Composition Study 6 - Graphical Score

Introduction

This week we were tasked with composing a piece of music whilst using a painting supplied by the lecturer as a graphical score.

Things which needed to be considered included:

1. Colour;
2. Rhythm;
3. Line;
4. Space;
5. Texture;
6. Shape;
7. Implied depth.

Research

Adolph Gottlieb

Adolph was an American abstract expressionist painter. A noteable part of his biography is
"Gottlieb joined his New York school contemporaries to protest the prejudices of curators and critics against avant-grade art (most notably in May 1950, with the abstract painters and sculptors dubbed the Irascibles, against the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s refusal to show abstraction in a juried show)." The image I was supplied with was by Adolph Gottlieb, the painting called Frozen Sounds (1951).

I undertook research into the ideas of the painting in order to have a better idea of what to compose and found this quote:

The painting is split into two distinct sections, the bottom half supposedly being the earth as it is dense, in contrasts to the top half of the painting which is more sparse and meant to represent space. It is also suggested that there are some tidal implications of some of the patterns in the painting.

Composition 

After examining some of the research I tried to focus on starting with sound effects to start getting an atmosphere or certain aesthetic for the composition. However after a certain amount of time I decided that in order to compose a piece I was happy with I would take a more abstract view of how I thought the painting would sound and decided to make it my own. 

For example, there are two rectangular/square objects in the pieces, rather than trying to create sounds that may sound straight, or jagged or rectangular, I decided to make the first one into a melody. The main inspiration for the different sounds within the piece come from a number of words in one of the references, being "Sky", "Water", "Planets" etc.

Final Mix

 

Conclusion

Although it is a very abstract view of the painting I did enjoy the composition created, however again, in future I would like to try a different way of composing, using different sounds in order to complete the composition.

References

1. guggenheim. (n/a). Adolph Gottlieb. Available: http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artists/bios/533. Last accessed Sep 2014.

2. Lawrence Alloway (1995). Adolph Gottlieb: A Retrospective. US: Hudson Hills Press. 56.