About C.S. Nicholl


	THE ART OF CHARLES S. NICOLL

	My art works are visual portrayals of musical pieces. The displays follow the major themes or motifs of the musical scores, and in some pieces the accompaniment is also shown. The music of each piece should be “read” by starting at the upper left and moving across to the right of the uppermost rows of connected geometric figures. The sequence continues on the second row, and on successively lower rows to the end at the right side of the lowest row.
		Each figure depicts a note of the major theme or the accompaniment. Low notes (low-frequency sounds) are shown in low positions of each row, and higher notes are placed in successively higher locations of each row. In addition, low-frequency notes are assigned darker colors, and high-frequency ones lighter colors. The width of each figure (i.e. horizontal length) depicts the duration of each note, and the height of each figure is related to its volume or loudness. In the art work entitled Introduction to the Violin Concerto by Ludwig von Beethoven, the notes of the major themes are shown as circles or ellipses, some of which are elongated. The accompaniment is illustrated by the rectangles.


In the art work depicting Symphony Number Five by Beethoven, the notes played by the strings at each time were averaged and displayed as circles or ellipses. The averaged values of the brass instruments are shown as rectangles, and those of the woodwinds are displayed as diamonds or hexagons.
		The artwork labeled “Variations on themes from Beethoven’s Violin Concerto” shows the notes played by different instruments with different geometric symbols.