Dreaming Up Music
There are diagrams that explain how things work, diagrams that show the lay of the land, diagrams that explain complex ideas quickly when words fail, diagrams that give you sudden insight, and many others. But there is one type of diagram that stirs up a lot of joy and imagination in me—the orchestral seating plan. When I started playing music in my school band as a teenager, I became fascinated by the variety and complexity of sound produced by large…