Master Research

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Introduction
  • Abstract
  • What is it about?
  • Inspirations
    • Oblique Strategies by Brian Eno
    • Melissa McCracken – Painting Music
    • Song Exploder
    • Noa Kageyama’s Blog
    • Impro Lesson with Susanne Schneider
    • Lesson with Nadine Nix
    • The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

• Methodology
  • Development
    • Analysis Through Visualization
    • Composing based on Visual Arts
    • Creating Lyrics based on Colors and Patterns
    • About Motifs and Setting Tasks
  • Reflections
    • Using Blender
    • About Improvisation
    • About Identity
    • Drawers
    • About Songwriting

• Process Documentation
  • Transforming „Heaven in Pennies“ by Esperanza Spalding
    • Tension and Release
    • Master Recordings „Hidden Path“
  • Transforming „I Heard You Singing“ by Jacob Collier & Becca Stevens
    • Painting „l Heard You Singing“
    • Composing „Another Soul“
  • Transforming „Gotta Be Another Way“ by KNOWER feat. WDR Big Band
  • Transforming „Meadowlarks“ covered by MARO & Jacob Collier
  • Transforming „Halleluja Junction“ by John Adams
  • Transforming „Atchafalaya“ by Snarky Puppy
  • Transforming „Sing To The Moon“ by Laura Mvula
  • Transforming “ In My Bones“ by Jacob Collier feat. Kimbra & Tank and the Bangas
  • Transforming „Lest We Forget (blood)“ by Esperanza Spalding
    • Getting back into Animating
    • Drawing a Stop Motion Video
    • Documentation of my Improvisation-Experiment „SOIL“

• Conclusion
  • Music In A Prism – a philosophical approach

• Discussion
  • Sketches

33/33 Music In A Prism – Conclusion With A Philosophical Approach

I started my master studies with the intention to learn more about composing and to get closer to the musical identity I am striving for. I therefore deliberately chose a self-study for my research project in order to be able to take extra time for it. My original idea to study the music of Esperanza Spalding was based on my enthusiasm for her diverse musical ideas. I tried to understand in music theory what exactly I liked about her music and to incorporate these elements into my own work in a modified form. At the same time, however, I noticed that the compositional approach of „wanting to sound like …“ inhibited a creative flow more than it encouraged it.

So I couldn’t help but ask myself what support was needed to fuel my creative processes or to generate a compositional work flow. Up to now it had always worked without time pressure and via try and error to get into such a state, but now I wanted to create a more tangible and all-encompassing method to find easier access to this inspirational sweet spot. I grew up in an artist’s household and the occupation with colors, painting, drawing and design dominated my free time from an early age. I would often paint while listening to music, and after a while would emerge back into reality as if i was waking up from a trance state. I am convinced that this state of being completely absorbed in the creative action is the sweet spot of where good music is created.

To get to the bottom of this state, after some modifications, a transformation process has emerged in which music is visualized and visualization is set to music. The methodical process can be divided into the following steps:

1: The transformation of a selected piece of music into a painting. The focus is on a particular motif. This can be of melodic or rhythmic nature and is made clear within the painting as a clearly foregrounded element. The harmonics are mirrored by the color scheme.

2: The generation of new lyrics is based on a subsequent association phase of 3 minutes, which happens on the basis of the visualization. In the best case, a hookline or thematic idea emerges directly from the resulting thoughts.

3: To ensure a better orientation in more abstract illustrations, the possibility of a simple task occurs, such as: „Design a bass line that follows the linear form on the left edge of the picture“.

4: The improvisation phase follows. This can be done by voice or any other instrument. Here, too, the setting to music of clear motifs and their free further development is the guiding element.

5: Based on the resulting improvisation, a coherent melodic, harmonic or rhythmic structure can now be developed. This either goes back to a given motif or makes direct use of a longer improvised phrase.

In summary, this approach produced 7 paintings and two videos, a series of improvisations as well as a pedagogical improvisation concept, 1 completed composition, 5 elaborated song ideas and an additional lyrical sketch. This occurred within a period of a few months.

