Communication Between Conductor and Audience: Soundpainting (original) (raw)
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Perceptions of Audience on Soundpainting Performance
Today, contemporary music emerges as an experimental phenomenon trapped in the laboratory environment rather than an element of skill. Modern music, where principles such as specialism and rationality are determinative, has become difficult to understand not only for performers who carry it on the stage but also for today's audience. One of the works done in recent years is Soundpainting, which is based on improvisation and allows everyone to do this stage art. Soundpainting is the multidisciplinary live composing sign language for Musicians, Dancers, Actors and Visual Artists. Presently the language comprises more than 1750 gestures that are signed by the Soundpainter to indicate the type of material desired of the performers. The Soundpainter (the composer) standing in front (usually) of the group communicates a series of signs using hand and body gestures indicating specific and/or aleatoric material to be performed by the group. The Soundpainter develops the responses of the performers, molding and shaping them into the composition. In this research, it is aimed to determine the perceptions of the audiences who are listeners in a Soundpainting performance and at the same time performers in Soundpainting performance. The specify of this perception is important in terms of determine the attitude of the listeners fort he first time involved in the Soundpainting performance as well as bringing solutions to the problem of music and alienation from a different point of view.
Exercising musicianship anew through soundpainting: Speaking music through sound gestures
2016
In this thesis I focus on soundpainting-mediated musical experiences. Proposed in the mid seventies by the American musician Walter Thompson (b. 1952), soundpainting is a conventionalized artistic practice designed to create artistic works in real time. Thompson’s definition of soundpainting as a sign language is central to the present artistic inquiry, based on different moments of artistic practice and on interviews with students and professional artists, and informed by an existentialist hermeneutic and yet pragmatic perspective. What does it mean to have an experience in soundpainting? Considering soundpainting as an artistic language, what does it mean to know and speak it? How is meaning mediated in soundpainting? What does a knowledge of soundpainting bring to classically trained musicians? Classically trained orchestral flutist as I am, my starting point has been the similarities and differences between the production and interpretation of signs as they occur in soundpaintin...
ANALYSIS OF SOUNDPAINTING SIGN LANGUAGE VISUALS
Soundpainting constructed by composer Walter Thompson is a simultaneous universal composition sign language which is made for musicians, dancers, poets and visual artists operated in improvisational environment. Today soundpainting language contains more than 1500 signs. In this research it is aimed to analyze (converting visual texts to writing texts) the gestures (moving visuals) in 1 st level of soundpainting. Content analysis was made in this study. After the data analysis, it was discovered that soundpainting sign language gestures have common features in real life body language. Also it was seen that these gestures have universal communication language which has no boundaries like language or hearing deprivation.
Empirical Musicology Review
The first part of this paper reviews literature on the use of gesture in musical contexts and reports an investigation of the gestures (spontaneous gesticulation) made by musicians with different levels of hearing impairment in rehearsal talk. Profoundly deaf musicians, who were also users of British Sign Language, were found to produce significantly more gestures than moderately deaf and hearing musicians. Analysis also revealed the presence of underlying spatial and cross-modal associations in the gestural representations produced by all the musicians. The second part of the paper discusses the results of the study and addresses some wider theoretical questions. First, a classification of 'musical shaping gestures' (MSGs) according to existing taxonomies is attempted. Second, the question of how a standardised 'sign language of music' could be formed is addressed and, finally, the potential uses of such a system are considered.
