10 Different Disciplines to Express Your Musical Stories
To celebrate our 10th blog post, let’s check out 10 ways that you can express the stories you hear within every piece of music.
1. Illustration
Put pen, marker, or paint to paper! Use any illustration tools to bring to life the visuals that you see while listening to the music. It could be abstract with no clear story to it at all. Or, maybe it’s a tableau expressing a clear scene based on the music’s sentiment and nuances.
Check out these examples from our live workshops with adults and kids.
2. Comic Book or Storyboard
Introduce characters, dialogue, setting and plot to this music. What journey does the music bring these characters on? How do the different instruments represent a conversation that the characters are having? Is there a conflict brewing? What happens at the climax, and how is this problem resolved? Tell it through a comic book, storyboard or even a graphic novel.
Here’s an example of a video storyboard (or an “animatic”) that we made based on “Empress” for bass clarinet and piano by Jens Ibsen.
3. Animation
2D, 3D, flip books, stop motion – there are so many animation forms that you can use to express your musical story. All of these require great patience and attention to small details, but the end result is very rewarding as you watch your story come to life on the big screen!
Watch two of our films that use stop motion and 2D animation!
4. Puppetry
Puppets are one of our favorites to use with students in our workshops. From hand puppets to stick puppets to finger puppets, this is a wonderful way to tell the story as you listen to it in real time. Add backdrops, set design, and props for your puppets to interact with.
A couple of adorable puppets from our camps and workshops with K-5 students.
5. Act it out!
Make yourself the star of the show! Get a costume, props, build your set and then act out the story that you hear. Is it an epic battle with a fight scene? Or a serious drama? Is there dialogue over the music? Do you have an important monologue? Or, are you focusing on body movement and face gestures? Here’s a bonus: Take out a camera and make your story into a short film!
Check out our film Mouse Trap that pairs acting and movement with Katie Jenkins’ “Constructions” for flute and piano to tell a comedic mouse tale.
6. Poetry or Prose
You may feel more comfortable expressing yourself with words than with visuals, so why not write the story that you hear within the music! Make it a play, a poem, a stream of consciousness journal entry, a picture book, or a short story.
Here is adult and children’s work expressing their musical stories with words.
7. Dance
Turn your brain off and let your body feel the music! Improvise it by yourself or choreograph a number with a partner. Not into dancing yourself? No worries! Go back to #4 and have your puppet do all the dance moves.
Take a look at our film Sketches of Love that tells its musical story through dance.
8. Sculpture
Build your story with clay, recyclables, LEGO, or something else! Just like illustration, this 3D art piece may be abstract and have no particular form. You may also want to sculpt a character you hear or a symbol that the music represents.
Clay is one of our students’ favorite materials to sculpt with. Check out some of the creations they made in our semester long workshops.
9. Costume Design
What colors, textures and shapes do you hear? Does the music sound like glittering sequins? Smooth velvet? Or even bumpy corduroy? How can the music be translated into a fashion statement? Are these costumes the characters are wearing? Or is the fashion piece a story all on its own?
Watch this short clip of Maslanka’s Wind Quintet No. 3 to see how (really bad) ghost costumes can bring the music’s spooky energy to another level.
10. Photography
A picture tells a thousand words – and a thousand notes! Capture the emotional arc of a piece of music with your camera! Look around your home, town or city for a scene that embodies the music’s feeling or story.
Scroll through these stills from our film, “When the Bell Rang” that capture the haunting guitar solo “收铁人" (Ironware Collector) by Ziyi Tao.
Quick Links:
Check out our collection of musical stories told through short film.
Want to practice musical storytelling for yourself? Listen to our Spotify playlist to get inspired.
Curious for more tips on how you can practice musical storytelling? Read more about it here.
Interested in pairing a piece of music with one of these art forms but aren’t sure how the collaboration process works? Learn more about it in our blog post: Making Art Outside Your Discipline is Hard. Here’s How We Are Making it Easy.
Learn more about how we came up with this way of teaching music here.
Are you an educator interested in bringing musical storytelling to your students? Reach out to us! We would love to work with you and create a custom program that best fits your students’ needs.