I am aware that this procedure cannot be applied to any other person, instrument, or particular life situation, and primarily reflects my subjective experiences and actions here. 

The procedure is repeatable in its flow and at the same time ensures new inspirations and thus new output. The method can be modified and possibly promises inspirational value for other musicians as well.

On days when I could not speak the musical language fluently or found composing difficult, painting has functioned as a translation for me. It maintained to promote creative state of mind and greatly facilitated subsequent ideation on musical level.

Described from a comprehensive perspective, in my methodology a musical impulse is absorbed via a projection surface, represented by my visualization, thus performs a metamorphosis, radiates and gives rise to something new. 

Transferred into a philosophical interpretation, my approach can be seen as a functional prism: Everything that has an origin and an end needs a projection surface to transform. A question that is asked is processed and an answer can be given. The oblique projection reflects the original stimulus and gives it a new vitality.

When I think of my improvisation experiment SOIL, the projection surface can be interpreted even more as a kaleidoscope. It functions as a rotating element that inverts, twists and turns an existing work of art until it takes on a new form. 

Concerning the creation of my compositions it has to be said that there was some distance between my improvisations and its development into a song idea. The song ideas actually all came up very quickly one after the other within a week. In favour of the overview, they are attached here directly to their associated blogposts. This one very intensive, creative week has surprised me extremely positively and confirmed a positive effect of my method. Using my improvisation as the basis for a new musical idea gave me the feeling of having myself as a source of inspiration, rather than the original impulse of already existing music. My own improvisation (or my idea already expressed in the past), assume the function of an external impulse here. Seen from this perspective, a musical dialogue seems to emerge that prevents a state of „spinning one’s own thoughts in circles“.

I come to the conclusion that one primary goal is to counteract the fear of the blank page, to make start and to develop a basic idea that does not yet dwell on details.

So the acoustic examples (except for: Hidden Path) are about the emergence of song ideas and not finished compositions. The next goal is to finish and perform some of these ideas and implement them into my final concert.

Furthermore, I see some beneficial value especially in terms of inspiration on a lyrical level.

On the other hand, the element of painting also involves some time investment that doesn’t go directly into making music per se. So in the future I would like to try out whether a pared-down version in the form of sketching would have a similar effect.

What I could clearly reflect on is the fact that it is better to compose something and not be completely satisfied than to compose nothing at all. I’ve been able to shed a certain attitude of demanding about my writing and realize that setting unfinished fragments of ideas to music paves the way to the good ideas. It is a mental orientation to creativity that I would like to continue working on in the future, one that lives less from doggedness and being goal orientated, but rather brings the process of creative work into consciousness.

32/33 Documentation Of My Impro-Experiment „SOIL“

Having completed my visualization of Esperanza Spalding’s „Lest We Forget (blood),“ I have now tried to prepare the master students for the experiment as best as I can without anticipating too much. Below you can read the assignment:

Procedure and info

At first you will see a surface of color and soft pattern, the task of the harmony section here is to develop a key or a basic harmonic noise. 

(Melody instrument 1 may join this soundscape discreetly.)

Keep in mind: A change of color also means a harmonic change! 

Then the first melody follows, which I have made visible as a line. This is followed by a second and a third melody line.  At the end it seems like a conversation between three voices.

Very important: it’s not about „sight reading“ (or watching) – it’s about hearing music along what you see. Don’t try to perfectly mirror acoustically what you see in the video. If the melody line inspires you rather to a certain motif, let it be a motif. The melody line will vanish and return.

For Singers: The name of the video is „SOIL“. Maybe you will find some associations to this word and prepare one or two short sentences (or only words) to improvise on.

For the rhythm section, you will see rhythmic impulses, but I don’t expect you to translate them into a fixed rhythm. Maybe it will work or maybe it’s too hard to react simultaneously. Keep it intuitive! The melody line also provides rhythmic impulses. You can be guided by both elements.

