Symphony of Construction II

When you hear music coming from any screen, it’s usually there to accompany the images you’re seeing. But take away those images, and it’s almost impossible for your imagination not to do the opposite, conjuring up images of its own to accompany the music. And what if you could capture those images in some form, say as a LEGO creation?

Well, that’s exactly the idea behind Paul Vermeesch‘s collaborative project Symphony of Construction. We covered the first round of that project last year. And now a second round has just been completed, that we’d like to share with you here!

Symphony of Construction works a bit like the old game of ‘telephone’. The first participant builds a LEGO creation, which inspires a second participant to compose a piece of music. This piece of music then inspires a third participant to build another LEGO creation, and so on. None of the participants gets to see any of the other pieces of work until the project ends.


Paul Vermeesch kicks off the proceedings with this scene entitled “The Wasteland”, an open-ended piece of ‘dark surrealism’…


In Paul’s creation, Max Pointner saw the theme of independence, and composed the piece “Beyond Shadow” to accompany it. Toy percussion echoes the dark ruins of the scene, while a solo viola eventually emerges from this, representing the lonely white figure emerging from the wreckage…

Click here to listen.


When Daniel Church heard Max’s piece, it reminded him of many adventure themes from his past, and this is reflected in his scene “Water’s Berth”, in which an ancient treasure is discovered and a prophecy fulfilled…


For his musical contribution, “We Have a Story to Tell”, Mihai Marius Mihu decided to tell the story from Daniel’s scene in three acts, covering individually the peaceful landscape, the watery underground cavern, and the hero’s perilous descent…

Click here to listen.


The next build in the sequence, entitled simply “Woods”, is a collaboration between Dave Kaleta and Devon Wilkop. The three acts in Minai’s composition now become three moments in a scene involving the fleeting appearance of a deer. Their decision to shoot the scene entirely in shadow symbolizes the way the composers in this project were collaborating on a LEGO build without using any actual LEGO. (Click here to see how they did it)


Lee Muzzy and Ian Spacek took this frolicking deer and composed the following buoyant medieval piece, appropriately entitled “Land of Leaping Shadows”, which introduces some drama toward the end, in the form of an imagined huntsman in pursuit…

Click here to listen.


To close out the round, Mark Erickson‘s creation returns us to the earlier theme of adventure, with “The Temple of the Twin Jaguars”, a luscious jungle scene that conceals an overgrown Meso-American temple of some kind…


Click through to read each artist’s detailed notes on the creative process and inspirations behind each piece. Can’t wait to see what direction the next round of Symphony of Construction will take. But rest assured we’ll be covering it here!

1 comment on “Symphony of Construction II

  1. Aanchir

    Glad to see that some LEGO fans have found a way to express their love for the brand through music! I have been incredibly bothered by how little musical expression there is within the LEGO community, ever since I was exposed to the brilliance of brony music at Cloudsdale Congress in March of last year. At CloudCon there was plenty of singing and dancing over the course of the event — karaoke, impromptu sing-alongs of fan-favorite songs, and even a full-blown concert. At Brickfair Virginia, which I believe is the largest LEGO convention in the United States, the only music of any kind tends to be whatever playlist the BZPower crowd brings to the BIONICLE table, and that’s usually not even LEGO-related.

    Certainly not all LEGO themes or experiences have the sort of character-driven story that usually inspires the brony community… but even incredibly story-driven, mythology-heavy themes like Ninjago and BIONICLE do not seem to have a very active fan music scene. Which is peculiar, since just as with bronies, BIONICLE fans would celebrate any new BIONICLE soundtrack or promotional song — but rarely produce any BIONICLE-inspired music of their own.

    This event helps restore my confidence that an AFOL music scene is possible if musically-inclined AFOLs really commit to using their musical talent to express their love of LEGO toys and the stories they tell. The music being created is high-quality and has an intimate connection with the models that inspired it, and the models which it in turn inspires. It would be fantastic if the music created in this event were released as a downloadable album. It might serve as a foundation for an AFOL playlist on my iTunes to match my brony playlist, which currently includes 105 songs and is liable to grow even more as I discover new music (just listened to 4everfreebrony’s album “Small Horses and Other Things” last night and know I’ll be adding that, which will bring the tally to 122).

Comments are closed.