Lee Barry Composition Diary

  Redimade, 36"x24" Digital Giclee Print (2007) (37" x 25" Framed)   $300     Readymades often spark metaphorical thinking. I bought a shoe-shine stand at an antique store, and was immediately attracted to it for its bird-like shape. I wanted to make it a readymade, and thought I would riff on 'red' and 'ready' and painted it red, titling it "Redimade". Connecting shoes/feet to birds was too distant of a metaphor, and 'ready' and 'red' were adjacent metaphors.   After painting it I started to make spin-off pieces ("entailments"), the first one the subject piece, a Giclee print made from a vector file created by tracing a photograph of it.             Photos recently taken in 2021:  

  Music For Places V: Music For Photographs by Lee Barry       A possible arrangement for string quartet (for the Astrolabe series): Astrolabe (Part 17), By Lee Barry by meta4s

  "Composers were fascinated by Baudelaire’s poetry, as it so closely resembled music. Disciplined in technique, clear in structure, and highly descriptive in terms of imagery, his poetry held great appeal for musicians and composers alike." https://interlude.hk/charles-baudelaire-1821-1867-i-have-cultivated-my-hysteria-with-pleasure-and-terror/   There's nothing more earthy than to sit down with an existing poem and set it to music while strumming a guitar.  I chose the first verse of Music by Charles Baudelaire , and became a bit of a sea chantey. (The other stanzas don't sound particularly musical). Music doth uplift me like a sea Towards my planet pale, Then through the dark fogs or heaven's infinity I lift my wandering sail. My process of translating the music in language to composed music is to find the rhythms in the language first, then map a melody, then harmonize. You can go a step further and map new words in place of Baudelaire's, add other ver...

  Now for something completely silly. A bouncy summer song that can be played on a uke. It's also odd because it has 10-bar phrases, not the typical 8. I know my true color You know its hue I know my true color You know it's you I know it's true I believe in a color's True identity You are like no other You know it’s you I know it’s true When you see what you want to see It's never good for us I know my true color You know its hue I know my true color You know it's you I know it's true