind “la Guitare à crayon” is to be able to paint and play music with the same instrument (crayon mean pencil in english). It’s a custom usb guitar with open source software: namely, pure data (for sound) and gimp, blender, flash (for visual).

more information about this project: http://www.workinprogress.ca/guitare-a-crayon/

schlaraffenland

schlaraffenland is where we live or how...

"schlaraffenland is where we are going to live!" announced Johan.
"we should run from Europe now, the things are getting worst here!" affirmed him in 1930… so all his daughters (six on that time) went to Brazil to escape from troubles…

This film is a compilation and edition of super-8 rolls of films from trip and memories of Elsa Ekke, one of his daughters; they were seven in the total including my grandmother Alma. All the family went to south of Brazil hopping to run away from possible troubles of the second war, however they found there others... Ounce, snakes, poverty, different culture and language; schlaraffenland could be a paradise, but was hard to achieve.

At least not impossible!
Elsa Ekke had a successful career as a singer at the radios in Rio de Janeiro!.My grandma built up with my grandfather (Irmaos Levitan) a wonderful mini-world from their memories and imagination in the garden of Ipanema at Porto Alegre. Therefore, they could set a new life and a new way of living in south of Brazil; was not easy, but was possible. Not fast, but it ends up as magical.

This is my homage for tia Elsa, who is a fantastic singer and wonderful person!! She taught me how to sing and how incredible is to learn. Never is time to stop! Never indeed…
She was born in 08 August 1918.

My desire now is to edit the new videos from her 91 birthday party, where she beautifully sang with the rest of the family! This video was my birthday gift for her.
Lots of love, Cari


edited by Carina Levitan
music by Irmaos Levitan and Elsa Ekke
filmed by Elsa Ekke's family

guitar solo

someone lost a guitar by the street of Liverpool Street Station...