Category: Storytelling

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Elephant Concert

“You give something away” composed, performed, and recorded on two tracks for guitar and clarinet by Sanford Bender
“Elephant Concert: Performance” Brush, pen and ink painted storyboard by Sanford Bender

“Elephant Concert” originated during an animation course that I participated in in the early 1980’s. The original film was created with colored paints on celluloid. The story was about an elephant man who plays his cello while sounding the clarinet-like melody through his trunk. The unappreciative audience soon becomes unruly and resorts to heckling as an expression of their ignorance.

The original music was played on violin and clarinet. The current music composed for clarinet and guitar heartily welcomes an improvised or composed violoncello part to play along with the guitar and clarinet.

“Elephant Concert: Escape” Brush, pen and ink painted storyboard by Sanford Bender

The emotionally upset performers quickly make their exit from the intolerant city. The elephant man leaps upon his bicycle and pedals furiously as his companion, the violoncello skips alongside.

“Elephant Concert: Consolation” Brush, pen, watercolor and ink painted storyboard by Sanford Bender

The duo finally finds consolation after a well deserved rest in the countryside. Their appetites will soon be appeased as they gaze into the aromatic delicatessen that will soon be opening for business.

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The Sand Dollar

“The Sand Dollar” collected and photographed by Sanford Bender on June 15, 2021.
“The Sand Dollar”, a poem written on July 10, 2010, with music sung and accompanied with acoustic guitar by Sanford Bender on June 25, 2015

The Sand Dollar

Walking around the curve of beach

The light house still far to the west

Out over seemingly endless dunes

An infinite distance reminding me

Of the poet who observed that

Beyond mountains

Were more mountains,

Soon after my companion turned back

I accepted the futility of continuing

But in my turning around

Circumventing the ocean’s horizon

Looked down upon a treasure trove of shells

Glittering beneath my feet,

There in the curls of seaweed

I found a sand dollar

Smooth and round

Ten pine like needles radiating

The image of the moon

Which would soon appear

Over the darkening sea

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Not from where I came

“Not from where I came” was painted with watercolor and gouache by Sanford Bender in 1985.

I played banjo more than guitar for a while since I especially enjoyed its mirthful and spontaneous independence. This instrument could provide enlightened commentaries on the most tragic and haunting occurrences of lost love, betrayal, revenge, murder, and perhaps even evoke valor and the emergence of integrity.

“Not from where I came” was played and recorded on May 5, 2021 with one track of acoustic guitar with metal slide, and then improvised over with a second track of five-string banjo.

This music for guitar with slide and five-string banjo is reminiscent of traditional ballads travelling from place to place like fairy tales with subtly changing variations over a common theme; only to alight into my own imagination as another powerful resource fueling my creativity.