Amalgamation

This project was completed with my friend and colleague Christopher Uller.

Chris and I took John Coltrane scores from The Trane Book and colored the notes according to pitch. Though color is not tied to musical pitch, we assigned colors using the Circle of Fifths (obtained here) as a frame of reference. These colorizations emphasize the closeness between sonically similar notes, such as C, F, and G, all in the "red" register. Similarly, distant tones are represented by having opposite color assignments.

In terms of data, we are operating under the argument that a song is a musical object—therefore, the recording of that music object onto a staff or score constitutes a dataset. The music accompaniment featured in the visualization serves merely as a guide for the jazz saxophone panoramic scores on the screen.

The final purpose of the visualization is a pedagogical one. We want to engage those who do not read music or have been trained in aural comprehension. We want to provide a more intuitive way to understand the relationship between notes, harmonies, melodies, and chords.

To view the visualization, download the folder on my github. The Index page takes the user to the visualization pictured below, where the palettes on the left side are buttons. When clicked, they play the song associated with the adjacent panoramic score.

In the future, we are trying to create a more robust dataset in order to automate more processes. The idea is for the user to choose their own color implantation based on current chord, key, or other forms of tonality.