Road Apples by Tim Sanders
Jan. 24, 2011

Music and art even the deaf and blind can enjoy

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Last week we received a mailer from Jacksonville State University’s Art Department announcing an upcoming exhibition at the Hammond Hall Art Gallery. The exhibition was to feature something called “Projections and Reflections: a collaboration of music and visual art,” by Dorothy Hindman and Sally Wood Johnson.

I enjoy both art and music. Not to brag or anything, but I used to do some painting myself. I mostly did wildlife scenes, and one of my very best efforts depicts a squirrel in a very natural setting, eating a large pine cone. A good percentage of the people who’ve seen my squirrel said they would have recognized it as a squirrel even without the aviator helmet.

When it comes to music, many family members have told me they’ve never heard anything quite like my shower singing. Not long ago, in fact, some neighbors even said they wished I’d go to Nome, Alaska and sing. Apparently there are a lot of dinner theaters up there.

So, art and music lover that I am, I decided to do some Internet research on Sally Wood Johnson and Dorothy Hindman.

Sally Wood Johnson is a Birmingham artist who uses photography, models, reflective etchings, and fast Fourier transforms in her art work. I am not sure what reflective etchings and fast Fourier transforms are, but I imagine hers are very good. I read somewhere that she is inspired by the wall outside her Birmingham studio. She takes photos of the very same portion of the wall every once in a while just to get a visual record in case anybody has been fooling around with it. One photo is called “Kendra at the Wall,” and shows an Asian model sitting in front of the wall. Kendra doesn’t appear to have done the wall any damage.

Dorothy Hindman is a former professor of music composition at Birmingham Southern University. She doesn’t play any instruments herself, but she composes very deep, meaningful songs, which the music critics call “works.” She apparently has no prejudices, since she’ll compose songs for almost any instrument, including guitar, french horn, timpani, cello, and piano. She even composed one about Sally Wood Johnson’s wall, called “The Wall Calls to Me.” I haven’t heard it, but if it’s anything like one of her YouTube offerings which consists mainly of very artistically arranged clunks, thuds, doors slamming, adults muttering and children screeching, I’m sure it’s excellent.

One article I read indicated that both Ms. Johnson and Ms. Hindman are very interested in “profundity,” and another used terms like “aleatory” and “stochastic” to describe their collaboration. I looked the last two up, and discovered they were just $50 synonyms for $2 words like “accidental” or “spontaneous.” Both ladies feel that a great part of art and music should be random and unpredictable. One of the articles I read said this was because they were both influenced by John Cage.

I did not know who John Cage was, but I did know who Nicholas Cage was. I’d seen him in “Raising Arizona,” and he was fairly random and unpredictable, so I thought maybe John Cage was a close relative. I was wrong.

John Cage was a famous American musical genius who died in 1992.. One article I read described him as a “composer, philosopher, poet, music theorist, artist, printmaker ... and mushroom collector.” I think the mushrooms may explain some of his most famous compositions, like something called 4'33". The title meant Four Minutes and Thirty-Three Seconds. Cage called it that because that was how long the composition lasted. I found a video of a live TV performance of 4'33" on the Internet. The performance was given at London’s Barbican Hall to a packed crowd. The symphony orchestra members all looked very formal and sober, and the well-dressed, culturally sophisticated crowd waited expectantly for the conductor. He arrived, took his bows, turned to the orchestra, dramatically raised his baton, and then held it tightly to his chest as the orchestra sat silently for a couple of minutes.

When he finally mopped his brow, the crowd applauded appreciatively. Then he turned the page. The musicians all turned their pages, too. That was because they were ready to tackle Movement Two, which involved more silence. There were three Movements, each one involving the conductor standing still as a statue while the musicians all sat motionless. Nobody laughed, or even cracked a smile, because this was serious business. When the camera scanned the audience, there were several very serious-looking people leaning forward, cupping their chins in their hands so as not to miss a single note that wasn’t being played. I hung in there ‘til the end, hoping somebody would sneeze or snort or break wind or something, but no such luck. 4'33" was only four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence, but it seemed like an eternity to me. I didn’t see any Sousaphones in the orchestra, and maybe that’s why I didn’t care for the piece. Nothing dresses up five minutes of silence like a Sousaphone not being played. After the performance, the crowd cheered wildly and gave the conductor and the orchestra a standing ovation. I believe the announcer said it was a profound experience.

Cage was also famous for his compositions for “prepared piano,” which were pianos which had screws and bolts and other things attached to the strings at random places so as to give the listener the impression that something had broken, or fallen out of the piano in the middle of the performance. Needless to say, Cage was very popular among the avant garde in the music business.

When I was a youngster, my friend Carlton Adams and I enlivened the piano in the Middleville Baptist Church sanctuary one Sunday morning by slipping some newspaper between the hammers and the strings before the service began. It gave the first few notes of “Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow” a very honky-tonkish sound, and surprised both the congregation and the pianist, who stopped, tapped a couple more keys, and then sprinted to the back of the piano to repair the damage. Carlton and I knew we’d committed a sin, but were blissfully unaware that we’d committed avant garde “prepared piano” music.

I wish I had just a touch of sophistication. You know, the avant garde type of sophistication that puts certain people on the cutting edge of cultural change. Unfortunately, whenever I’m on the cutting edge of anything, I wind up looking for a Band Aid. So I won’t attend the “Projections & Reflections” exhibition. I’d probably hurt myself.