I had never consciously realized that the terms used for music and visual “composition” were actually the same. It is only now that I read into a bit of the history of how these terms came to be that I made the connection. But to be honest, it makes sense. Music is made of waves and so is color, one of the components of visuals. These two mediums use waves as a sub-medium. The focus of artists and musicians to deal with the material primarily would then make sense placed in this context. They do not have to worry about linking different types of arts with one another because their own nature is similar and links naturally due to the mediums they share (as is the example of both visuals and music using sound waves).

On the other hand, I really resonated with the fact that artists change their medium due to “purely pragmatic reasons”. I remember that in highschool, I wanted to be both on the school band and the art club, however, the professors that managed both groups forced students to give up on the other and commit only to one group regardless of whether or not the student had enough time to do both. I always felt quite discouraged about this because it forced me to choose one “box” rather than allowing me to explore both mediums. I believe that many schools have that narrow approach and I wonder whether we would see much more significant artworks and performances coming from students in normal schools (not art schools) if we did not push students to encapsulate themselves in one medium. Perhaps the art or performances won’t be the best, but I believe that it would certainly improve children’s overall artistic practice and creative process. This would then tie in with the concept that anyone can make noise and thus can create a sound composition. At the same time, anyone can create a visual and thus make a visual composition.

It seems that one of the main themes that the artists in this reading have is that they go back to the very basics of each medium and in a way question the established artistic or musical norm to make this artistic practices accessible to people. It would be interesting to see this applied not just in colleges or formal art institutions but in public schools.