The empty canvas absorbs the studio’s fluorescent lights and blank walls. My Epiphone Thunderbird bass shines in a similar setting, amidst dull carpet and tan walls of the band-trailer. I am pleased having the studio to myself; I’m equally happy with two of my favorite collaborators in the trailer. Anticipation quivers through my spine, out into my fingers. I hold my excitement; a few steps before I can conduct the media through my body and project it. Preparations must be made before I filter the air around me into self-expression.
I hoist the eight pounds onto my neck and shoulders, and connect the bass to its amp. Heaving the gesso-jug, I pour the white primer into a mixing cup. My left index finger touches the E string above the fifth fret and ring finger hovers on the next string, A, above the seventh. To stir out any lumps, I mix the gesso with a wooden dowel. With my right hand fingers, I pluck the E then A strings. Just as the gesso should have an even consistency, these muted tones, harmonics, should vibrate at the same pitch.
I press the house brush into the top center of the canvas. The white primer soaks off for a second, before I pull it out horizontally in both directions. My fingerprints, smudged on the linen disappear beneath the gesso’s wake. A wah-ing waver skews the sound. I tug the E tuning peg, and re-pluck the strings, now singing in perfect unison. After fifteen minutes, my fingers still streak the thicker strokes of primer. I will let the canvas saturate for the full twenty.
I perform the same harmonic test on the A and the D string above it. Turning the canvas 90 degrees, I repeat the priming step. Left thumb and pointer tighten the flat ringing D string. From the middle of the wide side, my arm draws the gesso to the edges, tightening the cloth. With D in-tune, I can test the highest string, G against it. Just loosen the string, and cover the last corner, and there: perfectly clean and in tune. Each string ascends evenly to the canvas’ clean, tight surface.
As I wait for the other choruses of tuned notes, the gesso dries. The guitarist plucks six evenly dispersed notes, as my hands place the glass palette on the work-table beside me. Dotting the edge with globs of un-mixed color I move across the color scale, grouping warms and cools separately, black and white in opposite corners. The drummer strikes the snare, turns a screw on the drum’s side and hits again, producing a higher, tighter single beat. As he whacks the other drums, I remove my own sticks-- brushes with a minimum of one inch thickness.
Everything is ready. We choose a key--A-- and I study the still life. First draw. Simple line guides me inwards, finding me closer and closer to the center. I find the root-notes with the treble knob high. Oil paint, thin and drippy with levos, streams off my brush in quick strokes. These twangy tones pick through the hesitant opening of guessing cymbals and noodling guitar. The line winds my arm through the blank sheet, touching all edges. Each A note hooks and crooks my wrist, pulling from my ribs to let my finger-tips touch each position.
With the bass knob louder, my flexing fingers pluck from the lowest register through an A major arpeggio. I draw each note out into its own measure. Covering the most space without crowding, I use a single color, a dull red to block out an entire third of the image. The drums and guitar will build off this simplification. But I can’t layer right away. I must plan first.
Leaning in to listen deeper, I stand back to see how the space may continue growing. Several yards from the canvas, I angle my torso toward the drummer, and right ear towards guitarist. Georges Braque once said, “In art, progress does not consist in extension, but in knowledge of limits.” At a distance, I can tell how the composition will grow richer, denser and more beautiful over such an open first layer.
Right fingers tapping twice, propels the drums into a steady rhythm. I plant my stance: feet shoulder width apart, knees unlocked, leaning forward, weighed down, tapping in. The canvas draws the most paint from the brush as my right ribs and shoulder pull my stiff arm down, from my core up from legs, conducting the color until the current fades. The firmer my stance, the deeper my roots run. A tone marks from my wrist-snapped right index finger, tugged from my forearm, heaved by my bicep, swiveled from my shoulder, pulled through my ribs from the floor where feet stand planted: the satiating radiation of a vibrating 80-gauge string.
I remain in the low register, because I start by marking the darks first. From the still life, I choose black shapes and umber shadows, which dictate the painting’s places of power. The bass notes ballast a jam; weave between the rhythm and melody, interpreting, translating one to the other. Darkest areas keep the composition weighed; low tones hold the gravity from floating into its own glow.
