project07:P3
In my search for as many performances I could possibly find, I stumbled across a particular special one. Under the direction of Benjamin Zander, the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orcestra does not only give a stunning performance of a complex work (see: La Valse), but I noticed a big screen behind the orchestra with where moving geometric coloured shapes are projected. This projection is a creation by Stephen Malinowski. You can find more information on Stephen here.
Contents
Stephen Malinowski and the Music Animation Machine
Stephen's Project is called the Music Animation Machine, a framework he has been working on since 1974 (!!). Since the release of YouTube in 2005, he has been able to make quite a name for himself and he has been working fulltime on the research since 2010. The Music Animation Machine can be seen as research into the field of visualizing music. This makes the project very interesting for musicians and non-musicians. Music can be confusing for the untrained ear. While trained musicians will always 'feel' the directions of harmony - tension and relief, the fundamentals of western music - and are happily surprised by any unexpected twists and turns, the untrained ear might find all this information confusing. This may explain why in the last 10 or so decades, the complexity of music has seen a drastic step backwards, to appeal to the bigger market. Stephen's work may help this audience understand not only more complex works of classical music by giving them a visual aid of what is to come, but also find the intricacies and finer details one may find in classical music. As his research is vast and comprehensive (and somewhat behind the scope of my original research), below you may find a list of papers which I used to expand upon the research of Stephen Malinowski.
Visualizing Harmony
While reading a written score of music can reveal any crucial piece of information of the music for trained musicians, untrained musicians may become non the wiser. However with recent advances in computing power, we can process MIDI information in totally new ways. For example, the piano roll notation system displayed in Synthesia, where every note falls towards a keyboard so timing and pitch can be observed instantly, revealing many patterns otherwise unnoticed. The software has become popular among young piano students who now don't have the need to learn to read any form of classical music notation (see video above).
Architectural Implications
list of papers
http://lovro.lpt.fri.uni-lj.si/papers/vhc.pdf
https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~craig/papers/01/icmc01-tonal.pdf
