Weekthings

Here is a breakdown for a still from Spirited Away. It’s a quick, blink-and-you’ll-miss it moment when Chihiro and Haku are discovered at the end of the bridge as he is trying to break her into the bathhouse. When the spell that he has cast upon her is broken and the employees discover there is a human in their midst, he takes her hand and they fly by everyone’s ankles, making the skirts of some employees fly in the wind a la Marilyn Monroe. It is one of my favorite, not really important moments in the movie.

Here is my painting breakdown for my Pom Poko painting!

In school we did a project where we interpreted a poem through art. Here is the explanation for the song I created.

X Poem: In Memoriam A. H. HY. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 126

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Stanza:

And hear at times a sentinel

         Who moves about from place to place,

         And whispers to the worlds of space,

In the deep night, that all is well.

When reading this stanza, I thought of the sentinel mentioned in the first line as the moon because it moves across the sky “…from place to place/ … In the deep night” (Tennyson 10-12). Using this imagery of the moon moving across the sky, I decided to create a piece that adds layers to represent the moon waxing and rising across the sky. The song starts out with a simple chord and melody pattern and adds a new layer such as guitar or more piano every 8 measures. Eventually these layers are stripped back to just the piano melody and a simple guitar line, representing the waning and setting of the moon. Another part of the stanza that stuck out to me was the phrase, “And whispers to the worlds of space,/ In the deep night, that all is well.” (Tennyson 11-12). I used a simple melody that stays consistent throughout the song to represent the moon’s whisper that “…all is well” (Tennyson 12), using a soothing 3 note walkdown to mimic the three syllables in the phrase “all is well” with sonically pleasing intervals. Beyond the melodic structure of the song, the tempo and tone are very relaxed to represent the calm imagery of the moon moving across the sky at night. Through my use of simple instrumentation, melodic structure, and layering, I was able to recreate in my mind the image of the silent sentinel watching over the world at night, moving across the world and telling everyone that all is well.

I’ve been working on my website and it is finally finished! Check it out and share it if you like.

https://jaymieinouye.com

We have been trying to hit the trail weekly. Shenandoah National Park is still closed and they are not letting people on the Appalachian Trail, so we have been visiting the trails in the state parks (but you have to get there early before the parking lots fill up!). We have especially enjoyed seeing the Shenandoah River from near and afar. Here’s some footage from our most recent hikes: Veach Gap in George Washington National Forest, Sky Meadows State Park, Shenandoah River State Park and the High Knob Fire Tower trail.

I used KdenLive as my editing tool.