Above my anchors the other elements can layer into pattern. The drums and guitar sync into a deep groove. This gravity allows me to begin dotting the net of connections. I’ll observe the still life and trace my eyes. I see how the scattered green shapes keeps my gaze bouncing. Swiping from the palette and mixing with levos-squeezes, I relay the motion of these points, swiveling from the ribs to jab the canvas. As the rhythm rolls beneath me, my left hand hops to the middle register to hit higher notes between the measures. Quick kicks keep the wheel spinning beneath me. I re-trace the reference to find another circular path--yellow this time-- to circumscribe within the frame. My staccato strings strike at the measure’s end, and continue as the next measure begins. Then my right fingers pause in the middle, and I step back several yards to evaluate. Nodding my head to the rhythm, I wait to play at the most effective moment. Paying attention, listening to my work saves it from my own impulses.
Note by tone the composition fills in: a sketch of values and sizes. Connecting the phrases in between gives greater momentum. From the center, the notes unfold to occupy the entire measure. Walking the bass line, four beats a measure: surprisingly difficult to suspend each lone note for exactly the right time to hit the next with out a space.
With this foundation laid down, the composition will build itself up. The drummers’ tempo shifts my left wrist to mimic in mid-register. Together we form a net for the guitar to dance over. My right arm mixes a lump of bright cerulean blue with clear medium. His fingers in the upper register, the guitarist starts strumming in silvery liquid sounds. I slide the gliding substance over the fuzzy reference in the lower left. Glimmering guitar-distortion waves over the rhythm system the drummer and I run.
Over the simplified colors, I add enriched contrasts. My left fingers begin crawling back down the neck to the lower register, where I can better weigh down the guitar’s shrieking streaks of searing strings. The painting begins breathing when the deep sinking darks float for a moment with a bright highlight.
As the drummer and I continue our structure, the repetition allows for deviation. The drummer tosses in a double beat. My fingers drop a note intentionally. With a structure to rest on, I indulge my impulse and curiosity. The left edge accented in canary-yellow. The opposite upper corner turns turquoise with my mounting excitement. My left hand begins a chromatic approach to the scale’s notes. The guitar embraces a similar approach, and draws out the half-step notes in between. I try a scarlet streak. While I relax my control the drummer and I begin diverging, pulling composition’s tension.
Climbing the scale up the neck, I remain in the bright space of the upper register. I react to the strokes within my sight, to my own notes first. The brush spends more time on the palette than canvas, trying to mix more vibrant hues. My left and right fingers concern me less with proper notes, than the speed with which they press and pluck. Without contemplation, I mark with magenta, then spread emerald. Meandering without direction the tension stretches too far, beyond satisfying. This composition grows complicated; it has come too far from where we began.
Arms-length from the composition each note looks the same; I cannot tell my mistakes from worthier strokes. As I step back I see the discrepancy between the layers. Feet to guitarist, and ear toward the drummer I listen carefully. In the dissonance, I can discern a new path signaling out of the strings. Subtracting from the mess, my outstretched hand blocks different areas, testing three yards away. In quick flashes I see the arrangement within this exhausted repetition. Mapping the pattern, I search the lower neck on the grid for my left hand to follow. My right hand holding a levos-soaked rag wipes off the cluttering color, the leaving their phantom shades over the underpainting. The drummer’s beat begins bending to synchronize with my bass-line back in the low register. I embrace that faint paint as another layer peaking beneath the thick coat, enriching.
The closer we approach synchronized movement, the more justified our wanderings. Cohering from my clutter makes those mistakes necessary. The drums and guitar fill in the space between my notes, as I stretch into the middle register. Unsure what remains, I retreat from the canvas. Fingers pulsing on both hands draw the tones into cathartic creschendos. The drummer slows his roll. I deliberate at a distance- deciding if the composition has completed. We play through the progression in deliberate slowness, making sure we end on a high note. I wipe a swipe of cerulean, leaving a faint trace. But my erasure calls for replacement. We nod in agreement: the final note approaches. The last touch will either suspend me for just another moment, or drop us standing in the bland space we embarked from. Mixing a simple yellow to cover the blue smudge, satisfaction hovers within anticipation. With bated breath we silence the penultimate note, hoping our last stroke will charge with harnessed momentum.