North Florida Pictures: Shadows

Friday, May 13, 2016

Crab music, Ponte Vedra Beach

A fairly long explanation and a call for help from a music reader. Years ago I went to see Emmet Gowin give a talk about Frederick Sommer. Sommer was a wonderful artist who made incredible photographs, painted and generally experimented with any medium he could. A friend showed him the score of a symphony and he was taken by the beauty of the notes and lines. Thus inspired, he either drew or painted some fairly abstract scores (he had no knowledge of writing music). Another friend, a musician, decided to play the art and it, apparently, sounded like music. I am wildly paraphrasing here. This is all from a lecture from 40 years ago. Anyway, a few years later we went to a Sommer exhibit at a museum and met the man. He was in his eighties, vital, active and interested in everything he saw or heard. A real treat.

Anyway, I have always loved sand patterns and these crab tracks reminded me of music, then Sommer, then the story. I look at them and imagine the music would be very crablike, scurrying and percussive. Maybe a musician out there could see what it would sound like.