YPGTTO: Kingdoms Of Sound Speed Paint Challenge #3 The Woodwind City / The Oboe District

Kingdoms Of Sound Speed Paint Challenge #3
The Woodwind City / The Oboe District

Oboe: a double reed instrument in the woodwind family, is one of the most beautiful, important, and unique musical instruments. With a long history dating back as far as ancient Greece, it has developed through the centuries into one of the most challenging and distinct instruments in the modern orchestra.

The oboe can be found in many types of musical ensembles, including the orchestra, symphonic band, woodwind quintet, and other chamber music combinations. It is often heard in movie and television soundtracks and can even be heard in jazz and popular music. In the orchestra, the oboist plays a very important role. The oboe section sits in the center of the orchestra next to the flute section. It is the job of the principal oboist to tune the orchestra to an A at the beginning of each concert. The other key role of the oboe is that it usually carries the melody with its lyrical and mournful color, often heard as the solo instrument in the most emotional sections of music. Composers like to use the oboe in more exotic passages of music, as the nasal tone of oboe can give it an oriental quality that lends itself nicely to this type of music.

The sound of an oboe is a distinct, nasally sound which can be smooth and lulling, or short and whimsical. The tone of the oboe is distinct from the texture of all the other instruments in the orchestra, which makes it a popular solo instrument.

You can listen to the extract (below) as many times as you like. We don't want literal images of the instruments associated with the extracts, but we do want your concept paintings to associate with the shapes, forms, structures, mechanisms, colours and special characteristics of the specific instrument - and the moods evoked by the music extract itself.

We do want to get a sense of spaces and places - of being 'within' these various districts of our Kingdom Of Sound.

Think of the relationship between the instrument and the extract in the following way: the structure, shapes, mechanisms and movement of the instrument gives you your vocabulary of architectural components, and the music extract gives you the art direction (i.e. the mood, colour palette, composition etc.)

In regards to setting up your speed paints in Photoshop - a few basic rules: can you ensure you're working at the following settings: 2560 pixels x 1440 pixels / 300dpi.

Feel free to go even more panoramic if your vision demands it and feel free to flip between landscape and portrait as your imagination requires.  Once you've completed your digital painting(s), can you upload it to your blog entitled YPGTTO Speed Paint Challenge, and include the number and title of the challenge too:  YPGTTO Speed Paint Challenge 3 : The Oboe District

Please can you keep all your original Speed Paint files safe and sound in a folder, as I'll be collecting them in as an archive of the project at the end of the challenge. 

The oboe: clear, bright, penetrating, acerbic, keen, biting, rasping, reedy, powerful, robust, full, insistent.

Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra, Op. 34 - Oboes / Benjamin Britten

Need more inspiration? Visit the original YPGTTO brief here.