Conducting is a language.

Each movement is a visual cue to an orchestra to follow the conductor through a thicket of notes, phrases and tempos.

But what about improvisation? How does a conductor keep musicians from getting tangled up, turned around and headed in the wrong direction?

Try a new language, says world-class composer/conductor Walter Thompson.

The New York City-based Thompson, who founded his own orchestra in 1985 as a vehicle for his compositions and adaptations, has also created a unique physical conducting language he calls "Sound Painting."

"My works had windows of improvisation built in, but the improvisation didn't always happen the way I wanted it to. I wasn't working from chord changes, so the improvisation had to develop from the melodies I wrote and the players weren't staying true to it," he explains.

So he started making gestures.

More than a decade later, he's got about 650 signals in his repertoire, from the basic spoken words "improvise" and "play" to more complex gestures to indicate rhythms, specific chords or "feel" of the music. All of the gestures are designed to indicate the type of improvisation Thompson desires.

He has crossed interdisciplinary lines with the refined technique, incorporating not only musicians, but actors, dancers, singers and artists, all working in the medium of improvisation and creating a palette of sound, color, shape and form—Sound Painting.

The son of abstract expressionist painter Ron Thompson, it seems only natural that Walter Thompson would grow up relating painting to music. Since creating the language, he has refined it and has copyrighted, patented and registered it. Anyone who wants to use "Sound Painting" must be licensed.

The composer/conductor will teach elements of Sound Painting to about 30 University of Northern Iowa students today and Tuesday, followed by a public performance Tuesday at the Strayer-Wood Theatre.

He briefly visited the campus last year, and Bob Washut, director of jazz studies at UNI's School of Music, got a taste of Sound Painting. He jumped at the opportunity for Thompson to return and work with students.

"It was a whole new concept, stimulating new territory. The two-hour session Thompson did last year was so much fun and pregnant with possibilities," Washut explains.

"There will be about 12 to 15 instrumentalists, five or six actors and two or three vocalists. We don't do a lot of interdisciplinary type events on campus, so this is a great opportunity for the students," he adds.

Thompson, has performed in club and concert venues around the world, created works for orchestra, ensemble, dance companies and film scores, as well as recorded four albums. He has taught at the New School in New York City, New York University, MIT in Boston, The Lighthouse Music School for the Blind, among others.

Currently, he is teaching creative music in the New York City schools and conducts the Walter Thompson Orchestra and Ensemble, both based in New York.

Thompson says there is no limit to musical styles suitable for Sound Painting—jazz, Big Band, contemporary classical, even Cajun music.

"It's an on-the spot compositional language, a real give-and-take situation in improvisation. The performers are supplying the material after I indicate the concept."

"I know when I'm going to get surprised; when I'm looking for a certain momentum, I know the intent of what they're going to do, what I'm after and I can get very specific, but ultimately, it's what they do with it," Thompson says.

Unless, of course, the orchestra is performing from a "palette," or short section, of rehearsed music, text or choreography. He plans to teach the UNI students about 70 gestures in two rehearsals, and their performance will include palettes.

"Adds some punch in a composition," Thompson explains. For example, he has performed Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" using Gershwin's notations as the palette and putting it together using Sound Painting signs."

"The piece sounds like Gershwin's 'Rhapsody,' but not in any way you've heard it before. It has a very different quality."

Walter Thompson, founder of the Walter Thompson Orchestra and originator of the Sound Painting language, will conduct UNI students in public performance Tuesday.

The performance is at 8 p.m. at the Strayer-Wood Theatre on the University of Northern Iowa campus in Cedar Falls.

There is no admission charge.