Eugene composer explores the shape of sound in music and art

Inside pianist and composer Alexander Schwarzkopf’s home studio, a grand piano sits in a room surrounded by art.

To one side of the wall is a large mural of an abstract piano made of black angular lines and squiggles, with splashes of colorful mountains and pine trees.

The image represents “the full spectrum of possibility realized,” said Schwarzkopf, who continues to add to the mural. “There’s just this thing with realism and depicting objects and depicting things—I’m not interested in it,” he said. “I’m pulling between these two worlds. My fascination with geometric shapes has been a lifelong love. I always loved the work of the cubists and the expressionists.”

For Schwarzkopf, the connection between visual art and music is more than aesthetic. It’s a way of understanding how music works.

Finding structure in sound

Schwarzkopf began playing the piano as a child and grew up surrounded by art. His father worked as an architect and his mother was involved in theatre and puppetry. That creative environment shaped the way he approaches music today.

During graduate school, Schwarzkopf focused his research on structural interpretation.

On paper, music appears linear, with notes arranged across the page from left to right. But Schwarzkopf studies music beyond notation, examining physical movements, tone, pitch, and clusters of sound to uncover what he sees as the internal architecture of a musical piece.

“Taking your hands away from the keyboard, experiencing the sound, visualizing it,” he said. “What is the shape? What does it look like? Is it jagged? What kind of expression does that suggest?”

The idea behind connecting music with imagery is to help performers follow the highs and lows of the story within the sound.

“Color and imagery is an important part of our work,” he said. “Some of the most important Master Classes I had with experienced artists ask you to play a complex piece, and ask what is your story. So, I think that you can get a lot from attaching these multiple associations with the experience.”

Inspiration from an unusual score

In 2022, Schwarzkopf was invited to compose a piece for Portland’s Makrokosmos Festival honoring the late avant-garde composer George Crumb.

Three of the pieces from Crumb’s Makrokosmos collection have scores arranged in symbols. “The Magic Circle of Infinity” is written in a circular score rather than the standard horizontal format.

“So we have a combination of visual complexity with sound complexity,” Schwarzkopf said. “And it spins. You have to play the whole circle, all three parts, three times plus a third. There is a bar across the center that you play to open it, and those are cluster chords. I reference them in the first part of my ‘Synergy’ score.”

Inspired by that design, Schwarzkopf created his own piece called “Synergy.” The work is paired with a visual score he designed by hand.

But before he finalized the music, he needed to determine its form.

“I was composing the piece for at least a week or two before I even found the shape,” he said. “At one point, I thought, I need to stop because I actually don’t know what this is going to look like.”

Inspired by the infinity symbol, eventually his sketch evolved into a lily with eight looping petals. When he transferred the music into the drawing, the notes fit perfectly in the design.

“There are things in this image that are derived from notation aspects,” he said. “These big beams around the sides are actually beams on groups of sounds. Some of them are slurs that connect groups of sounds.”

The realm of creativity and imagination

Schwarzkopf has created numerous visual works connected to music. A few pieces resemble graphic scores, a form of musical notation developed in the 20th century that uses shapes and symbols instead of traditional notes.

At first glance, his artwork can function in a similar way. The shapes and colors often follow the movement and energy of the music, allowing viewers to visually follow along with the sound.

But unlike a graphic score, the images are not meant to replace the written music or translate each note. Instead, Schwarzkopf’s artwork captures the images and sensations the music suggests, inviting performers to think about tone, movement, and expression in a more visual way.

“When you think about a chord as burnt orange instead of ‘am I playing the right notes?’ You’re giving your audience a little more to listen to,” he said.

However, there isn’t a fixed formula for finding the internal structure of a sound.

“Process is a little bit of a hard word to associate with it,” he said. “It all stems from seeing, hearing and responding. It’s rearranging and restructuring those pitches into textures and forms.”

When interpreting music, he considers characteristics that might seem more associated with painting than music.

“What kind of color? What depth or density?” he said. “Is it opaque, or does it need light coming through it? That tells you about your touch. That tells you about the kind of sound.”

Even with those ideas, Schwarzkopf emphasizes that creativity remains open-ended.

“This stuff is not absolute,” he said. “You dwell in the realm of creativity and imagination.”

Seeing the music

Schwarzkopf has performed internationally and participated in a variety of experimental concerts. Some involved multiple pianists performing together. In other performances, his artwork was projected behind him while he played.

He has even performed in complete darkness.

After one concert, an audience member made a comment that has stayed with him.

“Never has anybody said so clearly to me, ‘I could see the sound,’” Schwarzkopf said. “That’s when I knew for sure this exists in everyone. Synesthesia is real.”

Synesthesia refers to a neurological phenomenon in which stimulation of one sense can trigger experiences in another. Some people associate specific sounds with colors.

Schwarzkopf believes those connections are not limited to a small group of people. He thinks, with practice, many people can develop their own associations between sound and image.

“I think that all humans are blessed with it on some level, but I think that some definitely go much further than that.”

When teaching, he instructs his students to imagine music visually.

“I ask them to take a blank keyboard and color it in,” he said. “And give themselves time. Don’t do it right away. Sit with the sounds and build these multiple associations.”

For Schwarzkopf, that approach can change how music is performed. Instead of focusing solely on notes and rhythm, he encourages students to find visual connections to the story inside a piece.

“I think that all of it is game: everything is sound, and everything is music,” he said. “For those who don’t want to deal with that and think about that, that’s fine too, but life could be more interesting.”