Please see the Statement & Bio. page for a large overview of the project.

BACKGROUND

Within my pursuit of "Pattern in Numbers," a paper and body of work (paintings) arose called
"The Geometry of Music, Art and Structure... linking science, art and esthetics." The first draft
of the paper was completed in 1987, followed by an updated version in 1996 and a condensed form developed in 1998.
(The latter was presented at the Eighth International Conference on Engineering Computer Graphics and Descriptive
Geometry in Austin, TX, sponsored and published by the International Society of Geometry and Graphics. 
The original material for this was presented at the 1996 solo exhibition at the Montage Gallery, Portland, OR.) 
 

A new digitized version ... with updated text and graphics... was completed and placed online in 2009.
 

To extend and supplement the ideas in the 2009 white paper, an interactive new media net.art project
"The Geometry of Music Color...the role of the ISL," has just been completed (Part I) and is the subject of
this inquiry into a Part II. In Part II, I would like to engage the user to "paint music."
 

 

IDEAS

Music is composition in time. Painting (let's call all visual art on a 2D surface "painting" and/or "color"
 ... used interchangeably) is composition in space.


The science of sound is well developed. The art of music...from notation to instrumentation...is also rigorously defined.
(As in painting, the final art esthetic of music presentation is much more of a subjective...and context driven...experience.
There may be some scientific grounds for how and why certain compositional elements trigger somewhat universal responses of
beauty, harmony and the sublime.) 

Color also has a rigorously defined and developed science. Its application as an art form, including its size, shape,
texture, saturation, redundancy, juxtaposition, etc., to illicit an esthetic response is at least as subjective as that of music
...especially when presented in the abstract.

Ok, we know all that. Just wanted to get it all out front. We also know that there is a long history of arbitrarily assigning
color and shapes to the various pitches of the music scale during playback (music visualization).

QUESTION: If we can show a scientific correlation between the music scale and the color scale (spectrum)...including the key complements
...could we not also translate the time-based musical input into a space-based graphical color output, and vice versa.
 
 

DETAILS

A linear, time-based representation of music is already present in the form of sheet music...musical notation.
Typically this 2D display is represented like swollen text on a page...left to right, each line stacked below the previous,
from page to page. The height and width of the lines allows for the notation of key, pitch, duration, amplitude, etc.,
all while servicing the melody...the horizontal element. Harmony...the vertical...is accomplished by the use of chords
(stacked, related notes) and/or separate notation lines running simultaneous below each melodic line.


While keeping the vertical orchestration of harmony in mind for the more advanced considerations of this project,
for now let's keep it simple and concentrate on the single-line horizontal unfolding of melody and simple chords. Thus we have a wave
...a compound wave...which is read sequentially in time.

Painting, as has been said, is essentially an organization of color shapes on a 2D surface. In its occupation of
visual space, we can (given the opportunity) take in the space-based presentation of color in a single image. And of course, we
can digest the image from its individual components by looking at them over time. We could follow the artist's compositional
leads by looking at specific colors, shapes, contrasts, intensities, etc. Are there corollaries to music composition?

In the science of color, every color shape can be expressed as to size, shape, hue, tone, chroma, duration and gradation, etc.
But what about the larger organizational elements. In music we always have a beginning, a middle and and end. It may start with
an introduction, move on to a major theme (A), then to a second theme (B), and back to repeat the first (A), with or without variation,
and close with a coda. And within all that structure, as mentioned, the notation sheets lay out the internal structure of the music
both vertically and horizontally as it plays linearly in time. It is like a 2D lens plays the music as it traverses from left to
right over the score.

What of painting? Is there a beginning, middle and end to painting? Is there a corollary to horizontal and vertical
compositional elements? I think the answer is yes but it is much less apparent precisely because we experience the painting
...initially...as a whole...in space...and only thereafter does the time element enter as we peel away the layers of the composition. 

To keep matters simple in painting. let's refer to painting as color abstraction and for now leave behind 
all reference to and of representational objects.

Assigning a color (hue, tone, chroma, gradation) to each note or chord sequentially along the lines (measures)
of a score seems to be straight forward and doable. If each assignment were to occupy a 3x3 pixel space one could have a course
distribution of hi, medium and low across the grid in any direction to characterize the sound of each note/chord as it is read
...left to right. A larger pixel space...say 4x4 or 5x5...may be required if you need to go to a modulated pitch, etc. The pixel
spaces laid out graphically like the musical score text itself would generate a graphic pictue of that musical composition.

To make this process into an interactive color-music composer presents some new challenges as to the translations
of the time-based to the space-based experience. 

Looking at it from the color to music direction, how can you meaningfully translate the colorful sound coming out
of your paint brush strokes...that is, every color you select to paint with will also generate a musical pitch...onto a flat 2D
surface in such a way that while the final color image represents the color-music composition you just made, it can also be played
back in time to reveal the musical composition...the music...that you composed?

It seems there are two options. 

One is to record the actual painting sequence over time...from first to last...and to sample and translate this
to the time-based music output.

The other would be...after the painting is completed...to sample and translate successive pixel spaces. This sampling
could be done in several ways. One would simply be from left to right, top to bottom...like reading a text. Another, would be like a
hybrid synthesis of both methods. Record the painting process...beginning to end...then sample in relative order of the painting: 

(1) the largest and /or broadest areas of a single color, followed by the next, and so on;
(2) the largest and /or broadest areas of maximum color or tonal contrast, and the next;
(3) the area with the greatest detail, etc., etc. In other words, the sampling would follow some major compositional elements.

While both music and color rely on context to give meaning, music relies more heavily on memory to relate to the
time-based composition. Color stimulates the visual cortex all at once (at least initially) and the composition...the meaning in context
...reveals itself more by spatial association. Of course both media are time-based in the the actual process of the the making
...and this may point to the only viable way to translate from music to color, or color to music.

~Reginald Brooks, 8/28/09