From Sight into Sound: The Transliteration of Visual Artistic Practices into Music Composition

This commentary and portfolio respond to Paul Klee's discussions on the interplay of music, art, simultaneity, and temporality. The central aim is to explore how the convergence of simultaneity and temporality enhances one’s experience of art. Klee believed that paintings' sense of spatial temporality combined with their innate simultaneity enriched viewing art, prompting an exploration into whether music's innate temporality could similarly benefit from composed simultaneity. Instead of 'translation,' 'transliteration' conveys that music and visual art are different alphabets, leading to a direct adoption of painting methodologies into music composition. The reason for this approach lies in the belief that music composition can more effectively achieve simultaneity by drawing inspiration from painting, which inherently possesses this quality.
The commentary is structured around three fundamental components: Composition as Illustration, Timbre as Medium, and Music that Looks How It Sounds. The portfolio showcases three compositions - blank slate, the sound of wooden dusk, and my piece for DECONSTRUCTED BASSOON - each employing simultaneity within the inherent temporality of music. Composition as Illustration discusses music composition's potential to convey concepts and ideas beyond traditional musical communication. Timbre as Medium investigates how instrumental timbres influence illustrative communication similarly to visual art mediums. Music that Looks How It Sounds explores creating scores that visually represent the intended concept. Drawing inspiration from composers like Catherine Lamb, Chiyoko Szlavnics, and György Ligeti, known for their visual art influences, this portfolio and commentary examine their composition methodologies and take a departure from their mathematical approaches in favour of embracing a composition method that draws from emotion. The outcomes demonstrate the successful merging of temporality and simultaneity, enriching the process of absorbing illustrative concepts through sound, offering an enhanced listening experience.