Composers often use pictures as a starting point for the pieces of music they create. For instance, in 1874 the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky created Pictures at an Exhibition, a piano piece which was inspired by the art works of the painter Viktor Hartmann. Mussorgsky went to an exhibition of Hartmann’s paintings at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, and afterwards decided to create music to reflect the paintings that he had seen. You can explore this piece on the OrchLab website by:
- Listening to the ‘Promenade’
- Playing along with one of the pictures
- Watching a video that some of our community partner participants made inspired by this piece
But as well as making music inspired by artwork, it’s also really fun to do the opposite – drawing a picture in response to a piece of music. The picture can reflect the music that we’re hearing:
- When the music’s fast, we might draw quickly
- When the music’s slow, we might move slowly as we draw
- When the music is loud, we might use thick, hard lines on the page
- When the music is quiet, we could draw thinner, lighter lines
- Or you could choose your colour based on the mood of the music
For an example of some pictures inspired by music, take a look at the artwork of Deborah Pritchard, who creates artwork inspired by music she has composed herself, as well as music by other composers.
Another example is this animation of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.
Create your own graphic score
Why don’t you listen to a piece of music, and create your own drawing inspired by what you hear? You could do this by yourself, or perhaps with a group. You could create an abstract graphic, showing the musical shapes, or perhaps draw an object or scene that the music reminds you of, like the countryside or flowers.
Once everybody has finished drawing, compare your results to see how different your pictures are. There’s no right or wrong here, but it can be really interesting to find out what everyone heard in the piece, and why they drew what they did.
Before you start drawing, make sure everybody has got a sheet of paper and a selection of coloured pens to use. For this activity, we’re going to listen to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. This is the opening of the piece:
What did you draw? This section of the piece is quite fast and angry, so perhaps you used the colour red and drew some thick, squiggly lines, or maybe you drew a stormy, thundery sky. Or perhaps you drew something totally different – remember, there are no right or wrong answers.
Here is an example:
If you’d like to have another go, listen to the second section of the piece:
This section is slower, so perhaps you used calmer colours like blue or green, or drew a peaceful countryside?
Here is an example:
You can create pictures for any piece of music you like – perhaps each member of your group could create a picture inspired by their favourite song? Can you guess the song by just looking at the picture they’ve created?
Using a graphic score
As well as creating pictures inspired by music, you could also create music inspired by pictures. Perhaps choose a photograph taken by someone in your group, or take a look at the paintings in the National Gallery for inspiration. Choose an instrument, and play what you see! You could use percussion instruments such as shakers, tambourines, chime bars or drums, or perhaps you could use one of the OrchLab Soundmakers on an iPad, like Bars, Lines or Percussion. Will you create slow, peaceful music to represent a countryside landscape? Or perhaps some cheerful, upbeat music to reflect a happy portrait?
Most importantly, have fun!