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
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
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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Keywords
Musical arts have inspired many composers to write music , based on themes and subjects in specific visual art works