The entire video has a length of 2:40 minutes and is inspired by an already existing song. Now the resulting visuals are to be brought into a new sounding context. I’ll divide you into 2 groups so that we end up with 2 different lineups as well as improvisations. The second group must wait outside the door for the first run and should not hear anything from inside, so that the experience is new and unmediated again.

FEEL FREE TO MAKE THIS SONG YOUR OWN. THERE ARE NO MISTAKES. DON’T HESITATE TO BRING IN YOUR MUSICAL IDEAS AND HAVE FUN! 🙂

I have divided the two groups as follows. The result can be seen directly below.

IMPRO 1

Melody 1: Pierre (sax)

Melody 2:  David (sax)

Melody 3:  Narim (voc)

Harmonies: Pian (p)

Harmonies/sounds on guitar: Philippe

Doublebass (bowed): Schlapbe + doublebass (plucked): Laurent 

Drums: Bomin

The result can be seen below:

IMPRO 2

Melody 1:  Petra (violin)

Melody 2:  Flor

Melody 3: Julia

Harmonies: Jungmi

Harmonies/sounds on nord stage: Rouzanna

Electric bass: Manuel + doublebass (bowed): Felipe

Drums: Pit                      

Percussion: Andra

The result can be seen below:

It was very exciting for me to watch and listen to the improvisations. I tried to look at things with a completely fresh and unbiased eye and realized very quickly how biased from my own ideas I had gone into the experiment.

I expected that the unchanged blue color would immediately produce a clear harmonic layer which would create an easy entry into melodic development.

However, both groups took a little time to feel their way in. 

With repeated listening afterwards, I had time to follow each voice more closely, and the musical intentions of the improvisers crystallize more clearly now.

In group 1, a lot of harmonic context has already flowed into the improvisation through the melody instruments. After that, a fairly clear motivic emerges, guided by melody instrument 1. 

The transition into the „red phase“ was not as evident through harmonic change as it was through a sharp dynamic rise. 

I also have the feeling that the increased visual impressions have created a harmonic variety that is largely detached from the actual color palette.

Unfortunately, the percussion was not oriented towards the screen, so it was more of an acoustic orientation only. 

All melodic instruments responded very clearly to the visual rhythmic impulses

From the moment of the re-entry of the melody (1:38), the melodic motif 1 is clearly recognizable as a recurring element and is also subsequently taken up by the second melodic instrument. The hoped-for canonic dialogue structure between the melody voices is thus clearly depicted here in the form of the motive (roughly: D-F-G-G#-G-F-D). This adaptation of a blues scale here roughly follows the visual appeal of the line, from a philosophical point of view, it could also be considered as an onomatopoetic interpretation of the color blue. 

Group 2 has surprisingly not let the keyboard instruments do the atmospheric intro but basses and percussion, which to my subjective feeling emphasizes the earthy character of the background. 

A clear onset of harmonic and melodic structure happens from 0:33, a bell-like rhythmic pattern also briefly establishes itself. The melody parts adhere very closely to the disappearance and recurrence of the colored lines throughout the entire process.

With the insert of the „red phase,“ harmony instruments and melody find their way into a different atmospheric space, which dissipates as the visual chaos increases. Especially the harmonic evolution starting at 1:43 with falling bass movement opens up a very wide, melancholic soundscape. We find ourselves in a G minor11 cosmos, the bass changes from Bb to D.

In any case, the experiment exhibits a certain degree of sensory overload. The player has to be fully centered to oneself and the task assigned to him/her, while he is confronted with the virtual stimulus for the first time. Here the main goal is to discard the demand for simultaneity and exact mirroring of what is seen. In parallel, it is important to keep an open ear for the ideas of the fellow musicians, especially for the instruments whose task it was to enter into melodic dialogue.  

One consideration would be, with a little more time to have each group play 2 runs to feel a little freer in their interpretation of the video.

