Abstract

We developed an experiment based on the realization and evaluation of three artistic tasks in order to obtain a substantial picture of how students who play different musical instruments process musical compositions as the inspiration for visual images. The formal analysis of the students’ artworks allowed us to focus on shared characteristics between students who train with similar musical instruments. We concluded there is a connection between the spatial disposition or organization of each musical instrument, training practice, and the way students composed artwork. We noted a tendency for aerophone instrument players to express themselves in mostly linear bi-dimensional compositions, while the majority of chordophone instrument players behaved differently, stressing three-dimensional characteristics of the imaginative representation of space on a bi-dimensional surface. Students also answered a questionnaire with which we could confirm our hypothesis. In the conclusion, we focus on the importance of the art teacher to detect stereotypical attitudes, encouraging observation and contemplation to enrich and deepen students’ experiences of listening to music and their artistic expression to offer them new elements for a holistic multisensory interpretation of the visual and aural world in which they live.