Building Bridges With Bach: Syntegration of Music and Visual Art

Abstract

Music and visual art share many common elements, principles, and processes. The numerous commonalities shared between music and visual arts afford for natural, meaningful integration opportunities that create natural synergies. Synergy or syntegration is achieved when the learning outcomes accomplished through the integration of subjects are greater than the outcomes achieved by teaching each subject individually. This article examines some of the natural commonalities between music and visual art through the music of Bach and the art of the Baroque Period that provide for syntegrated learning opportunities in the general music classroom. The authors provide ideas for integrated lesson plans for music and visual art.

Keywords

arts integration Bach baroque children’s literature language development music and visual art syntegration

In response to Bach’s music, Mozart said, “Now there is music from which a man can learn something” (Wilbur, 2005, p. 54). Bach’s innovative music has influenced countless composers and can be heard in movies, ringtones, and other media (Elie, 2012). Many contemporary musicians have borrowed Bach’s musical ideas for their own musical works. For instance, the lively accompaniment from “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring” can be heard in the Beach Boys’ “Lady Lynda;” Simon and Garfunkel borrowed the melody line from a chorale Bach used in his St. Matthew Passion for their song “American Tune;” the music video to Lady Gaga’s 2009 hit “Bad Romance” begins with Bach’s Fugue in B Minor from the Well-Tempered Clavier Book I; and the rock band Muse samples Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor as part of a guitar riff in their song “Plug in Baby.”

John Eliot Gardiner, Bach conductor and author of the Bach biography Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven (2013), likens Bach’s music to snorkeling—moving from the sparse physical features of the shore and horizon to the “magical world” beneath—saying,

To me [snorkeling] is akin to the experience and shock of performing Bach’s music—the way it exposes to you its brilliant colour spectrum, its sharpness of contour, its harmonic depth, and the essential fluidity of its movement and underlying rhythm. Above water there is dull quotidian noise; below the surface is the magical world of Bach’s musical sounds. (Preface)

Based on Gardiner’s (2013) description of Bach’s music and the tremendous influence his music has had on countless composers and musicians, it should come as no surprise that Bach and his music elicit opportunities for rich music discovery in the general music classroom. However, while studying Bach’s music in isolation can provide an abundance of music learning opportunities, studying his music within the context of the Baroque time period can provide a catalyst for meaningful integration between music, visual art, and history.

Syntegration: Breaking Down Barriers

Integrated arts teaching is a “powerful way to reach students, especially those who are unengaged or behind” (Carpenter & Gandara, 2018). Russell-Bowie (2009) identifies three models of integration—service connections, symmetric correlations, and syntegration. Service connections are when one subject is used to reinforce the learning outcomes another subject (e.g., singing a song to help children learn names of the United States). Symmetric correlations and syntegration are two models of integration that preserve integrity within different disciplines and provide equal access to learning outcomes. According to Russell-Bowie (2009), “Symmetric correlations center around common or shared resources, materials or ideas being used within two or more subjects to achieve authentic outcomes in both subjects” (p. 6). For example, a music teacher could use the storybook There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly (Taback, 1997) to reinforce literacy outcomes (story sequencing) while simultaneously meeting music learning outcomes by having children assign instruments to each character in the story based on timbre.

The story provides a common or shared resource for authentic learning outcomes to be achieved in both subjects; however, the learning outcomes are unrelated. Syntegration, on the other hand,

occurs when teachers plan purposefully to use broad themes or concepts that move across subjects so that the theme or concept is explored in a meaningful way by and within different subjects. Each subject’s indicators and outcomes remain discrete and authentic, and the integrity of each subject is maintained. (Russell-Bowie, 2009, p. 8)

Looking for complementary relationships between disciplines and identifying common concepts, themes, terminology, or shared connections will allow for more significant learning (Barrett, 2016). Synergy or syntegration is achieved when the learning outcomes accomplished through the integration of subjects are greater than the outcomes achieved by teaching each subject individually. Syntegration provides higher level learning experiences by encouraging students to apply critical thinking skills as they compare, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate ideas and concepts across subjects (Russell-Bowie, 2009).

Music and visual art share many common elements, concepts, principles, processes, and even vocabularies (Barrett, McCoy, & Veblen, 1997; Bohannon & McDowell, 2010; National Coalition for Core Arts Standards [NCCAS], 2014). The numerous commonalities shared between music and visual arts afford for natural, meaningful syntegration. Students can parlay understandings of music concepts into understandings of complementary visual art concepts.

