Visualizing Music: from Iconography to Notation

In this seminar, Professor Owen Wright will explore modes of visualising music, from representations in paintings to diagrams in theoretical texts.

We may be tempted to think of music as an exclusively aural phenomenon, one that cannot be smelt, felt, or seen. But it is socially grounded, and its participants, listeners, singers, instrumentalists, and dancers can be observed and represented. It is also an object of thought, so that various aspects of it can be shown schematically, for example in the form of diagrams, or expressed through metaphors; and for performers it can be represented symbolically, translated into visual code to provide an aide-mémoire. Some of these various approaches and techniques will be explored, drawing especially upon representations in paintings and in theoretical texts.