In the fall of 1974, after attending a few years at Berklee College of Music, Walter Thompson moved to his family's summer home in Woodstock, New York. There he received a grant from the National Endowment on the Arts to study composition and woodwinds with Anthony Braxton. During this period he also studied dance improvisation with Ruth Ingalls in Woodstock.

Woodstock in the 1970s was a very exciting time for music. The Creative Music School (CMS), founded by Karl Berger, Don Cherry, and Ornette Coleman, was going strong. Great composers and performers such as John Cage, Ed Blackwell, Carlos Santana, Don Cherry, Anthony Braxton, and Carla Bley gave 2-week workshop/performances with the students. The CMS was closed during the summers, but many of the students remained in Woodstock. Thompson organized jam sessions with these students and it was out of these sessions Thompson formed his first orchestra and produced a series of concerts at the Woodstock Kleinert Gallery. The focus of the orchestra was on large-group, jazz-based improvisation and it was during these early days that Thompson began experimenting with signing improvisation. He created very basic gestures, asking for a long tone or improvisation in a pointillist style, for example.

Photo: Nancy S. Donskoj

Thompson moved to New York City in 1980 and formed The Walter Thompson Big Band (now The Walter Thompson Orchestra) in 1984. During the first year with his orchestra, while conducting a performance in Brooklyn, New York, Thompson needed to communicate with the orchestra in the middle of one of his compositions. They were performing a section of improvisation where trumpet 2 was soloing. During the solo Thompson wanted to have one of the other trumpet players create a background. Not wanting to emulate bandleaders who would yell or speak out loud to their orchestra, Thompson decided to use some of the signs he had experimented with during his Woodstock days and in the moment he made up these signs: Trumpet 1, Background, With, 2-Measure, Feel; Watch Me, 4 Beats. He tried it and there was no response! But in the next rehearsal, members of his orchestra asked what the signing was about – and he told them. The orchestra members thought it was a very interesting direction and encouraged Thompson to continue to develop the language further. During the next 10 years, Thompson developed Soundpainting into a comprehensive sign language for creating live composition from structured, jazz-based improvisation. In the early 1990s Thompson expanded the Soundpainting language to include actors, dancers, poets, visual artists, and people from all walks of life.
To date, Soundpainting comprises more than 1200 gestures and is being used by many professional performers and educators worldwide.