Self Evaluation

To view my project Click here

Colour and music are often used for more general purposes - they can, and have been used as means to the ends of religion, politics, commerce, recreation and therapy.
Just as therapy, I had the idea of my project.
From a research about a blind student, who had to read coloured maps of the upper atmosphere, he created with some help a software that transform the colours into musical notes.
So my idea was the other way around; can deaf people listen to music? Looking at piece of art created by transforming music into colours the person can interpret the music!
I just wanted to create a software that is able to transform music into colours and, to make it more effective, a vibration device will be added to my project.
So anytime someone wants to listen to music from internet or just simply play a cd from his/her computer, he/she can play it through the software and enjoy the music.
He/she will place his/her hand on the vibrator device and while the music is playing he/she will feel the vibrations. At the same time he/she will watch the changing and movement of the colours on the screen depending on the melody played. The colours, of course, depend on the tone and sound; higher is the tone, lighter is the colour.
The main purpose of this project is not to create a web site, but is to create a software that can be downloaded from internet or it can be available and integrated in any music web sites.
What I have really created, differs from the original project, this is because of luck of knowledge of programming. Unfortunately I have never studied programming or processing so I have found really difficult to realize my original idea.
Thanks to Julie I could create my project in flash.
It is a simple prototype, but quite self -explanatory and it shows exactly what I had in mind, even if it doesn’t really transform music into colours.

If I have to evaluate myself, these will be my marks:

1. Research Skills 9 (good research)
2. Contextual Awareness 8
3. Synthesis of research material 9 (good writing and visualization)
4. Critical Analysis of subject 9 (well explained)
5. Creativity, originality and innovation 9
6. Application of theory of practice 7 (luck of knowledge of programming)
7. Technical Development 8 (good use of flash)
8. Rationality & Realisation 8
9. Organisation & Time-planning 8
10. Presentation & Documentation 8

Of course since at the beginning of the course, we have been told that we shouldn’t be worried by the technology. That is what I did. I had my idea and I hope I am not going to be penalized because I couldn’t create a real software.
At the end of this module I have learnt theoretically to develop a new idea but practically, except of trying to create it using a software I already knew, I didn’t learn anything new. As I said at the beginning of the module, during the second and third level, I am not really improving any skills, but I am just repeating the same things. Anyway I did my best.

Ass2 Internet and Network Art - Music & Colour

To view my project Click Here

Internet and Network Art
Music & Colour

“Lumia are an art that permits visual artists to play images in the way that musicians play with sound. … In designing and play Lumia, three principal dimensions require attention: colour, form and motion. …” written by Fred Collopy in the article “Colour, Form, and Motion Dimensions of a Musical Art of Light”, since in the ancient period artist and scientist tried to convert music into colours.
In 1704, Sir Isaac Newton first analysed the coloured properties of sunlight. Newton felt obliged to divide the naturally-occurring spectrum into seven colours, one for each note of a musical scale. In this way, the phenomena of light and sound were united in the one mathematical matrix. His simple array has survived as a colour-music code, as well as a commonly-accepted way of describing the rainbow.




SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S COLOUR MUSIC WHEEL. The colours of the spectrum, as they appeared in "Opticks" of 1704, are shown in sequence from red to violet, as wedges between musical notes. This diagram delineates an idealized musical system, as the metaphorical framework for the newly-discovered pure colours of sunlight.


This is another example of an ancient Persian scheme provides the following correspondences between musical tones and colours (the exactly period is unknown):
B rose
A green
G bright blue
F black
E yellow
D violet
C blue-black

One of the modern digital artists who show us what we cannot see but we can listen to is Martin Wattenber.
In “The Shape of Song” viewers can really see the shape of any composition. The software, written entirely in Java, draws “translucent” arches depending on the sequence of notes and on the difficulty of each musical piece. Of course more complex is a composition more intricate is a diagram.