In this thesis I focus on soundpainting-mediated musical experiences. Proposed in the mid seventies by the American musician Walter Thompson (b. 1952), soundpainting is a conventionalized artistic practice designed to create artistic works in real time. Thompson’s definition of soundpainting as a sign language is central to the present artistic inquiry, based on different moments of artistic practice and on interviews with students and professional artists, and informed by an existentialist hermeneutic and yet pragmatic perspective. What does it mean to have an experience in soundpainting? Considering soundpainting as an artistic language, what does it mean to know and speak it? How is meaning mediated in soundpainting? What does a knowledge of soundpainting bring to classically trained musicians? Classically trained orchestral flutist as I am, my starting point has been the similarities and differences between the production and interpretation of signs as they occur in soundpainting-mediated practices and in personal experience of playing from scores and relating to conductors’ gestures. The artistic, hermeneutic circle turns on transpositions across horizons of understanding, since in soundpainting one’s own practices are extended, and one frequently acts as instrumentalist, composer, and conductor. This is formulated as an example of artistic transaction, in the sense of acting across borders that usually separate roles. In addition to critical reflections on the indeterminacy of soundpainting as a practice and on the two performative perspectives possible in soundpainting (performance leader and performer), I explore soundpainting as an individual instrumental practice too. Although a particularization of soundpainting, this transposition from moments of qualitative transaction between two or more artists to an individual practice retains the significant aspects of standard practice in a soundpainting-mediated musical experience. In the process, significant opportunities were found to exercise different forms of embodying musical knowledge, wherein aspects of ownership and responsibility could be re-contextualized as different intentionalities (in the phenomenological sense) came to play. Through the exploration of such strategies for a systematic development of an improvisational mindset, it was also possible to nurture an empathic understanding of the activities of one’s fellow musicians (performers, conductors, composer, improvisers). All these findings speak to the all-important sense of presence in the moment of performance and can be extended to other forms of music-making, disclosing potential directions for further research on both artistic and educational grounds.
Music and Movement in Dialogue: Exploring Gesture in Soundpainting
Les Cahiers de la Société québécoise de recherche en musique, 2012
Using “Soundpainting” as a case study, this paper examines how musicians and dancers can create and contribute to a dialogue between, across and within the arts. Interviews with the “Soundpainter” Walter Thompson provide a practical and applied basis for analysis, and a major goal of the article is to illustrate how music-dance dialogues are formed in this creative sign language.
Effects Of Soundpainting Applications On Performance
Today, some of the important dilemmas of music education are that performers are too dependent on the notes in a written musical score and they are not being so able to improvise. Stage phobia, lack of motivation and problematic of perception regarding today's modern music are additional problems facing musicians. This research aims at revealing the effects of performer's works of Soundpainting, which is a universal, multidisciplinary live composing sign language. In order to realize this aim, 16 h of workshop is conducted with Walter Thompson, the creator of Soundpainting language, and following that, a questionnaire is conducted with 21 participators. As a result, it is concluded that performers are inclined to perform via Soundpainting, their awareness towards their instruments/bodies/voices increased, within the group and as a Soundpainter, the performance increased their motivation. They are not disturbed by the music which came out as a result of the Soundpainting composition. Their awareness towards aleatoric music increased. Soundpainting performance helped them direct their attention and Soundpainting performance positively affected performer's psychomotor behaviors and improvisation skills.
"Songs for Hands: Analyzing Interactions of Sign Language and Music," Music Theory Online 13/1
1.1] "Song signing" is a traditional form of storytelling found in Deaf cultures around the world. (2) The act of song signing involves translating a pre-existing song's lyrics into a signed language, or composing an original sign language song. The signed song is one of many face-to-face storytelling traditions in Deaf culture . Recently, song signing has been popularized through videos on YouTube. Consequently, the signed song has crossed over into the hearing world, and YouTube has become an online haven for communities of Deaf, hearing, and hard-of-hearing song-signers. In the present paper, I approach the signed song through a music-analytical lens. I ask how the signed interpretation conforms to the sounding music, how the performer alters signs and manipulates the signing space in order to convey musical features, and ABSTRACT: Song signing has long played an important role in Deaf cultures around the world. Recently, sign-language song translations have crossed over from the Deaf to the hearing world; entire communities of Deaf, hearing, and hard-of-hearing song signers now flourish on YouTube. The resulting videos form multimedia events featuring music, English, American Sign Language (ASL), gestures, pantomime, and even costumes.