After conducting the experiment, I couldn’t help but think of my former teacher Reinette’s pedagogical methods again. Her way of introducing improvisation to a group of people was named „Bildersingen“ (singing pictures). It is a great warm up for choirs and impro workshops: Some photos lie in the middle of the room and the participating group facing the opposite direction. Only a small selection of max. 3 people chooses one of these photos and starts to interpret it vocally. After the improvisation, the group guesses which of the photos it was. Apart from overcoming the hurdle of „giving voice in front of others“, it is a wonderful way to bring a new group closer together.

So, in addition to the compositional inspiration, I am convinced that my experiment „SOIL“ and the concept of „bringing visuals to music“ has a special pedagogical value and proves to be a playful method to introduce free improvisation to young students or people interested in jazz in a less academic way. Also in the context of a songwriters circle or workshop the method could be applied and influence the overall dynamic within the group in a positive way. For this purpose, certainly many kinds of animated or even naturalistic videos can be chosen, it does not necessarily have to be in line with an improvisation project. But they should still follow a certain artistic standard to give the right basis for a free improvisation.

The simplification of a simple task provides the security of an anchor point during the free improvisation, while room is also given to all subjective interpretations of the visuals. The visual stimulus may also prevent the fear of running out of ideas and favours the creation of a non-judgmental atmosphere.

31/33 Sing To The Moon

Listen to the version I used as a guide:

In fact, I tried to keep it puristic in this painting and have quite trivially picked up the element of the moon, because everything the night sky has to offer somehow inspires me when painting. I took this thought further and created a creature. Funnily enough, it reminds me of the little dwarf „Sleepy“ from Disney’s Snow White. An old, wise, tired creature that is friendly towards life – a loving, higher power. Now it is already the second time that my paintings are about a superior being. Probably this is due to my currently intense search for unrestricted access to creative power and imaginativeness….

Below the moon and the „starry-sky-being“ lies a city. This city visualizes the Melodic Movement of Laura Mvula’s „Sing To The Moon“ (By the way, also worth listening to in the original version on her album!). 

Information about the intervals can be found in the height of the buildings. Buildings not filled in white symbolize sustained notes. The simple task I set myself for this picture was: „Let your melody follow the movement of the skyline“.

You can listen to the realization of this task below.

The following thoughts and assoziations arose from this painting:

• „Star-being“
• crescent moon
• night
• nocturnal mood
• virtual city 
• surrealism/futurism
• superior being: wise, omniscient, friendly, tired, 
• foggy
• facing life with kindness
• ups and downs
• everything you need already exists
• view 
• dark and light side
• towers, skyscrapers
• distance
• stardust lies over all things
• we see the light side of the moon
• contact with the stars or something supernatural
• piano keys
• ebony and ivory
• contrast light and dark
• Floating

Hook:

Straight and tangled, star-spangled

You’ve lived so many lives, You’ve seen so many souls

Straight and tangled, star-spangled

you’re obscure beyond compare, building castles in the air

perpetual noise and endless blue

You feel the tides while I feel you

„Slays king, ruins town,

And beats high mountain down.“ (Tolkien, gollum’s riddle)

30/33 Just Doing Some Sketches

The last drawing revealed a drawback of my method: I am now not only confronting myself with the demands of a musical idea and the performance of it. I also bring an aesthetic demand to my paintings into this working process. My visualization of „In My Bones“ is nice by design and I enjoyed the realization, but the incentive to compose becomes smaller if I am not completely convinced and on some level satisfied by the visual appeal.

A possible solution to this problem would be to distance myself a bit from the idea of creating a new piece of art every time, which has to meet an artistic standard and fills a whole sheet of paper. Perhaps the simple sketching of certain musical elements is enough. Color schemes, linear drawings. In this direction my method could be thought further, in order to work against the general aesthetic requirement and to leave more free space.

Also, the planning of selected songs could be replaced by the direct and unprepared confrontation with previously unknown songs or the rough visualization of a randomly discovered, catchy motif. 

Thus, a certain suitability for everyday use may be favored and I imagine the artistic implementation of a „first impression“ also very interesting.

