Understanding Signed Music
Cripps & Lyonblum
used in visual music. The color composition is what makes the harmony between different colors visually pleasant. For example, DeWitt( 1987) used the concept of synaesthesia( i. e., synthesizing hearing and sight into a music piece) when he proposed that“… the piano keyboard is a suitable performance tool for visual harmony; after all, it has become a commonplace as an interface to sophisticated musical synthesizers”( p. 116). Visual music is a genre that used different types of visual arts and Strick( 2005) listed them as follows:
• paintings
• photographs
• color organs
• films
• light shows
• installations
• digital media
It is Brougher( 2005) who claimed that Walt Disney’ s 1940 animated-based film, Fantasia, is an excellent example of visual music performance. This well-known film was influenced by the work of Oskar Fischinger, a visual music artist during that time. The uniqueness of this film was that it included both lyric and non-lyric songs with artistic visual motion( i. e., animation). Of special interest is the definition that Evans( 2005) provided for visual music as follows:
Visual music can be defined as time-based visual imagery that establishes a temporal architecture in a way similar to absolute music. It is typically nonnarrative and non-representational. [ It ] can be accompanied by sound but can also be silent.( p. 11)
In the silent version of visual music, Evans referred Stan Brakhage’ s Mothlight 4( created in 1963) as a tonal montage work that incorporated music visually. This montage piece used dead moths and other organic debris from light fixtures. No camera or audible sounds were used and Brakhage included different natural minerals such as twigs, blades of grass, dust, and moth parts into his work. All of these minerals were put onto a sticky tape and printed to celluloid for viewing through the film projector. These plastic materials were cut and placed on the filmstrip to create a fast-paced montage.
In the‘ silent version’ of visual music, artists do not feel the need to use lyric and non-lyric songs, or any audible sounds. This suggests that some visual music pieces do not require any language or sonic properties. Likewise, deaf individuals can pursue visual music for itself and enjoy a silent rendition.
In addition, hearing, non-signing visual music artists are known for incorporating the lyric and / or non-lyric component( s) into their visual music pieces, using spoken words and / or audible sounds. Deaf individuals can create visual music pieces and incorporate signed words and / or the analogous‘ sound system 5’ associated with hand movements. At a minimum, signed music requires
4 To view“ Mothlight”: https:// www. youtube. com / watch? v = Yt3nDgnC7M8 5 The term sound system commonly refers to personal or professional modes of sonic amplification. These vary
from multichannel speaker systems, to body worn devices that privilege sonic tactility( i. e. literally feeling the sound waves through bone induction). In this instance, sound system refers to a mode of amplification that employ visual-
SASLJ, Vol. 1, No. 1 – Fall / Winter 2017 88