Evolution of Cairo

Initial Animation Diagrams of Pachelbel's Canon in Dmaj

The following two animations use the musical edifice "Canon in Dmaj" as a generator for form. This particular edifice was chosen because of its simple, looping 8 chord progression, and a simple theme, that goes through numerous variations with each loop of the chord progression.


The animation above addresses the rhythmic value of the edifice. It was difficult to match the animation and the music too 100% accuracy, as the piece has numerous slight tempo changes to aid the crescendo. The animation treats the edifice as a series of layers, adding another musical layer with each loop of the chord progression. Other versions of the animation will be posted within the next few days.


Another Version of above.


The animation above addresses the tonal aspect of the edifice, uses Pythagorus ideas of musical/mathematical ratios (discussed in a previous blog). Each chord of the progression is translated into a 3D shape. The problem is that the shapes corresponding to the chords do not match up in 3D, thats why the strips of light are visible on the left walls. Other versions of the animation will be posted within the next few days.

synethesia factor week 7

Music of the week: Layla (70's version) Eric Clapton

Movie of the week: Atonement

Literature of the week: Cairo (Andre Raymond)

Color of the week: Sepia

Taste in mouth of the week: black cherry cough drops

Smell of the week: black cherry cough drops

Touch of the week: grass

Synesthesia factor of the week: Listening to peruvian flute music makes me taste delicious peruvian steak

Moud of the week: exhausted 

Inspirational Quote of the week:

"A leader is a dealer of hope."

-Napoleon 

Synethesia factor week 6

Music of the week: When Everything Dies (God is an Astronaut) 
Movie of the week: The Truman Show

Literature of the week: Music, Language, and the Brain (Aniruddh D. Patel)

Color of the week: Cerulean Blue 

Taste in mouth of the week: ice

Smell of the week: water

Touch of the week: icey-water

Synethesia factor of the week: Atlanta (Georgia) has a magenta aura over it...

Moud of the week: focused

Inspirational Quote of the week:

 "The significance of a man is not in what he attains but in what he longs to attain."

- Khalil Gobran

Architecture as a Sequence of Harmonic / Melodic Space pt1

The following is taken from a paper entitled "Frozen Music" that I wrote in my independent study with Professor Ronit Eisenbach, during the fall 2007 semester at the University of Maryland.

The famous quote “Architecture is Frozen Music” seems to be an oxymoron; music relies on the notion of time, so if music is frozen in time, it is non-audible. Some believe that the key to unravel the connection between both arts, that the quote suggests, lays in the phrase Frozen Music; if one understands the musical notes not as vibrations that resonate through time, but as a series of proportional ratios between two notes playing together in harmony.

There are twelve notes found in the traditional Western music vocabulary. Each of these notes is a semitone apart from one another, creating what is known as the Chromatic
scale. The notes in this scale are commonly known as: 

A - A# / Bb - B - C - C# / Db - D - D# / Db - E - F - F# / Gb - G - G# / Ab

A semitone (also known as a half-step) is the interval between each note and its successor in the chromatic scale, for an example; a semitone after the A note would be the A# / Bb note, or a semitone after the B note would be a C note. A wholetone is equal to two semitones, for example; a whole step from an A note would be a B note, or a wholetone from an E note would be an F# / Gb note.

Western music are not based on the Chromatic scale, but uses a variety of Diatonic scales. The difference between them is that while the Chromatic scale relies on the 12 notes being played successfully at semitone intervals, the Diatonic scale incorporates a mixture of both semitone and wholetone intervals. A Diatonic scale generally consists of seven notes and repeat at the octave. Western music in the Medieval and Renaissance periods (1100-1600) tends to use the white-note (natural major) diatonic scale C-D-E-F-G-A-B and its transpositions. Notice that this scale is made of Whole-tone and Semi-tone intervals, more specifically, two Whole-tones / one Semi-tone / three Whole-tones / one Semi-tone.

Rameau discusses that the reason for that is that these are the intervals that are easily proportionally extracted from a length of string. As documented in his Treatise on Harmony, a length of string that produces a certain pitch could be easily divided up to create different intervals of that pitch.
 
Let’s assume that we have a piece of string held at two points that produces that pitch C. If the length is divided into two equal parts, the pitch of each side of the string also produces a C pitch, except an octave higher. This pitch is the tonic degree of the scale, meaning the first note of the musical scale.
 
Now lets divide the string into three equal parts and pluck the string at the point where the resultant length is 2/3 times the original length. The pitch produced would be the 5th note in the scale, in this case the G note. This pitch is the dominant degree of the scale.
 
If the string is divided into four equal parts, and the string is plucked at the point where the resultant length is 3/4 times the original length, the pitch produced would be the 4th note in the scale, the F note. This pitch is the sub-dominant degree of the scale.

Note that while F is the 4th degree after C, C is the 5th degree after F. If you play the sequence of pitches C - F – C (octave higher), you will be moving 4 degrees to the sub-dominant and then 5 degrees to reach the octave. The same is reversed with the G; while the G is a 5th degree to the C, the C is a 4th degree to the G. This also makes sense mathematically, if you multiply 2/3 to 3/4 the answer would be 1/2. The tonic - dominant - subdominant degrees are the most vital in any musical scale; they are sometimes called perfect tones and the most commonly used chord, the 5th chord (or power chord) is derived from these notes; either using the tonic and the dominant with the tonic in the bass note, or using the subdominant and the tonic with the subdominant in the bass (both examples are 5 degrees apart from one another). Such chords are vital because the note that completes the chordal triad, distinguishing the major and minor chords (the 3rd degree) is absent, so the chord could be applied to both major and minor scales. If the string is divided further, into 5 or 6 parts, the 6th (Submediant) and 3rd (Mediant) degrees would be produced. 

Professor Eisenbach's website: www.roniteisenbach.com

music and architecture around the world pt2

The following youtube video, by Cika , juxtaposes a slideshow of architecture around the world with the eagles' "new kid in town". I understand how both the images of the slideshow and the music are related through content (the whole notion of being new in a certain town seeing things differently), but I felt that there was a huge disconnect between both. I would go as far as to say that this juxtaposition, at times, seemed very cacophonic.  



This next video, he juxtaposes images of animals and landscapes with Toto's "Africa". I think this works a little better, although I felt that the music got disconnected when the images of the animals were in close up. I am not sure if "Africa" utilizes any of the rhythms or instruments of indigenous African music (I always felt that it was much more Caribbean based rather than African), but I felt that at some points, the music was able to be in sync with the mood and texture of the image.

Synethesia factor week 5

Music of the week: Roses (Rpwl)
Move of the week: Be Kind Rewind
Literature of the week: Experiencing Architecture (Steen Eiler Rasmussen)   Music, Language, and the Brain (Aniruddh D. Patel)
Color of the week: olive green
Taste in mouth of the week: Fillet Mignon with Brandy mushroom sauce

Smell of the week: spinach

Touch of the week: cool apple skin

Synesthesia factor of the week: alarm clock makes me feel like a million tiny little finger pinching my skin

Moud of the week: empowered

Inspirational Quote of the week:

"The best time for awakening is now"

- Siddhartha Gautama