An example of a complex diagram built from a complex song is “Goldberg Variations” Bach. As we can see this piece is divided into two main parts, each made of a long passage played twice.

He wants to achieve an interesting point: … to make invisible structures visible, …
… Part of the reason that I try to represent music visually is that I am a visual thinker at the core – If I were musically inclined, I suppose I would be composing symphonies about painting instead.”

Another digital artist is Adriano Abbado, who studied the relation between sound and shape in a really interesting way.
The animation he creates is an experiment aiming to test the audio capabilities of metasynth, a piece of software that creates sounds by interpreting an image. Pixels which appear high in the image generate high frequencies, and vice versa; brighter pixel produce louder sounds.


To see few seconds of his artworks, simply go to:
http://www.abbado.com/events/exhibition/corpo.html

Light and sound give to most of us simple pleasures and wonderful feelings, they can be: the sight of a sunset and the song of a bird - or man-made - a familiar painting or a favourite song. Their sensations give a personal delight that creative people have always understood. Painting and music-making employ colour and sound as their basic tools, and an infinite variety of expressive results comes of these simple means - from the colours and forms of the visual arts and the pitches and rhythms of music. Some artists re-evaluate the way these elements are used; Schoenberg's music and the painting of Mondrian were achieved by strict explorations of the basics. The expressive powers of light and sound are not the sole province of the fine artist.
Attempts have been made to regulate the use of our senses even further, by specifying relationships between colour and music themselves. Most often, arrangements of this kind serve the most exulted purposes, aiming to paint a picture of heaven with light and colour, and to describe it with musical notes.

Colour and music are often used for more general purposes - they can, and have been used as means to the ends of religion, politics, commerce, recreation and therapy.


Victor Kai-Chu Wong (a blind student), studies a map of
the upper
atmosphere on which atmospheric density is represented
by colours, by reading the colours as musical notes.
Behind him are the project developers (L-R) electrical
engineering student Ankur Moitra and Research
Associate James A. Ferwerda


So I thought that it would be nice if deaf people could finally listen and understand music.
Personally I do not have any experience with deaf people, but because the music gives me so much strong feelings, I just want to give, in a way, the same feeling to people that are not able to listen to music.
My idea is to create software that transforms music into colours. Maybe it would be easy, at the beginning, to use sounds instead of music, because otherwise there would be an overload of sounds and tones.

The main purpose of this project is not to create a web site, but is to create a software that can be downloaded from internet or it can be available and integrated in any music web sites. So anytime someone wants to listen to music from internet or just simply play a cd from his/her computer, he/she can play it through the software and enjoy the music.
He/she will watch the changing and movement of the colours on the screen depending on the melody played.
I have used the ancient Persian scheme. This is because it is the easiest way to correspond musical tones with colours. I think it would be nice to have another language made by colours; or maybe, apparently simpler, a standard scheme to be used to recognize the musical note;
To help more to hearing music there will be an extra device; a vibration device! I am thinking about a platform (plagued to the computer), where he/she will place his/her hand. This platform will transmit vibrations while the music is playing.
Different instruments, rhythms and notes can be felt through five finger pads attached to the "Vibrato" speaker.
The idea of hearing music through vibrations dates back long time ago. Ludwig van Beethoven was completely deaf by 1818, but continued to compose for another 10 years.
He is said to have cut the legs off his piano and played while sitting on the floor so he could feel the vibrations better.
There have been some studies on the brain and how it helps deaf enjoy music. Scientists believe they have discovered why deaf people can enjoy listening to music.
Dr Dean Shibata, assistant professor of radiology at the University of Washington, has found that deaf people sense musical vibrations in the part of the brain other people use for hearing. These musical vibrations are, he believes, likely to be "every bit as real" as actually hearing the sounds.
Dr Shibata told the 87th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, in Chicago, that deaf people and those with hearing may have similar experiences when they listen to music.
Every key of my keyboard has the name of the correspondent note; so it will be easier to know and recognize the sound.