Visual Art and Music

Many musicians have found inspiration from visual art, and in turn, many visual artists have been inspired by music. According to Duthie (2013), “Even when visual art and music do not overtly influence one another, they can share abstract qualities without having direct communications” (p. 1). Visual artist Wassily Kandinsky was a synesthete, meaning that his sense of sound and sight were connected. In his 1911 essay titled Concerning the Spiritual in Art Kandinsky explained his associations between color and sound, for example, black as silence, red with the sound of the trumpet, orange with an old violin, and violet with an English horn or bassoon. He says,

A painter . . . in his longing to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease with which music, the most non-material of the arts today, achieves this end. He naturally seeks to apply the methods of music to his own art. And from this results that modern desire for rhythm in painting, for mathematical, abstract construction, for repeated notes of colour, for setting colour in motion. (Kandinsky, 1911, p. 19)

Other visual artists known for finding inspiration for their art from music include Jackson Pollack, Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Andy Warhol, Romare Bearden, and Paul Klee (Kennedy, 2007; May, Miner, Young, & Ingalls, 2017). Likewise, examples of musicians and composers who found inspiration through visual art include Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky, Modest Mussorgsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, John Cage, David Bowie, and Nat King Cole (Bedworth, 2018; Kennedy, 2007; Mussorgsky, n.d.).

Music and visual arts’ shared elements, concepts, and vocabularies have been compared to one another in exhibitions, comparative theories, and published lesson plans (Barrett et al., 1997; Bohannon & McDowell, 2010; Kennedy, 2007; Lill, 2012; May et al., 2017). Bohannon and McDowell (2010) identify several common elements between art and music. For example, the term color in music denotes the sounds of the voices or instruments (tone color or timbre), and in visual art color refers to the hue or pigment. Other shared elements and vocabulary include texture, balance, contrast, composition, expression, form, line, contrast, harmony, and rhythm (see Table 1). The common elements and vocabulary between visual art and music create natural bridges for teachers to help students apply their knowledge in different contexts and across subjects to engage in higher order thinking. According to Lill (2012),

For many, a comparative theory between the two art forms functions as a guide to understanding an art form in which they are inexpert. With a comparative theory, the musician can use his expertise to understand a piece of visual art by comparing it to music, and vice versa for the artist. (p. 35)

Table 1.

Elements and Principles of Music and Visual Art.

Elements of music	Elements and principles of visual art
Melody	Movement
Rhythm	Rhythm
Texture	Texture
Expressive qualities (dynamics, tempo, articulation)	Value, proportion
Form	Form
Timbre/tone color	Color
Harmony	Harmony/unity

Source. www.potsdam.edu/academics/Crane/MusicTheory/Musical-Terms-and-Concepts; www.getty.edu/education/teachers/building_lessons/elements_art.pdf; www.getty.edu/education/teachers/building_lessons/principles_design.pdf

Music and visual arts also share common artistic processes: create, perform, respond, and connect (NCCAS, 2014). According to the NCCAS (2014) website, “Artistic processes are the cognitive and physical actions by which arts learning and making are realized.” The fundamental idea behind the national arts standards is that students need to work through the four artistic processes to develop as artists—able to fully express themselves and to understand the artistic conversation that already exists in their respective media.

Figure 1.

Source. Becoming Bach © 2017 by Tom Leonard. Reprinted by permission of Roaring Brook Press, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, a division of Holtzbrink Publishing Holdings Limited Partnership. All rights reserved.

Becoming Bach: A Bridge to Studying Baroque Music and Art

Children’s picture book biographies can prompt meaningful music learning experiences since they provide a groundwork for historical, social, and cultural contexts for the music (May, Miner, & Young, 2019). Becoming Bach, by Tom Leonard (2017), is an illustrated children’s book biography that describes the life and music of Bach in a way that is visually captivating with vibrant acrylic paintings and rich descriptions of Bach’s music. While sharing Bach’s story, Leonard introduces a number of music elements and concepts throughout the book. These include timbre through the introduction of Baroque instruments, and Bach’s innovative use of melodic and rhythmic patterns, scales, and harmony. The text of the book is suitable for children of all ages, and the musical and historical content presented in the story can be scaffolded based on the experiences and educational needs of students K–6. The study of Bach and his music affords the opportunity to explore the historical and cultural context of his work and identify commonalities between music and visual art from the Baroque Period.

