Music Lesson In a Tree

[bunn]

It was little Celegorm’s idea that Cousin Fingon’s music lesson should take place in a tree.  It’s possibly not the least distracting place to have a music lesson.   Fingon and Maglor are playing Anglo-saxon style harps (hearpe) which are much more practical for climbing trees (or Thangorodrim) with than a modern harp would be.  Fingon is playing a jewelled silver hearpe, which Maglor rather disapproves of (I decided that Maglor should disapprove of silver harps when I remembered that Elrond's harp at the end of Lord of the Rings is silver.  That might not make sense, but hey.)

I have decided that the auto settings do a better job of photographing paintings than I do manually. This was taken with a 28mm manual focus lens, and the 'landscape' camera mode.

As usual, I liked the pencil sketch of the faces better than the final painted version:

Comments

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

That's a terrific picture. So much characterization. Of course, since I have a personal thing for roughneck little boys I love Celegorm dangling upside-down! Nice concept for the harps also. Those would work.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I feel a thing like that is something you could reasonably carry in a backpack. Apparently they are quite good about staying tuned for a couple of weeks, too, you don't need to constantly retune them.

I was looking for child models to be Celegorm, saw that one and thought YUP that's him! :-D

[timetiger.livejournal.com]

They seem to be having a good time, as well they should. It's good to see a summer scene, and the tree looks most treeish and texturey.

I'm lookng forward to exploring the Anglo-Saxon site. I enjoyed the little harp video.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

But it is fascinating to hear the sound of an instrument so old, even if the music is a guess and I would guess perhaps a number of the construction techniques too.

I'm sure I learned at university that Anglo-Saxon music was very limited in terms of tone and range, and I can remember reading that and thinking: hmm, says who??? :-D

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

I love this. Fabulous arrangement, and wonderful forest light!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Still not quite as I would wish, but moving in the right direction, I think.

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

That's very sweet!

This is a very interesting thing, a Myanmar harp, which I saw and heard played recently. THe modern version has tuning pegs, but the original uses a complicated system of knotted string.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKd8aAXP57Q

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that does look complicated to tune! I wonder what the strings are made of, they don't look like the usual synthetics.

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

Cotton, usually. The main body is wood, but the bit on top that forms the soundboard is deer-skin or ox-hide.

[ylla.livejournal.com]

Because of course a tree is where a music lesson should be.

I wonder how elves think of childhood - is it something that passes over for them the way a brief illness might for us?

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I think Tolkien elves are supposed to have quite long childhoods - a hundred years or so - but their minds grow faster. Probably they don't have a spotty awkward adolescent phase, the bastards!

[hhimring]

I love this.
All of it, but especially how Fingon is turning around and his expression.

Just coincidentally, I came across the set of relevant Quenya words yesterday, the words for harp, little harp, harp music.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I have in mind to practice my figure-painting with a series showing each of Finwe's grandchildren showing up (I had to make up the order since we only get birthdates for half of them of course.) The next are Turgon & Finrod, who do seem to have birth dates and I had not realised were born the same year.

If I do this, the last one will be of them both standing in two groups glaring while in the background Feanor holds a sword to Fingolfin.