Visual Music Painting

Students were introduced to the idea that art and music are often interconnected through learning about synesthesia and abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky. Kandinsky had the rare neurological phenomenon called synesthesia where one or more of the senses are triggered by the use of another. In his case, he could hear shapes and colors he saw as sounds. Students explored what his experience may have been like through an interactive online simulator that allows users to listen to one of his famous paintings.

They were then tasked with choosing a song that they were going to visually represent with a painting. Students listened to the song several times through paired with scaffolded instructions with each listen to help them plan and develop a composition that represented the instruments, emotion, lyrics, and tone of the song they chose.

STUDENT WORK SAMPLES BELOW