A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter T

Tempera

Art
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A painting medium made by mixing pigments with a binding agent such as egg yolk.

Detailed Definition
Tempera produces clear, durable color and fine detail, often through small strokes and carefully built layers. Before oil painting became widespread, it was central to panels, icons, and illuminated works. In poetry, tempera can suggest controlled luminosity and disciplined craft. A tempera poem may build its emotional effect through precise increments rather than sweeping abundance, using each image as a small, stable stroke within a larger radiant design.
Example
Example in poetry:
A tempera-inspired poem might emphasize clear, matte colors and carefully controlled detail rather than hazy blending; A poet describing an early religious painting can use gold halos, egg-based pigment, and flat planes of color to evoke tempera; In a poem, the phrase “tempera sky” can suggest a dry, luminous surface with distinct blues and reds; A writer can compare childhood painting to tempera because its colors are bright, immediate, and easily layered
Additional Notes
Tempera is a painting technique in which pigment is mixed with a water-soluble binder, traditionally and famously egg yolk in egg tempera. It dries quickly to a durable, often matte surface and encourages careful building of forms through small strokes and layers. Tempera was important in European medieval and early Renaissance panel painting before oil became dominant, although it has continued in later practice. Recognising it helps explain the crisp luminosity of many works. Compare egg tempera, fresco, oil painting, pigment, binder, gesso, panel painting, glazing, medieval art, and Renaissance technique.
Also Known As
Egg Tempera Distemper
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