The lights are dimmed, audience hushes, the orchestra tunes. It’s a wave of discordant noise that finally rests into a clean, purposeful sound. As the movement begins, the audience hears the euphonious sound made possible by this effort. Consider the lone instrument: carefully brought out and tuned to perfection in a cacophony of noise to add to the clarity of the whole. These small processes are what allow the larger task to succeed, and developing an appreciation for these will increase the perceived value of the completed product.
The opening scene in Moonrise Kingdom reflects this idea as the family listens to “A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.” It explains how the individual families of instruments make up a complete orchestra to fully realize the complex orchestral movement. Similar to this, micro processes are important to the overall, larger process. It is especially important that these microprocesses be done correctly, so not diminish the intended product, such as an orchestra tuning to achieve a “clean sound” at the beginning of every live show. What sounds like a chaos eventually allows the orchestra to faithfully represent the vision of the original composer. This concept is what led us to consider the individual instruments in an ensemble, such as the viola. In our piece, we focused on the tuning of this one instrument. Within this smaller process, there are more microprocesses. We hear a case being unzipped, the bow being tightened and rosined, and an annoying tuner tone. All leading up to the tuning of the instrument itself. Because of its preparation, it will be able to blend seamlessly with the rest of the group and produce striking sounds which will inspire many. We felt this exemplified both the idea of smaller processes adding to larger ones, and the principle that these microprocesses need to be done well in order for the whole to succeed.
In Smokehouse, we see a man tell the tale of how he built his smokehouse. More importantly, we see him take time to describe in detail the tiny processes that went into the construction of his structure. As he describes his mistakes in the events leading up to the finished product, the audience sees a sort of pride from the man as he recognizes that despite all of the mishaps, he accomplished something great for himself and his community. Because of his labors, his lifestyle was improved as he became self-reliant and closely bonded to his community through the smokehouse. This construction process ended up initiating a routine that would inevitably improve his life. After watching this video, we learned that the micro processes which so interested us were not just gears in the mechanism, but intrinsically valuable to our lives. As we come to value our mundane routines and tiny processes, we will be able to complete better products--whether that be a smokehouse, or a beautiful symphony.
Moonrise Kingdom “A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra”-
Symphony getting a clean sound-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfSH1ezevjM
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