Searching for New Sound - Music Composition ideas

 Chinese calligraphy calls a double articulation in reference to pictorial art: the vocabulary correlates to the represented object, on the other. For instance, the character for the sun (日)is based on a sequence of brushstrokes that follow a systematic and combinatorial order, while it suggests an actual image of the sun. As a Chinese language user, the picture is inherent in our language which can transpose to composer's notation in Chou's music. Chou is also an accomplished calligrapher. According to Everett (2007), the process of writing the word, the brushstroke in calligraphy, is affecting the look of the character even the same character. Chou treated calligraphic stroke as a type of articulation: with the same note, we can have different articulation to play it, same as brushstroke. The rhythm of music is the speed of a brushstroke. The structure of the character is the texture in music. It has great potential by reading the calligraphy as a score, which echoes the wes...

 Salvador Dalí (1904 – 1989) was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill and bizarre images in his work. He was one of the leaders of contemporary art. His works are technical refine and at the same time full of creativity and imagination. How did he get all the inspiration? As I am a composer, sound artist, it is helpful to learn from him. The Great Masturbator (1929). oil on canvas, 110 cm × 150 cm., Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía Dalí used sleeping to help him get inspired. By holding a metallic object in his hand as he drifted off on a comfy chair, as he lost consciousness and dropped the object, the noise would jerk him awake. Dalí used this half-asleep state to get inspired and create his masterpieces.  Recent research by National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Paris prove his method works. The research team asked 103 people to carry out the maths task, they found that when fall asleep they may spend a few minutes in a state c...

This Vox video introduces how a sign language interpreter uses sign language. Music is a wonderful thing that, I can sit a the concert hall, watching CBSO concert without concerning the problem of language. Since as a foreigner, speaking a language not my mother tongue is quite challenging. Although songs have lyrics, language, other musical factors diminish the language barrier. However, to deaf people, music is a foreign language to them, an interpreter translate. Beyond music, at the same, foreign language is a foreign language to most of us also need an interpreter. For example, in the TED talk video below, the speaker Christine Sun Kim is a deaf person, an interpreter translates her sign language. How to break the barrier in between? A musical piece that serves both sides. A song with sign language that both sides understand. Christine's artwork demonstrates music, motion, and time. (9:52) I choose Any Time at All by the Beatles. The lyrics are about time and emotion. The lyri...

Christine Sun Kim (2015) is a deaf artist who explores the ways of transmitting sound and silence through visual art and composition. As Kim (2015) discusses, the transmission of sound only is a monophonic texture in terms of medium. With gestures and sound, two mediums, transmitting at the same time, it creates a polyphonic texture. To play an acoustic instrument, movement is a basic criterion to produce a sound, blowing, fiddling, strumming, beating, or even pressing a key, all of which involve movement and motion. For performing music, the gestures project music through a musical instrument, as the medium of sound, the movement transforms to sound. The instruments react to the performer's action with sound. The movement of body parts composes gestures. Gestures are considered the opposite of postures: gestures are dynamic, and postures are static (Miranda & Wanderley, 2006). The instrumental interaction refers to actions such as grasping, manipulation, and noncontact movemen...