Visible Musics, Inc. / What is Visible Music Soundscape

VISIBLE MUSIC SOUNDSCAPES: SEEING MUSIC IN ACTION!

This innovative musical notation clarifies and facilitates each step of the way to musical literacy and better understanding for nearly everyone from beginning novice to seasoned performer. Each note of the scale is given its own color, and thus is easily recognizable by the listener-viewer in melodic progressions. Each chord, which shares a given note's name, also shares its color, and thus also is easily recognizable in harmonic progression. And each key, also identifiable by the color of its key-note, is immediately recognized by its color.

Thus a red note symbolizes G, a red building, a G-major harmony, and a platform with a red edge, the key of G major. Moreover, every rhythmic unit, whether for note, harmony or tonality, is registered precisely IN GRAPHIC TERMS as to duration and stress.

As the listener-viewer hears and sees a musical composition unfold, he witnesses spontaneously the simultaneous actions of these various elements, both by sound and sight. In the process, he or she soon learns names and character of notes, chords and keys. The meanings of these elements, only vaguely sensed before, now become clear and memorable through the agency of Visible Music SoundScapes. Not only their meanings, but also the meanings of their many inter-relationships become ever more clear and meaningful to the listener, who soon begins to see and understand those things only vaguely heard before.

Building an understanding of these elements of melody, chord, key and rhythm soon prepares the way to easy understanding of more complex musical actions, such as modulation, thematic transformation, orchestration, enharmonic processes, contrapuntal method, solfeggio and even musical form.

ViMS/Lit samples. In these, you may read articles and monographs on various musical subjects, with automatic electronic reproduction of musical examples, which you may hear, or hear and see, in automatic electronic reproduction as .avi files. Footnotes and pictorial illustrations also are automatically reproduced. Sample these experiences for yourself on our Web site, where many of these actions are explained, and shown in animated, color-coded graphics.

Visual Music SoundScenes is a representation of musical elements using colorful, three-dimensional constructs that move spontaneously in perfect synchronization with the music, thereby creating an easily comprehendible parallel between what the ear absorbs and what the eyes sees (Appendix A). To reveal musical structures, ViMS creates an architectural metaphor: a cityscape, where rooftops represent melodic notes, walls represent harmonies and the platform represents keys, or tonalities. Each of these elements is colored according to note. For instance, a violet rooftop on a green building identifies it as the note A in a D-major harmony. Or, a green rooftop on a red building represents the note D atop the harmony of G. Keys, or tonalities, are shown in the platform across which the harmonies progress, each seeking out its own color as represented by the colored planks in the platform., which is made up like a butcher’s block of these colored planks. The actual key, or tonality that is in effect is identified twice: once in the central plank of the platform, and again by the showing of its color on the leading edge of the platform. For harmonies and tonalities, a darker shade of a specific color identifies minor mode, while a lighter shade identifies major.

The Player

The intuitive, user-friendly graphical interface of the player allows the user to move 360¡ around the three-dimensional musical landscape and to zoom in and out, to view musical structures from all possible angles. The user also has the capacity to move to and play from any point in the music. In addition, other interface options include displaying text commentary, displaying a line that highlights the current note being played, high-lighting the “harmony of the moment,” changing the height of the buildings, altering the roof structures, and enabling full-screen mode at any point. The player also can toggle on or off formal names and terms and commentary which appear on special screens, as do texts and translations. The image below shows the player with the familiar opening bars of Beethoven's 5th Symphony

To output the three-dimensional representation of music, the graphical player reads a .VIM file; a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet containing a given musical selection in specially designed code. At the same time, SoundScenes plays the musical selection in .WAV format in synchronization with the graphical animation. Currently, the SoundScenes repertoire includes complete versions of Pucells’s Dido & Aeneas and his three-part and four-part fantasies, Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Art of Fugue and Favorite Chorales, Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nacht-Musik, Beethoven’s Third, Fifth and Ninth Symphonies and Brahms’ Symphony Number 4. Numerous popular music selections also are available.



