I'm seeing colors
Back after a much-needed summer hiatus! Now, to ease myself back into regular blogging...
An ex-musician friend happened upon this video of Beethoven's 5th Symphony - a "visual representation" of music:
For a "color code" of what each line represents, click here.
This makes me think a bit of (don't laugh, now...) the vocals "notation" used for "Rockband" (yes, the video game for XBox/Playstation/Wii), which I find genius in its simplicity and accessibility. It's a reminder that there are a myriad ways to notate pitch and time (we in the orchestra business tend to get stuck on the dots and dashes on five lines that we look at every day).
Other cultures have very different systems:
Japanese Shakuhachi music.
Russian Znamenny chant.
And finally, an interesting link outlining alternative notation within the Western classical notation.
An ex-musician friend happened upon this video of Beethoven's 5th Symphony - a "visual representation" of music:
For a "color code" of what each line represents, click here.
This makes me think a bit of (don't laugh, now...) the vocals "notation" used for "Rockband" (yes, the video game for XBox/Playstation/Wii), which I find genius in its simplicity and accessibility. It's a reminder that there are a myriad ways to notate pitch and time (we in the orchestra business tend to get stuck on the dots and dashes on five lines that we look at every day).
Other cultures have very different systems:
Japanese Shakuhachi music.
Russian Znamenny chant.
And finally, an interesting link outlining alternative notation within the Western classical notation.
Labels: fun, musical dorkery, visual impact, world music
posted by Sarah at
11:53 AM
2 Comments:
Welcome back, Sarah! Interesting post. If one thinks of music as a language, then different notations are perhaps the different alphabets that represent the sounds for the words. Written language is the notation for speech. It's just interesting to see the different notations!
Hello Sarah, welcome back and thanks for the interesting post! We certainly miss your blogs. I play the traditional Chinese instrument Pipa and our scores look like this:
http://yuepu.huain.com/down.php?down=1&id=480&url=http://www.huain.com/musicbook/here/piparuan/
qupu_piparuan_pinghuqiuyue.gif&page=1
(The same system is used for almost all Chinese instruments.)
As you can guess, the arabic numerals replace "dots" on a 5-line score, and the horizontal lines beneath the numerals work the same way as "flags" on a 5-line score. The "1=G" on the top of the score tells you that this piece is in G Major, so a "2" represents an A, "3" represents B, etc.
I also play the piano so I read 5-line scores perfectly, and of course any numeral score can be easily translated into a 5-line score. Not for my brain, though! I've tried with little success; it is funny how the brain gets SO used to one system of music scores for a particular instrument! (Maybe it's fun to do the reverse: I should try to translate some Bach inventions into a numeral score and play it on the piano!)
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home