She runs through my mind like an apparition
Serenade
This artwork came about during my fine artist days in Manhattan, while I was attending both New York University and the Art Students League of New York. I was also studying music in the former institution which required an explanation in a master’s degree thesis of how art and music may be interrelated. My research included biographical as well as theoretical investigations into the paintings of Wassily Kandinsky and the musical compositions of Arnold Schoenberg, both of whom found inspiration within the interplay between painting (and drawing) and music. In my case, I found expression and solace in the practice of both mediums, whether or not I could describe rationally the necessity of dual participation. Although art is primarily associated with the visual sense and music with the aural sense, they both share commonality in the tactile sense.
This musical composition includes guitar, my primary instrument, banjo, a secondary plucked string instrument, and concertina, the most recent wind (bellows) instrument in my musical arsenal. “Serenade for guitar, banjo, and concertina” is reminiscent of various styles in jazz, blues, folk, and classical music. The music came together in this manner through improvisation and just hit the right spot for me.
Creekside
I just bought a 40-button “Anglo” concertina a week ago. Wind instruments operated with bellows and their “old world” sound had intrigued me for quite a while. I was also fascinated by the difference of this instrument from the harmonica and clarinet where I have to rely on breathing and embouchure. Producing the joyful or wistful sound of a concertina would however, require the dexterity and theoretical understanding of pressing buttons on each side while pulling and pushing the bellows in rhythmic time. The painting “Creekside”, seemed appropriate to the music in its depiction of a meandering stream flowing through its carved channel of forested and stone armored embankment.
Shells
Recovery and Relief (Sea Mountains)
A brief passion
“A Brief Passion”
A passion can pass,
In a twinkle of an eye,
A leeward glance,
A breath and a sigh,
Inhaled fragrance,
With luster of jade,
Horizons of memories,
That never fade.
Sanford R. Bender April 19, 2021
A lull in the battle
My drawings of Cathedrale Notre-Dame d’Amiens from the thirteenth century were drawn while researching Gothic architecture, and how cathedrals in France were being constructed with arches, vaulted ceilings, flying buttresses, and stained glass windows. After drawing the horizontal and vertical lines of the structure with straight edge and triangle, I soon became entranced and astonished by how consecutive arcs drawn with a compass established a rhythm that appeared to dance gracefully across the page. The visual motion of the arcade struck me deeply as being musical, my other passion. The original guitar composition, “A lull in the battle”, inspired by medieval music, is what I imagined as being evocative of an exhausted knight pausing from battle, only to reflect and mourn a bygone romance.
Not from where I came
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.
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.
Moon Cats outside my Window
I awoke just after midnight to a most supernatural music outside my window as cats appeared singing under a full moon. That is what I imagined when I listened back to the music I was composing with tracks of guitar, slide guitar and harmonica. The painting of the nocturnal scene was finally realized two and a half months later from drawings in my sketch book. Whereas an irate neighbor may react to this lunar concert by lunging for a garden hose to spray amidst a torrent of profanities, I was drawn deeply into this feline world of sensory agility and mindfulness for which the music was my portal.
“Moon Cats from outside my Window” is composed and performed in three tracks for acoustic guitar, acoustic slide guitar, and harmonica by Sanford Bender.
Riding into the Starlit Night
Since I don’t go to the park until later in the afternoon, I am often there riding my yellow bicycle back to the car as dusk sets in. I quicken my pace as the inky blackness settles around me, and the few farmhouses and barns are left behind. Gazing up into the lofty pines upon hearing the distant hoot of a great horned owl, I begin to perceive myriads of stars glittering above me. The music in my mind that I hear that evening may not arrive until another day. But, the melodies and rhythms have already embellished my soul, and like the stars, will gradually reveal themselves in their delicate splendor.