Idea Fragments

Shape Note Music with Vinyl Wall Text

Vinyl wall text of shape note song scores, or the tune of the tenor line, or just the notes of the tenor line without horizontal lines, across a wall, or in rows, with or without text. Maybe with text in a different color? Alternatively I could just hand-write this stuff, scrawl it, chalk it on chalkboards.

Envision a broadside poster with the entire score to a shape note tune on it without the words, but with the words printed, set as verse, beneath the tune. Would work better letterpress, but handwritten might work, as might digitally typeset. I really need to develop a font for this stuff. Some tunes this would work for:

• Lawrence
• North Adams

Could make a photograph or map hanging from the ceiling near a wall with the notes behind it as vinyl on the wall. Could do this for:

• Schenectady and Ballstown
• All the place-named tunes of a particular composer
  • Like the idea below, something needs to animate the dry subject matter and something needs to indicate what map to use.
  • This could come out of the research – some kind of obsessive research project on the wall.
  • I could use historical maps that basically date the composer's travels (but this is just historical and dry – maybe it is a curatorial project)
  • Along the lines of envisioning this as a curatorial project, I could involve new and old composers in this, and try to find figurative mappings for all the different pieces in play, and present the work as a collection of shape note music place indexes or something like that. It could involve New York State composers?
  • Another thing is to find my relationship to the composer in play. For this I could pick composers I like. Then the mapping would be a reflection of my relationship. Perhaps I would go to each place? This could be a place for the mile markers or other numbers that signify tune names to enter in.
• All of the place-named tunes of mine (is that better?)
  • Maybe – The interest here is the personal connection to the place. The connection is what animates animates dry subject matter (the map). The score verges on dry too. It has a text, so that's something, but you might need something more.
  • Just pairing the scores with maps, then, is thin on the personal connection to the town. It also doesn't resolve any questions about what kind of map to use.
  • Using historical maps might be one way to answer this.
  • Another solution is to look past the map idea, and think of maps more figuratively – come up with a system of mapping where each image references something about the genesis of the piece.
  • Then a straightforward 11 × 17 format seems like a cop-out, so maybe the format is more variable and not just a set of flat things on a wall. The flat things are reserved for other treatments of this concept, like the Lawrence version.
  • The songs come first though.
  • I need to set all these tunes
  • I need to rewrite the ones that are unsettable
• North Adams, does Carrie have a map
• Lawrence (is this too Boltanski?)