Likewise, consideration can be given to limiting the transformation process to one direction. My involvement with film composition has shown me how much creative stimulus a film scene can have for the development of musical motifs. The setting to music of already existing visuals (whether of a animated or motionless character is left up to the performing artist) would of course leave the initial methodological framework here. Breaking down the visual impressions to a specific impulse or motif would nevertheless allow for a simple task that can ease the way into compositional work.

29/33 In My Bones

Take a listen:

n My Bones belongs to the category of songs that make me wonder how their composition came about. What came first? Lyrics? Melody? Harmonies? Beat? How did they come up with all these crazy ideas? 

I set myself the task of creating a rhythm from the melody, which I illustrated by blobs in the upper part of the picture. A 7/8 time signature would have fit from the number of blobs. The blob placed higher can be interpreted as an accent. 

Unfortunately, I have to admit that lack of motivation keeps me from realizing this task. Interpreting the blobs seems arbitrary and I feel a bit uninspired considering the task of creating a rhythmic pattern isolated from any melody or harmony. Note to self: Talk to Nadine Nix about it and get some input on this topic.

So this picture is still waiting for its bright musical idea.

The following thoughts and assoziations arose from this painting:

• circles
• overlapping
• festival
• hippie
• blaze of color
• peacock
• beauty/beauty ideal
• pattern
• spotted
• camouflage
• heartbeat
• blood pulsating
• wild mixture 
• Feeling free
• first love, orgasm, desire, longing for someone 
• lightness
• Pearling
• Interwoven – intertwined
• new love -Is one already authentically oneself in front of the other person? Somehow you become a different person through hormonal chaos
• energy/energetic appearance
• not being able to sleep – not being hungry anymore
• the only need is the feeling to be in love

28/33 About Songwriting

A lot of composing for singers always revolves around lyrics. I write most of my lyrics in English because of the international comprehensibility and the simple fact that the language feels good to be sung.

But it is not my native language and as soon as I sit in front of the blank sheet of paper, I often find it hard to find a beginning. The fear of lacking authenticity is always there subconsciously, which is why I always have texts proofread by native speakers. 

I love the German language, I have always read a lot and written in German. I especially love its complexity and imagery, which is unfortunately difficult to translate into English. As soon as I get too poetic in German, the sentences don’t translate well into English. 

I released two songs last year whose (English) lyrics strangely enough just fell into my lap. The message is simple but unmistakable, exhilarating and relies on simple metaphors. 

I could extremely relate to a few thoughts Jacob Collier expressed regarding songwriting. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel, start with simple phrases, don’t always set the starting point of the narrative perspective with yourself but juxtapose two people/things/places…. Here you can get your own impression of his thoughts:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CaNbPG5AUY5/

My method has now proved particularly helpful a few times when it came to developing new lyrics.

Through the association sessions, the paintings allowed me to encounter new topics to which I might not have devoted myself without the visual impulse. 

In addition, a sung melody emerges more intuitively and precisely through the medium of words than through compulsively rhythmicized vowels.

So it is also of great benefit to my improvisations. 

In summary, even if no direct musical impulse follows the visualization, I see a clear support in the creation of new lyrics and an improvement in the writing flow.

27/33 Song Exploder (series)

I discovered an interesting series on Netflix – „Song Exploder“. It documents the history of making various songs by well-known artists. It gives a private insight into the composing processes of the artists and their recordings in the studio. I was particularly inspired by the episode about Alicia Keys and her song „3 Hour Drive.“

I don’t want to get too much into detail, the series is well worth watching and can definitely provide some inspirational input here and there. 

Alicia Keys collaborates here with her frequent studio partner Jimmy Napes and U.K. crooner Sampha. The simple realization from this for me was how much I miss songwriting together with other people. I can look for as many sources of inspiration and methods to give my own writing more drive, however, it can not replace the exchange with other band members. My own world of ideas is limited somewhere, which I can sometimes only overcome by the new impulses of the world of ideas of others. After finishing my research I definitely want to take some time to sit together with my fellow musicians and write some music.

