When creating a work for new media and live music performers, and other performers such as dancers or actors, the composer of the work gathers inspiration from a multitude of sources. Like the artist, the composer surrounds their environment with visual imagery. With the advent of You Tube and other video providers, it is easy to gain visual inspiration as far away as the next galaxy or as near as the Facebook page of the neighbor next door. The composer examines interactive media, like video games, websites, DVDs, and works using Max/MSP (software that allows for great interactivity in live performance). Traditional tactile inspiration can come from nature and the soft surf of the beach, or from the gritty streets.
Music composers often use a set of audio references, such as scores, live concerts, rehearsals, online concerts, and their own personal instrument experience. Together they meld the visual and audio into a cohesive whole – an interdisciplinary work involving new media. The piece can be interactive or simple involve a laptop and a set of headphones. The setting can be the concert hall, the computer lab, the university gardens, or the street.
The creation of an interdisciplinary music work involves more than a cursory knowledge of the various art forms. Just because the music composer is familiar with West Side Story does not mean that s/he can choreograph an entire musical. Many visual artists have experimented with sounds, and composers have been experimenting with visual art for decades. The best creations are those that are made with someone who has more than simple working knowledge of the art forms they wish to employ.
If you are a music composer wishing to expand your palette beyond the audio, be sure to delve wholeheartedly into the study of visual arts. Whether through books, classes, private lessons, purchasing new software, or collaborating with local artists, it is as important that you understand the language of the visual arts nearly as well as you understand your music. If you want to incorporate dance, become friends with dancers and choreographers, attend rehearsals and concerts, and take a class yourself. Do you wish to incorporate theater elements? Then be prepared to join the community theater and become enthralled with the beast that is the modern, or postmodern, theater.
I remember showing one of my more well-known video works to a roomful of visual arts professors. One of them rightly cursed the work as a piece of ____. And, yes, it was. The concept had been simple, but not thought out. The colors chosen entirely at random, and the music boringly going on and on without end. I thought it was a clever piece, so did many others, but when placed in front of a roomful of professors that had seen hundreds of hours of horrendous video art, the work lacked direction and was merely a poor imitation of music work that might have been great.
Though your experience in these other arts will be cursory, at best, then at the least, you will have a broader understanding of those fields outside your realm of comfort. Or, if you are as fortunate as I, having worked the last few years in an art museum and having taken extra graduate classes in the visual arts, it will be more natural to you and not such a daunting task. This is what you need to do if you wish to become more than an amateurdallying in someone else’s bedroom.