Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Shape Note: Four voices stacked, text aligned to the part that leads
- Type
- Set in Shape Note's manner (Triangle, square and diamond heads, one shape per syllable), and let Sheet Music Cover's lettering (Title in ornamental lettering, composer credits dropped to light type) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Shape Note's material (A binding that lies flat open, light enough to hold standing); bring in exactly one thing from Sheet Music Cover (Three or four flat lithographic colors over a yellowed paper ground).
- Colour
- Build on #eedfcd, #a89d8e, #292321 and admit one accent from #f7eada, #c03d1f, #172b1b.
Where they fight
These are already listed as related entries, so the join should come easily.
Caution
- Shape Note Using the shapes as decoration while breaking their tie to syllables destroys the sight singing advantage and merely complicates reading.
- Sheet Music Cover Lining up ornamental faces without painting the scene of the song leaves a cover holding the signs of a period and none of its subject.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Shape Note (style, 1801–) and their accent from Sheet Music Cover (style, 1820s–1920s). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Shape Note exists for: getting an untrained gathering singing four parts within an hour, or setting a community tunebook meant to be used rather than admired. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Shape Note - Differently shaped note heads - Fa-sol-la solmization - Four-part tunebook typesetting - Singing in a hollow square Composition: Four voices stacked, text aligned to the part that leads. Type and lettering: Triangle, square and diamond heads, one shape per syllable. ## Accent comes from Sheet Music Cover, used sparingly - Scenes of the song - Ornamental title lettering - Lithographic color - Publishers' stock frames Let one material quality come from it: Three or four flat lithographic colors over a yellowed paper ground. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #eedfcd, carry the structure in #a89d8e and #292321, and let a single accent come from #c03d1f. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: intimacy, trust, nostalgia, exhilaration. ## What goes wrong - Shape Note: Using the shapes as decoration while breaking their tie to syllables destroys the sight singing advantage and merely complicates reading. - Sheet Music Cover: Lining up ornamental faces without painting the scene of the song leaves a cover holding the signs of a period and none of its subject. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Shape Note 1801– / Style / Notation Systems
The American hymnody notation that reshaped note heads into triangles, squares and diamonds for fast sight-reading. The Sacred Harp tunebooks and singings made notation design a community tool.
- Sheet Music Cover 1820s–1920s / Style / Printed Ephemera
Lithographed covers kept alive by the piano in the parlor. Illustration of the song's scene combined with ornamental lettering into a single picture, and before the record sleeve existed this was how music was shown.
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