UC San Diego

This dissertation focuses on two aspects that deeply rooted in my compositional thinking. The first idea discusses the artistic quality of brushstroke and its musical equivalence in compositions. In ink painting and calligraphy, a single line consists of a series of complicated movement carefully controlled by the calligrapher, forming a rich layering in one brush. In my observation, the idea of multi-dimensionality presented in a line is similar to the texture of heterophony where we experience different layers of simultaneous variation organized by the movement of a primary line. With the experience of calligraphy, it further leads to my interest of ink painting to the larger acoustic world of soundscape, which enables me to paint my sonic imaginary landscapes through embracing a wide variety of materials. The first chapter includes the analysis of brushstroke and two compositions of Lei Liang and Chou Wen-chung that employ the techniques of ink painting. I also discuss my work, Sparking (2020), for twelve instruments, to introduce how I discover the characteristics of heterophony in brushstroke, and how calligraphy relates to my musical experience of Nanguan. In this chapter, I choose Nanguan singing as an example to investigate its spectral component using Sonic Visualizer and demonstrate the ways with which I transform and manipulate the materials to represent the movement of brushstroke in sound. The second chapter introduces the theoretical background of soundscape and its practice in my composition. In Murray Schafer’s research, he categorizes various environmental sounds as keynote, soundmark, and signal, etc., based on their individuality, numerousness, and domination, in a physical space to provide an insight about how we perceive and interpret them, such as semantically, functionally, culturally, and historically. In this chapter, I take Schafer’s work as the theoretical basis to demonstrate my use of environmental sounds in my electroacoustic composition, Ocean Reverberation (2019). This piece is created using Audacity and Logic Pro. With the experience of brushstroke and soundscape, the third chapter focuses on my orchestra piece, Maci Lumah (2021), in which I combine these two aspects to form my artistic practice. The large structure of the piece is inspired by Schafer’s theoretical concept discussed in the second chapter, whereas the local details present my inspiration of heterophony from both brushstroke and natural environment. The last chapter concludes with the overview of my musical journey focusing on the philosophical question about line proposed by Chou Wen-chung and the artistic response about my compositional thinking in general.