Physical Music

The design of physical objects plays on so many of the senses, and yet it is rare to find a combination of colour and form that creates an emotional response as strongly and as universally felt as is possible with a few notes of music. Where is the harmony, the discord, the major, minor, seventh, do they have an equivalent in physical form and if so could they subconsciously enter the design process and lift the user experience into a new realm of the senses?

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Physical Music 94 - sine waves and interference from projected shadows.

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Physical Music 93 - Sines and waves

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Physical Music 92 - simple sine

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Physical music 91 - Composition ... if Rietveld met Mondrian and Kandinsky

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Physical Music 90 - More experiments with artificial waves and forces. 1 positive and 9 negative forces acting on each other - reflecting nature.

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Physical Music 89 - Mechanical Synth

Mechanisms to make waveforms - A Jean Tinguely Synth perhaps ?

( from Mechanisms and Mechanical Devices Sourcebook - Sclater & Chironis )

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Physical Music 88 - Finding the Key

Using Chroma software to find a complimentary colour palette from an image (3D version of Composition VIII - Kandinsky). Could it be possible to similarly extract 5 chords that sum up an image in a complimentary key using a similar algorithm 

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Physical Music 87 - Interference

There’s a sound in this visual somewhere - perhaps it’s dual oscillators finally synching or a note panning to the right to perfect stereo with the constant left.

More experiments with visual animations.

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Physical Music 86 - The Snail

From IRCAMLab - The Snail - a wonderful visualiser / tuner that interprets the sounds with incredibly accurate representations. A tool for all those interested in analysing the individual elements that make up the composition and nuances of the sound. - getting closer to physical music ?

Music by Viridescences.   

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Physical Music 85 - Verse / Chorus

Exploring the concept of the verse / chorus using analogous colour palettes for each verse and a slightly discordant palette for the chorus. The pattern of each verse mixes the tones in a repeated sequence - playing with the rhythm. The first two verses are characteristically warm in tone, the third is a mix of cool and warm tones yet still complementary, the fourth and fifth becoming cooler. Each verse is harmonious and therefore perhaps restful and comfortable to the eye.

The chorus deliberately mixes hues, tones and borrows from mixed palettes to create a discordant, disjointed, perhaps less favoured palette. And yet the repetition of the chorus plays with our brain’s love of pattern such that it anticipates the next time the chorus is due. Like an ear worm the less favoured becomes the favoured?

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Physical Music 84 - Repeat Chorus

The chorus (represented here by a nondescript spherical lump) - perhaps not initially that interesting in itself, becomes familiar as it repeats a number of times per song. Each time the song is heard the listener explores further into the  nuances of the bass line, the rhythm and melody, the pattern, the expectation and relationship of the chorus to the song. 

The brain loves patterns, familiarity and repeats. We love to collect things, to organise things, is music another expression of that desire?

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Physical Music 83 - Pastoral Symphony ?

Musical score for orchestra synesthesia. 

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Physical Music 82 - Harmony & Discord

Randomly arranged blocks of colour - individually varying in hue and moving back and forth to create shadow and highlights, filtered to flatten the graduations into steps. 

The altering composition allows adjacent blocks to blend when in harmony, permitting the colour to flow, but creating distinct borders when there is discord. 

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Physical Music 81 - Tone composition

Exploring the compositional element of tones. Each block cycles through one of a number of tone changes whilst moving towards the viewer at a varying rate. The positions, movements and cycles are scattered so as to appear random. The blocks in turn are reflected or shaded by those around them to see how adjacent blocks influence others as notes would be influenced by preceding or succeeding notes in a score.

Each still of the animation captures a composition where each tone represents a set note or chord - an extension of Dodecaphony ? 

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Physical Music 80 - Silence with possibilities.

perhaps with reference to the white of the canvas, pure, untainted nothingness

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Physical Music 79 - Invisible silence 2

If three pure light sources ( R G and B ) move towards each other and eventually occupy the same space does the white light created represent silence? 

In the audible spectrum this is impossible, as the three notes ( C Eb G ) move closer together they would normally sound in unison as Cm rather than be muted as here. 

So if there is no equivalent of silence is there at least purity? If audio silence is impossible should purity of tone be considered the antithesis of noise? 

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Physical Music 78 - Invisible Silence 1

In physical music silencing one object is possible by obscuring one item from view by the placement of another opaque object in the line of sight. Sounds of similar volume however cannot prevent others from being heard. Playing three notes of C minor of equal volume, moving closer together in time, would not normally leave one of them dominant.  

These examples alter the volume of the dominant, minor third and fifth to reflect the physical states in the animation, first as opaque then as transparent. 

Perhaps the transparent version is more reflective of our natural recognition of the dominant.