The Baroque Period (1600–1750) was a time of change for music and art to be more expressive, emotional, and exuberant. The word Baroque comes from the Portuguese barroco, meaning pearl of irregular or bulbous shape, and was a commentary on how the music, art and architecture of the time appeared to be extravagant, irregular, and overly ornamented (Palisca, 2001). Three cultural and intellectual changes during the Baroque Period had an impact on art and music: the counterreformation, the rise of the middle class, and the interest in nature and humanism (Palisca, 2001). The counterreformation by the Roman Catholic Church to the Protestant Reformation prompted the use of art to inspire public faith, and as a result visual art was emotional, spiritual, persuasive, accessible, and dramatic. The rise of the middle class created a market for realism in art and demand for smaller scale paintings suitable for the homes, as well as prompted public consumption of music outside of the church and court (e.g., opera). The interest in nature and changing awareness of the human condition brought an increase in the popularity of landscapes, still-life, and everyday life scenes in visual art, while composers used various music techniques (e.g., tonal organization, modulation, basso continuo) to evoke emotion.

Characteristics of Baroque art include high contrast, dramatic colors, high ornamentation, energy, and realism (Zucker & Harris, 2016; see Table 2). Parallels can be drawn between the elements found in Baroque art and those in Baroque music. For instance, Baroque art uses greater contrasts of light and dark, and likewise, Baroque music uses contrasts in dynamics (loud/soft), tempo (fast/slow), meter, texture (e.g., small group/orchestra interplay in a concerto grosso and use of homophony), major/minor tonality, and timbre with the development of new instruments (e.g., violin, trumpet, flute, oboe, timpani). The energy/movement found in the artwork of the time period can be found in music through vibrant rhythms that provided continuous rhythmic drive, expressive melodies, use of sequence and imitation, contrasts in music movements within a work (e.g., instrumental suites), contrapuntal composition techniques (e.g., fugue), and ornamentation. Baroque art is said to depict a split second or a single moment in time, and a characteristic of Baroque music is that a single musical piece tended to project a distinct melodic idea, mood, or expression of feeling. Realism is evident in the realistic images, stories, and scripture used in Baroque music (e.g., Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Bach cantatas, operas, and oratorios).

Table 2.

Elements of Baroque Art With Comparisons to Renaissance Art.

A moment in time	Baroque works: depict a split second or a single moment in time
	Renaissance works: stable poses that could be held indefinitely
Dynamism/instability	Baroque works: dynamic; characters and scenes in a state of flux, just about to change
	Renaissance works: static scenes
Diagonals/curves	Baroque works: full of curves and diagonal lines
	Renaissance works: full of straight perpendicular and horizontal lines; arranged around stable, symmetrical forms
Energy/movement	Baroque works: more energy and movement
	Renaissance works: lower energy, static poses
Involving/close	Baroque works: up-close scenes; in sculptures, not everything is viewable from front and back vantage points—require walking around to see fully
	Renaissance works: scenes at a distance; statues in poses that provide full views
Real/not idealized	Baroque works: characters have wrinkles and scars; depict human emotions; are real and unique
	Renaissance works: idealized characters
Interrupted contours	Baroque works: bodies twist and turn allowing for parts of the form to be obscured
	Renaissance works: figures in poses that shows the entire figure
Effects of light	Baroque works: greater contrast between light and dark; backgrounds in paintings often blacked out and figures in the foreground highly lit
	Renaissance works: Full scene viewable and evenly lit

Source. Zucker and Harris (2016).

Baroque artists strive to involve viewers as participants in the scene. For example, viewers of Bernini’s life-sized sculpture of David are drawn into the dramatic action of the sculpture as they walk around and observe the concentrated aggression evident from the grimace on his face and the coiled positioning of his body, which depicts a single moment in the heat of battle just before he releases his slingshot (Gardiner, 2013; Zucker & Harris, 2016). Gardiner (2013) likens the role of the art viewer as participant in Baroque art to that of listener/performer in Baroque music. He compares Bach’s use of harmonic movement and unusual chord progressions in his music to Bernini’s David, suggesting that “the listener/viewer has to ‘work’ to constitute the finished article—something relatively new in the age of the Baroque, and not equivalent to mere decoding” (chap. 7, final para.).

