Tuesday, January 5, 2010
LE: Art of Sound
I was always amazed at Wassily Kandinsky's paintings and how he bridged the connection between art and music. He had the ability to literally hear color, a quality known as synaesthesia. The color red was like a drum beat and green was the sound of a violin. He also believed that shape, line, and color had emotional properties to them. With the help of my husband, a musician, we picked out songs that were distinct either in the instrumentation or the mood they expressed. I first had students fill in a "glossary of sounds", where they listened to samples of different instruments and drew the shapes, colors, or lines that came into mind. Then I played full songs while students cut and glued a final collage of sounds. In retrospect, I think I should have used a different medium that would have been faster to register and eliminate any potential for technical problems! Each song took 3 minutes to upload, which was not expected but did hinder the process. It was really interesting, however, to see students turning sounds into forms.