If I press any key, for example C (or Do), on the screen, on top of the keyboard, it will show the correspondent colour.

This first part can be really useful to learn and practice the language of “colour”.

Pressing the right button, a simple music will play showing the simple sequences of colours.
The left button (“music”) there is a prototype of a more complex music and how it is represented.
Unfortunately I could not create a real software that transforms music into colours, but I think that my idea is quite clear. Once we have learnt the language, we can finally see how this project should work. Listening to any kind of music from cd or from internet, we will be able to look at the movie generated by the music, as well as feeling from the “vibration device”.

Bibliography


http://www.turbulence.org/Works/song/

http://rhythmiclight.com/

http://www.abbado.com/

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~colmusic/welcome.htm

http://kh.bu.edu/artwithbraininmind-l/1663.html

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Jan05/Wong.software.to.html

http://home.comcast.net/~sean.day/art-history.htm

http://www.webrarian.co.uk/index.html

Jewanski 1999: 70, which is based upon Wellek 1927

week 14

Week14
This is my last week, I am going to hand it this Friday. Unfortunately it is very hard and complicated to study processing in less than a week, so I created a prototype in after effect. I have imported few images into after effect and then I have applied few colour effects depending on the music. The colours don’t much the tone of the music but I just wanted to create an idea how it should be.





This is an example of relation between not and colour. Pressing the note C (or DO) the correspondent colour will appear on the screen. In this case C is represented by the colour: “Blue”.

week 13

Week13
That is great! My project is taking shape. I have created a keyboard and a screen. Pressing each key, the correspondent colour will appear on the screen. I am going to show as well an example of playing a simple music (“Fra Martino” in Italian, actually I don’t know the translation in English) and show the sequences of colours on the screen. This piece of music is really simple; it is made by single notes. But I want to try to play a more complex piece of music instead. I started using max/msp, but because it is a software I have never used before, I found it quite difficult. I am going to try with processing and see if I can reach to a good point.

week 12

Week12
This week I am trying to attribute the colours with the notes, but it is not that simple.
I have been reading my essay few times, and I ended up with this conclusion: I am
going to use the ancient Persian scheme. This is because it is the easiest way to correspond musical tones with colours. I think it would be nice to have another language made by colours; or maybe, apparently simpler, a standard scheme to be used to recognize the musical note; I think I am asking too much.
But in the future, everything can be possible. Let’s stop dreaming and let’s go to work!

week 11

Week10
My ideas are really clear now! I know what I am doing and most of all I am confident of my project. I created the keyboard and imported into flash. The difficult part was to find the sounds of each note. But with an accurate research and some editing in adobe premier, I did it!

Every key of my keyboard has the name of the correspondent note; so it will be easier to know and recognize the sound. If I press any key, for example C (or Do), on the screen, on top of the keyboard, it will show the correspondent colour.
Now, there is only one problem! Which colour do I have to use? Which scientist’ work do I have to consider? I have to keep it simple, I think this is important. I need more research!

week 10

Week9
That’s it. It’s done. During the workshop, Julie saw us individually. So I explained my problem and I was really concerned about the assignment 2, because I was really stuck. So she gave me a great idea. I am going to develop my project in flash, software I can use quite well. The idea is very simple but effective; I am going to create a keyboard where I can press some keys and play some sounds. Pressing the key I will show the correspondent colour. This could be a good start to learn the relation between sound and colour; which colour belongs to a specific sound.

week 9

Week8
Assignment 1 is now finished, now it comes the “best” part or better the scary part; the assignment 2. Still I don’t really know how to realize my idea because of luck of knowledge of appropriate software. I did some researches so maybe I could come up with some ideas, but no luck! I am still reading my essay and trying to find a solution, but still nothing. I am really stuck! During the next workshop I am going to ask some help from Julie. I am sure she will give a great help.