26/33 Drawing A Stop Motion Video

Similar to my paintings, I find that I need an atmospheric foundation to make detailed drawings. I approach compositions in a similar way: Harmonies often emerge first on the piano before I devote myself to developing a melody.

Lest We Forget has been floating around in my head for a while as a well visualizable song. The clear melody line, on which the focus lies, is in favor of an equally clear drawing on atmospheric ground.

I deal with the latter first by choosing a blue foundation, which gets something earthy through the use of a certain structure. At this point, the working title „SOIL“ is created. 

I extract the creation of the background as a time-lapse video and slow it down in iMovie. Finished is the intro for the improvisation. After I decided not to meticulously mirror what I hear in the visual, the white melody line that I animate in the animation program flipaclip follows Esperanza Spalding’s vocals only in its basic movement and does not run perfectly synchronized with the vocal movement. Both movements are nevertheless perceived as belonging to each other. The already established melody line now appears once again in a different color and placed differently in the image. A third line joins it in a different form and color like a kind of echo. It occurred to me that Spalding’s melody could be placed in a canonic context, and I now establish this for the subsequent improvisation.

At this point I realize that I am already dealing with the compositional process, in that I am already influencing the course of the improvisation in advance through the use of fixed melody lines, color changes and the progression of the form.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether the implementation in the simultaneous situation of improvising will occur in exactly the same way, but nevertheless an improvisation concept based on visual composition emerges at the point I am at. 

I see myself facing a small challenge in presenting a rhythmic concept. That’s why I keep it puristic at this point and pick up the rhythm of the song only rudimentarily through light impulses. It will be hard enough for the rhythm section to react simultaneously to the visual stimuli.

It is important to me to have a harmonic change in the further course, so here I choose an offensive contrast between blue and red. A clear but not too abrupt return to the „initial harmony“ of blue should form the final frame of the video. The melody line slowly dissolves and merges into a more naturalistic starry sky.

Esperanza Spalding, on her album 12 little spells, has assigned her songs to different elements of the body. Lest We Forget is dedicated to our blood. So with the help of the bluescreen function, I added some shots of blood cells under the microscope. It provides another moving element and picks up the substance of her lyrics in a naturalistic way.

You can watch the final result here:

25/33 Getting Back Into Animating

Last year, my song „Hidden Path“ was created as part of the master bands. Due to the corona situation, we spent a whole day recording the songs that were created instead of doing a final concert. 

This year it’s going to be different and we’ll spent the next month rehearsing a set of original compositions of the master students which will see the light of day in a concert. 

I thought about using this project to put my method of sound-based visuals into a larger framework. The improvisation in the group. For this I would like to involve all master students.

For this I will use the next weeks to animate another video, on which the improvisation is oriented. 

From this, various possibilities emerge to implement my method in the group. My first impulse was to divide the project into several stages: 

1: Improvising in the group during rehearsal

2: Own composition, created from the preceding improvisation

3: Rehearsal of the composition

The advantage of this approach would be that I would have visualized the whole process of my method: original music becomes visualization – visualization becomes improvisation – improvisation becomes composition.

If I look at this approach realistically, such a large group and variety of instruments will either lead to a lot of chaos within the improvisation, or to a hesitant indecisiveness, because nobody wants to interrupt the ideas of others. In both cases it can be assumed that the inspirational revenue for a resulting composition would be rather sparse.

To prevent this scenario, another approach would be to improvise over a longer period of time. Here, the group would improvise on the video several times over the course of 2-3 weeks. 

I imagine that in this scenario, ideas or motifs would solidify or occur repeatedly once the visualization is internalized. From here, the path from improvisation to composition is paved. The approach may already intuitively give composing the space to emerge on its own.

Realistically, however, in our rehearsal situation, there won’t be quite the time for it. The door opens and closes, time is limited, the group will not be the same every week. In the end, I will have recorded a lot of improvisations, which will probably stand on their own and in no context. From here I could pick out motifs randomly for the following composing process. From my point of view, the whole thing shows too much arbitrariness.

