Musical Compositions Based On A Study Of The Figurative And Textural Dialectic In Selected Art Works : Music As Metaphorical Reflections

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Date
2010-09
Authors
Ngiao@Yeow, Tzu-En
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Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
Correspondences between the visual arts and the musical arts have inspired many composers to write music based on themes and subjects in specific visual art works. Many musical compositions have also been graphically conceptualised in regard to their distribution of and relationships between musical parameters as well as their formal and structural construction in time. This thesis aims to formulate a set of compositional methods that attempt to derive and translate into musical materials from the visual arts via an analogy of the relationships between graphical elements in selected visual art works. The methods of translation are focused on the specific relationships and interplay between the figurative and textural components in the graphical subjects. Graphical elements such as figures, linearity, texturality and colours are mapped onto musical elements such as melodic motifs, rhythmic patterns, contrapuntal textures, harmonic colours and timbres in each case depending on the figurative and textural construct of each graphical art work. From strict conceptualisation to the almost algorithmic compositional methods, a general musical canvas is first composed and then further moulded into the final aesthetic musical art work. The figurative and textural perspectives adopted in this compositional approach have opened up a variety of possible and unexpected musical textures and structures, idiomatic expressions and sound world that is markedly different from other compositional approaches. Promising discoveries in compositional approaches attributed to such an experimental mode and the aesthetic soundness of the compositional outcome offer possibilities in musical compositions based on the imaginative and creative mapping between visual features and relationships onto the ever-expanding theoretical and scientific models and perspectives of musical and sonic elements.
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Musical arts have inspired many composers to write music , based on themes and subjects in specific visual art works
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