Narrative through texture: shaping sound through abstract painting in my practice of ambient music

Abstract

In an aesthetic of ambient music, this research investigates the creation of musical narrative through texture. The author finds varying results by experimenting with two ways of shaping sound; shaping sound with the use of controllers and designing sound through the aid of abstract paintings. This research focuses on the collaboration with Dutch painter Martijn den Ouden. The author discovers meaningful similarities between den Ouden’s abstract paintings and his music and derives novel compositional ideas from strategies in musical mapping. These ideas are explored in the accompanying album Expired Sceneries, a collection of four pieces, each relating to one of the paintings. The strategies involved in the process of composing this album are discussed and evaluated in this submission with the help of audio examples