		A Better Way to Learn Music VISIBLE MUSIC SOUNDSCAPES: SEEING MUSIC IN ACTION! This innovative musical notation clarifies and facilitates each step of the way to musical literacy and better understanding for nearly everyone from beginning novice to seasoned performer. Each note of the scale is given its own color, and thus is easily recognizable by the listener-viewer in melodic progressions. Each chord, which shares a given note's name, also shares its color, and thus also is easily recognizable in harmonic progression. And each key, also identifiable by the color of its key-note, is immediately recognized by its color. Thus a red note symbolizes G, a red building, a G-major harmony, and a platform with a red edge, the key of G major. Moreover, every rhythmic unit, whether for note, harmony or tonality, is registered precisely IN GRAPHIC TERMS as to duration and stress. As the listener-viewer hears and sees a musical composition unfold, he witnesses spontaneously the simultaneous actions of these various elements, both by sound and sight. In the process, he or she soon learns names and character of notes, chords and keys. The meanings of these elements, only vaguely sensed before, now become clear and memorable through the agency of Visible Music SoundScapes. Not only their meanings, but also the meanings of their many inter-relationships become ever more clear and meaningful to the listener, who soon begins to see and understand those things only vaguely heard before. Building an understanding of these elements of melody, chord, key and rhythm soon prepares the way to easy understanding of more complex musical actions, such as modulation, thematic transformation, orchestration, enharmonic processes, contrapuntal method, solfeggio and even musical form. ViMS/Lit samples. In these, you may read articles and monographs on various musical subjects, with automatic electronic reproduction of musical examples, which you may hear, or hear and see, in automatic electronic reproduction as .avi files. Footnotes and pictorial illustrations also are automatically reproduced. Sample these experiences for yourself on our Web site, where many of these actions are explained, and shown in animated, color-coded graphics. Visual Music SoundScenes is a representation of musical elements using colorful, three-dimensional constructs that move spontaneously in perfect synchronization with the music, thereby creating an easily comprehendible parallel between what the ear absorbs and what the eyes sees (Appendix A). To reveal musical structures, ViMS creates an architectural metaphor: a cityscape, where rooftops represent melodic notes, walls represent harmonies and the platform represents keys, or tonalities. Each of these elements is colored according to note. For instance, a violet rooftop on a green building identifies it as the note A in a D-major harmony. Or, a green rooftop on a red building represents the note D atop the harmony of G. Keys, or tonalities, are shown in the platform across which the harmonies progress, each seeking out its own color as represented by the colored planks in the platform., which is made up like a butcher’s block of these colored planks. The actual key, or tonality that is in effect is identified twice: once in the central plank of the platform, and again by the showing of its color on the leading edge of the platform. For harmonies and tonalities, a darker shade of a specific color identifies minor mode, while a lighter shade identifies major. The Player The intuitive, user-friendly graphical interface of the player allows the user to move 360¡ around the three-dimensional musical landscape and to zoom in and out, to view musical structures from all possible angles. The user also has the capacity to move to and play from any point in the music. In addition, other interface options include displaying text commentary, displaying a line that highlights the current note being played, high-lighting the “harmony of the moment,” changing the height of the buildings, altering the roof structures, and enabling full-screen mode at any point. The player also can toggle on or off formal names and terms and commentary which appear on special screens, as do texts and translations. The image below shows the player with the familiar opening bars of Beethoven's 5th Symphony To output the three-dimensional representation of music, the graphical player reads a .VIM file; a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet containing a given musical selection in specially designed code. At the same time, SoundScenes plays the musical selection in .WAV format in synchronization with the graphical animation. Currently, the SoundScenes repertoire includes complete versions of Pucells’s Dido & Aeneas and his three-part and four-part fantasies, Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Art of Fugue and Favorite Chorales, Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nacht-Musik, Beethoven’s Third, Fifth and Ninth Symphonies and Brahms’ Symphony Number 4. Numerous popular music selections also are available.

		Revised:

A Better Way to Learn Music

The Player