Description
Paintings serve as stimuli and reference points for composing music in one-on-one instrumental lessons with children aged 8 and above, where the development of their concepts, strategies and decision-making process is closely examined to understand aesthetic transformation processes. This study builds on prior research focused on group composition and adds depth through detailed individual case descriptions. It follows a complex framework grounded in arts and music education research.
In this qualitative study, the musical concepts of 10 participants are explored as they respond to a selected painting, transforming it into music for their instrument. Data is collected through two interviews: the discussion about the artwork and initial musical ideas, and the focused interview after the composition process to explain the strategies and decisions involved. Musical concepts are documented through composition process recordings, notated and played compositions, and participant observations. This approach helps analyze the aesthetic transformation process over time. Data is organized using MAXQDA and Miro and analyzed with Grounded Theory, focusing on the major cognitive drive of translating visual art into music. The study hypothesizes that language and analogy play key roles in this transformation. It draws on theories from cognitive science, philosophy, neuropsychology, and synesthesia research on the basis of which transformations can be extracted and described in detail to better understand how visual stimuli aid composition and the associated perception and cognition processes.
The results provide valuable insights into age-appropriate, language- and cognition-based, instrument-specific, and educational approaches to composing, which can enhance creative and instrumental teaching. This is important because composition is often underrepresented in individual music lessons, leaving creative potential untapped.
The poster presents a case study of a 12-year-old guitarist who uses Wassily Kandinsky's Yellow-Red-Blue to musically express themes like happiness, the guitar, the appearance and disappearance of a cat, and other composition goals.
| Names, affilations and contact information | Leonie Helena Rothbucher, Mozarteum University Salzburg, +43 650 8717788, leonie.rothbucher@posteo.at, Aglassingerstraße 8, 5023 Salzburg |
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| Bio | Leonie Rothbucher began studying guitar at the age of 13 at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. During her four-year stay in Madrid, she started composing her own pieces while working with various composers and later graduated with honors in classical guitar from the RCSMM. She went on to complete a Master of Arts in guitar and instrumental pedagogy at the Mozarteum University. As a recipient of a Live Music Now scholarship, she performed her compositions in numerous concerts across Austria. Her experience in composition led her to discover the benefits of visual imagery in the creative process, a finding further supported by the research in her master’s thesis involving her own instrumental students. These insights have laid important groundwork for her current research. |