By providing music students with the opportunity to study Baroque music and art collectively, the students will be obliged to engage in critical analysis of shared music and art elements, concepts, and vocabulary across arts forms, thus deepening their understanding of the historical and cultural context. The supplemental activity table provides a variety of music and visual art activities that draw inspiration from the children’s illustrated biography Becoming Bach and that explore shared elements and concepts across the two art forms (supplemental material available online). For example, in Becoming Bach, Leonard (2017) emphasizes Bach’s use of patterns, “The music made patterns on the page. The patterns made music when you played them” (p. 15). Students can explore various patterns in Bach’s “Mussette” by identifying the overall form of the piece and highlighting melodic and rhythmic patterns in the music score.

According to Elie (2012), “Invention is the essential pattern of Bach’s creative life. For Bach an invention was an idea—a melody, a pattern, a contrapuntal motif—worth developing. Invention was also a term for the act of discovery, and for the mechanism—the application of rules, the habits of art—that made discovery come about” (p. 5). The rhythmic and melodic patterns from “Mussette” can be used as prompts for student composition by inviting students either to “reorganize” and perform the four melodic motives of the opening section of the piece (first eight measures) or to compose a new rhythmic or melodic section of music for the piece using the same rhythms and pitches that Bach used.

As students learn how to apply, organize, and create using music elements and concepts, they can use their understanding to structure their approach to visual art elements and concepts. While studying formal, rhythmic, and melodic patterns in Bach’s “Mussette,” students could also study some of the patterns found in Baroque architecture, such as those seen in Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Sant’Andrea al Quirinale Cathedral in Rome and Francesco Boromini’s Church of St. Charles at the four fountains (see supplemental materials, available online). Exploring the architecture of the time can also further deepen students’ understanding of the historical context of the Baroque time period. Students can use these architectural patterns and tessellations to prompt their own visual art creations, making their own tessellations and designing buildings in the style of Baroque architecture.

Studying both music and visual art from the Baroque period allows students to gain a better understanding of the context for the art while also engaging in higher order thinking as they apply their knowledge across subjects. Learning outcomes in music and visual art can be achieved independently. However, when taught together, syntegration will occur as students will learn how to “synthesize and relate their knowledge and personal experiences to make art” and “relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural and historical context to deepen understanding” (NCCAS, 2014).

Conclusion

Composer Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) once said, “Study Bach: there you will find everything” (Wilbur, 2005, p. 326). We share Brahms’s opinion in that certainly—the study of Bach and his music affords an abundance of meaningful music learning. However, by studying Bach’s music with visual art from the Baroque Period syntegration can occur. Syntegration opportunities will transcend the skills and knowledge learned studying one subject by creating an avenue for high-level learning where students develop a greater capacity to think critically as they apply, compare, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate ideas and concepts across subjects.

Supplemental Material

Building_Bridges_Activities_Table_Final_Jan1 – Supplemental material for Building Bridges With Bach: Syntegration of Music and Visual Art

Supplemental material, Building_Bridges_Activities_Table_Final_Jan1 for Building Bridges With Bach: Syntegration of Music and Visual Art by Tara Carpenter Estrada and Brittany Nixon May in General Music Today

Supplemental Material

Building_Bridges_Images_and_Resources_Final_Jan1-1 – Supplemental material for Building Bridges With Bach: Syntegration of Music and Visual Art

Supplemental material, Building_Bridges_Images_and_Resources_Final_Jan1-1 for Building Bridges With Bach: Syntegration of Music and Visual Art by Tara Carpenter Estrada and Brittany Nixon May in General Music Today

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Tara Carpenter Estrada

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Author Biographies

Tara Carpenter Estrada is assistant professor of Art Education at Brigham Young University. As a practicing artist, she makes and exhibits ceramic and mixed-media work. Her research focuses on arts integration and visual art teaching at the elementary level. Email: taracarpenter@byu.edu Website: taracarpenterart.com

Brittany Nixon May is assistant professor of Music Education at Brigham Young University. She currently serves as Elementary Vice President of the Utah Music Educators Association, as Western Region Representative of the NAfME Early Childhood Music Special Research Interest Group, and as the Western Region Representative for the Society of Music Teacher Education. Her research interests include arts integration, early childhood and elementary general music, and music teacher education.

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Supplementary Material

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