So now there is a need of narrowing down the impro scenario in some way. The improvisation should retain the value of the unmediated and not constructed. At this point there remains a final possibility of implementation: the group of master students sees the visualization for the very first time in the concert situation. Here the question arises whether the group should be given the chance to perform several improvisations in order to feel confident with the situation of improvisation. This could be helpful especially with such a large ensemble. On the other hand, the immediacy of the experiment is increasingly lost. 

An alternative would be to divide them into two groups and let them improvise one after the other.

Possibly the finished „music video“ gives the necessary impulse for a final decision of the realization.

24/33 The Artist’s Way By Julia Cameron

With Sabine and a few vocals students of the Conservatory we have started „The Artists Way“ workshop by Julia Cameron. It is a 12-week program that was transformed into a book and includes texts and instructions as well as a list of tasks for each week. 

It’s definitely easier to keep on track when there are regular check ins with a group of people where you can interact and share a few of your experiences. 

I have dealt with Cameron’s principle of morning pages before. At that time they were very helpful for me in a difficult personal phase. Every morning I wrote 3 DIN A4 pages full of thoughts without them having to lead in a meaningful direction. I felt really productive already after getting up and had the feeling to carry a little less ballast around with me throughout the day. 

Now I’m starting the workshop again, but I’m noticing that my rather irregular schedule makes it difficult for me to write the morning pages. I often get to bed late, so I’m too pressed for time in the morning. I’m commuting a lot, which makes routines difficult, and sometimes I forget my papers I’m writing on. (Sounds like a lame excuse – I know.)

It’s another aspect of this workshop that I’m taking a lot from this time. The so-called artist dates. The task is to take a time unit of max. 2 hours every week and fill it with an activity that is good for me and my inner artist child. I have made a list of activities that I have already tried and further possibilities.  

Artist date list:

• painting just with fingers
• Learning a new instrument (Duduk/Kalimba/Okarina…)
• Start embroidery
• Going for a walk (choose a place you’ve never been before)
• Go to a bookstore and buy the first book that inspires you
• Doing Marie Kondo stuff and getting rid of things that don’t make you happy
• Cook a new recipe
• Paint fingernails in different colors
• Rearrange room, hang new pictures
• Listen to one new artist
• Listen to all your „guilty pleasure“-songs
• Drawing while listening to music
• Doing yoga
• Learn about nonviolent communication
• Upcycle one thing from your inventory
• Participate in a randomly selected cultural event
• …

Providing the brain with new stimuli was an important creative impulse for me. I bought an ocarina and the instrument was surprisingly easy to learn. It gave me a great push and I set out to sample some ocarina sounds for upcoming recordings.

It was simply activities like painting with finger paints or making an embroidery that got me in a really meditative mood and rather gave my brain time to rest. Keeping myself busy with supposedly useless things or hobbies that have little or no artistic output has proven to be exceedingly beneficial as far as my artistic capacities are concerned. 

For the things I had tackled anew, I was able to create a nonjudgmental space, detached from demands, in which I stayed, at least for a short time, as well when composing.

I recognize a consistent pattern here that has also led me to take my research in the direction I have taken now: Dealing with other forms of art or creative activities, inspires me for my own art. It has a refreshing effect on my mind and gives new impetus to creative processes.

23/33 I Heard You Singing 2

I finally dug out the improvisations I sang a few months ago to go along with my illustration of „I Heard You Singing“. I took a nice little motif from the second improvisation and captured it as a basic melodic concept. I then performed a kind of meditation on the piano and tried to bring the two color worlds of the picture into harmony, or rather to make their contrasts audible.

From my chain of associations of that time the following text has arisen (further corrections have been made after the recording):

I’m walking down a path, until a crossing split its way.

I make a choice and take a turn where cornfields line my path.

Above me is a starry sky, down here a warming breeze

My shadow wanders next to me and holds me tenderly

What if I took the other turn? 

Would it all be upside down?

Me in darkness, and high above 

a warm breeze I’ve never found.

Would there shadows be around me, swallowing my own?

What if I had been another soul following the other road?

The following is a record of the various stages of the composition process: