Abstract composition

Today's Contextual Studies lecture was a bit of an eye-opener, with specific regard to Kandinsky and the connections between Abstract art and music. It turns out that i've unknowingly been an Abstract artist for years.

The reason for this is in direct reference to my music. When I originally studied at college doing music technology I was selected along with a few others in the class to take part in a university project involving something called 'Graphic Notation', it was a method of writing music using whatever shapes came into your mind, and we basically had to make our own piece of music in this way.
I remember it making sense to me, and eventually my piece was chosen as the one to be performed. It was quite an experience, we all gathered in a seminar at the 'Royal Northern College of Music' and performed my piece in front of lecturers and a few visiting schools....and then I had to get up and talk about it in front of everyone.

But that was about 8 years ago and it must've made an impression on me, because even now when I sometimes have a tune or riff in my mind...i'll quickly jot it down on a piece of paper in a graphic notation (Abstract) form and then when I get home I can remember it from my doodle and start producing it into music.
I find it handy in the way that you don't have to waste time drawing a music stave and writing notes, you can just quickly draw shapes responding to the tones/instruments/etc.


Oh, if anyone has access to Sky Arts 1 & 2 (they may be on freeview, i'm not sure) then it may be of interest to some of you to know that Battleship Potempkin is often on constant rotation....it's worth a watch, only about 40 minutes if I remember correctly. Also on constant rotation on those channels are various early works by Jan Svankmajer and Alfred Hitchcock, Svankmajer is one of (if not the) biggest legends in stop-motion animation so you'll come across him eventually if you haven't already.....his versions of Faust and Alice (in wonderland) are amazing.

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